Minnelli: 'Minder and ex-husband ganging up on me'

Troubled entertainer Liza Minnelli says her former bodyguard, who claims she forced him to have sex with her to keep his job, and her estranged husband David Gest have joined forces to attack and embarrass her publicly, according to US court papers.

A complaint filed on November 9 also says M’Hammed Soumayah, 56, breached a confidentiality agreement by giving Gest personal information about Minnelli, 58.

The complaint, posted on the Celebrity Justice website, said Soumayah and Gest, both of whom also claim Minnelli beat them, have been in contact since May or June, in person and by telephone.

The papers note that soon after Soumayah filed his $111m (€85m) lawsuit against Minnelli, Gest issued a press release supporting the bodyguard’s charges, saying he witnessed Minnelli’s assaults on Soumayah and promising to testify for him if asked.

Gest, 52, has filed his own $11m (€8.5m) lawsuit against Minnelli, saying that during the 15 months they lived together after they were married in March 2002 she repeatedly beat him so badly that he suffered nerve damage.

The papers on the website say that “the audacious act of issuing a press release, at a minimum, supports that Mr Gest and Mr Soumayah have engaged in collusion”.

Soumayah and Gest “allied themselves in order to litigate these matters in the press, for the express (and obvious) purpose of bolstering each other’s claims”, the papers say.

The complaint says neither Gest nor Soumayah had previously said in court papers that either had seen Minnelli strike the other man. In fact, the papers say, Soumayah had said he had never seen the singer-actress behave violently.

Minnelli’s papers asked for $287,000 (€221,000) for the breach of the confidentiality contract.

Soumayah’s lawyer, Harvey Mars, could not be reached for comment but in the past he has refused to comment on the litigation involving Minnelli.

Minnelli and Gest married at a star-studded ceremony that featured Michael Jackson as best man and Elizabeth Taylor as maid of honour. They separated in July 2003 and have sued each other for divorce.