At 85, the Motown legend Smokey Robinson was on something of a celebratory tour. With a new album to promote, he shared the stage with Bruce Springsteen last month, performed last week on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and was in the midst of playing a series of live dates in the United States and the United Kingdom.
“I feel wonderful,” he told Entertainment Tonight in a recent interview. “I pray every night before we go on that we can be entertaining and uplifting to the people who are there.”
But on Tuesday, Mr. Robinson’s victory lap was upended when four women who had worked as housekeepers for him filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault, claiming in the suit that he abused them dozens of times over many years.
The suit, filed in Los Angeles, identifies the women only as Jane Does 1 through 4. They each accuse Mr. Robinson of raping them repeatedly while they were employed cleaning his home in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, as well as in his other homes in Ventura County, Calif., and Las Vegas.
Three of the women said they feared reporting Mr. Robinson to the authorities because of their immigration status, according to the lawsuit, which also accuses Mr. Robinson and his wife of false imprisonment, creating a hostile work environment and failure to pay minimum wage.
Late Wednesday night, in a statement to The New York Times, a lawyer for Mr. Robinson called the lawsuit “an ugly method of trying to extract money from an 85-year-old American icon.” The lawyer, Christopher Frost, called the accusations in the lawsuit “false” and “vile.”
The lawsuit goes into graphic detail about the abuse claims.
Court papers say that Mr. Robinson would drop off his wife at the nail salon and rush home to assault one woman while she was alone. A second woman, the suit says, had worked for the Robinsons from 2014 to 2020 and had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Robinson at least 23 times during that period. The suit says that a third woman who worked for the Robinsons from 2012 to 2024 reported being sexually assaulted by Mr. Robinson at least 20 times. A fourth woman says in the suit that she worked for the couple from 2006 until April 2024 and had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Robinson at several of his homes.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, who did not immediately provide additional details about the case on Wednesday, have not said whether their clients intended to pursue criminal charges. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department, which covers the area where the lawsuit said that incidents had occurred, said the department was not investigating the allegations because they were part of a civil matter. Law enforcement agencies in other municipalities where, according to the lawsuit, crimes occurred, said they had no record of reports of assaults.
Mr. Frost said that he and his legal team would soon ask a judge to dismiss the lawsuit and “will have more to say on this matter.”
“We ask anyone following this case to reserve judgment as the evidence comes to light and all the actual facts of the case unfold,” Mr. Frost said in the statement.
Public records show that Mr. Robinson has been a defendant in a handful of civil lawsuits over the years, for disputes that include breach of contract, copyright issues and royalty payments.
Mr. Robinson was Motown royalty, writing and performing some of the most beloved hits in the catalog with the Miracles. He wrote (solo and with others) classic songs including “Shop Around,” “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” “The Tracks of My Tears,” “Going to a Go-Go,” “I Second That Emotion” and “The Tears of a Clown.” He also wrote or co-wrote many hits for other artists, including “My Girl,” for the Temptations, and “My Guy,” for Mary Wells.
Even as he has became an octogenarian, Mr. Robinson — who has been honored over the years by the Recording Academy, the Kennedy Center and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, among many others — has been prolific. He released a studio album in 2023 called “Gasms” that was filled with sensual tracks, an effort that drew renewed attention from some fans on social media on Wednesday.
“‘Gasm’ is any good feeling you might have,” he told Mr. Kimmel.
Now, Mr. Robinson, who is credited with more than 4,000 songs, is out with a new album titled “What the World Needs Now” and taking part in a media blitz to promote it.
He is scheduled to play a show on Friday in Biloxi, Miss., at a 1,600-seat casino theater. Representatives for the concert venue did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment.
Asked about the new album’s title in the interview with Entertainment Tonight, Mr. Robinson said: “It’s so timely, man. What the world needs now is love.”
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
