Actor Ashley Johnson — star of the favored net collection “Critical Role” and online game franchise “The Last of Us” — has filed a lawsuit in opposition to Brian Foster, her ex-boyfriend and former “Critical Role” castmate, alleging home violence, sexual battery, assault, stalking, gender violence, intentional infliction of emotional misery and civil rights violations.
The swimsuit was filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, with seven feminine plaintiffs — six named, together with Johnson and her sister, Haylie Langseth, and one Jane Doe — alleging misconduct by Foster over “the final decade” that was “fueled by continual abuse of medicine and alcohol.”
In the swimsuit, Johnson alleges that her relationship with Foster started in October 2012 and he moved into her dwelling quickly after. By 2015, she alleges that, “on an almost day by day foundation,” he would go into “a violent match,” which included “breaking glass, punching by glass doorways, breaking a gate, slamming doorways, and getting in Johnson’s face screaming obscenities at her reminiscent of ‘silly bitch,’ ‘fucking silly,’ ‘fucking ineffective,’ ‘ineffective bitch,’ ‘fucking bitch,’ ‘fucking cunt,’ and extra.”
She alleges that Foster’s habits escalated in 2019 on account of her work to help them financially, and that his consuming elevated after he was fired from Critical Role in 2021. After they broke up in March 2023, Johnson alleges that Foster posted a photograph to Instagram of the 2 canines they shared with the placement tag “Robert Blake Garden’s.” (Blake was acquitted for his spouse’s homicide, and later held answerable for her demise in civil court docket.) Johnson interpreted the tag as a menace.
Johnson alleges that Foster refused to maneuver out of their dwelling, and commenced carrying a duffle bag that contained “two airlift pistols modified to seem as actual weapons” in addition to a “a garrote.” She alleges that Foster threatened to launch personal details about her except she paid him $150,000. Johnson went to the police, and an emergency protecting order was filed on her behalf. Foster was faraway from Johnson’s dwelling in May.
The swimsuit additionally alleges that Foster groped Langseth, Johnson’s sister, in entrance of Johnson and Langseth’s sister’s youngsters, and that he subjected a number of different ladies, a number of of whom labored on Critical Role, to “inappropriate sexual advances” — together with “groping them with out consent” — after falsely claiming he and Johnson have been in an open relationship.
Foster labored alongside Johnson at Critical Role, the favored net collection chronicling an ongoing marketing campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. Foster additionally produced and hosted the present “Talks Machine.” (The present was the idea for the animated collection “The Legend of Vox Machine” on Amazon Prime Video, however Foster was not concerned with that manufacturing.)
A consultant for Foster didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Variety. But in an August court docket submitting, he did reply at size to a request for a restraining order in opposition to him by Johnson, which contained a number of of the identical allegations in opposition to Foster.
In that submitting, Foster says that the airguns have been for cover for his or her canines in opposition to coyotes and that the garrote was a pocket noticed for firewood for a deliberate tenting journey. He denies making an attempt to extort cash from Johnson; as a substitute, he alleged Johnson had agreed to pay him $25,000 “to get again on my toes” and required him to signal an settlement requiring him to not speak about their relationship. He says he informed Johnson that “I had no concept what me signing an NDA to erase 10 years of my life was value; was it $0 or $150,000. … I didn’t inform her that except she paid me $150,000, I’d speak about our personal lives.”
Foster doesn’t deny together with the Robert Blake tag in his Instagram put up; he says it was made “in jest” after the placement got here up after he took a photograph of the canines of their yard, “so I believed it was humorous.”
He says “a lot of the profanities that I’m alleged to have yelled at Ashley by no means occurred,” and that he has “no recollection in any respect” of allegedly groping Johnson’s sister: “No one has even introduced this as much as me. I do know that if this occurred, I’d have been the primary to apologize and attempt to make amends.” Later in the identical submitting, Foster says definitively he “didn’t grope Hayleigh.” He says he has been sober for 2 and a half years.
Foster’s submitting doesn’t point out the allegations in opposition to him within the October lawsuit concerning undesirable advances to and groping of different ladies.
Johnson’s request for a restraining order was denied.
In an announcement to Variety, a consultant for Critical Role says the corporate had “no data of any of [Foster’s] alleged habits.”
“It is heartbreaking to us that a few of our colleagues went by this, and we’re dedicated to supporting them nonetheless we will,” the assertion continues. “We are working with our HR crew and our workers instantly to make sure our office and tradition stay as much as all of our expectations.”
Gene Maddaus and Angelique Jackson contributed to this report.
