There is another update to the allegations within the Mumbai cruise drugs seizure against Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). In the latest edition, there is an extortion angle. The conspiracy suggests a payoff deal in the case and accused agency officials, including zonal director Sameer Wankhede, of extorting money from the actor. These allegations are raised by an NCB witness and are being refuted strongly by the NBC.

The witness in question is the man from the well-circulated selfie from when Aryan Khan was first detained. More recently, The Times of India has been able to secure images of the man in question, Gosavi, along with Wankhede and a BJP leader around the initial stages of the case.

As the case for extortion seems to become stronger, let us have a look at 5 other celebrities you will not believe were victims of blackmail.

Ye

Formerly known as Kanye West, he has had his fair share of rough patches with family. Add to that a cousin who tried to extort some money at the expense of his musical career and you have the life of Ye. When his seventh studio album The Life of Pablo dropped in 2016, fans were left wondering if the last line in the song “Real Friends” was based on something that went down in real life. West rapped: “I had a cousin that stole my laptop that I was f–cking b-tches on / Paid that n—a 250 thousand just to get it from him.”

Turns out, it was, in fact, true. The unnamed cousin reportedly came into possession of a laptop that had been gifted to another family member by West. The rapper didn’t realize is that there was footage of him “in clear view having sex with a fair-skinned Black woman” on said laptop, as Lawrence Franklin, another cousin of the musician’s explained to the Daily Mail. “Him and his attorney went after Kanye, and to show that they meant business they leaked a little information publicly to let it be known they indeed had the footage.” West being extorted by a family member is what “started his decline,” believes Franklin. “He stopped trusting people.”

Jennifer Lopez

JLo has proved, time and again, that she is a force to reckon with when it comes to the show biz. A woman as glamourous as herself would need a team to drive and escort her around and safely, a team she could trust. However, her former drive, Hakob Manoukian, could not be a part of that team. In 2012, Lopez’s team filed a lawsuit against Manoukian, accusing him of threatening to “disclose sensitive and personal information that he allegedly heard while driving Lopez,” as per CNN. Further allegations suggest that the driver “became hostile and angry because he mistakenly and unreasonably believed he had the unqualified right to designate the security team” for one of the singer’s music videos.

Manoukian sued for breach of contract as  J-Lo’s team slapped him with an extortion countersuit. According to her lawyers, Manoukian demanded a sum of $2.8 million to bury the sensitive info had supposedly acquired in his tenure working for Lopez. An out-of-court settlement, finally, concluded the matter.

This is not her only rendezvous with extortion; her former husband, Ojani Noa, had also threatened to release 11 hours of intimate tapes of the two together.

Kevin Hart

Hart is another who braved the threats of intimate videos of himself leaking. But that is not all. He, in the clip, was cheating on his pregnant wife. “I made a bad error in judgement and I put myself in a bad environment where only bad things can happen and they did,” said the comedian in a 2017 Instagram video referring to the entire ordeal.

Hart’s long-time friend, Jonathan Jackson was charged with attempted extortion and extortion by threatening letter after threatening to release a video he secretly recorded of Hart having sex with a woman in Las Vegas, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement, leaving the comedian “hurt,” and “lost for words,” amongst other things.

Cameron Diaz

Diaz has now moved away from acting and is seeming happier than ever. This harrowing incident and ones like this make the decision clearer. Back in 2003, photographer John Rutter tried to make himself a pay-day by selling some topless photos he’d taken of Cameron Diaz when she was a 19-year-old aspiring model.

He had expressed an idea to sell them as Charlie’s Angels sequel came out, portraying her as the “bad angel” unless she paid out $3.3 million.

Diaz took him to court and Rutter quickly changed his story, claiming that he’d merely offered her first-refusal. Rutter’s lawyer called the case, “an epic battle between a rich and famous celebrity and a hard-working photographer.”

The judge, however, didn’t buy it and Rutter was charged with attempted grand theft, forgery of a release form, and perjury. He was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison and has been forbidden from ever publishing the photos.

Oprah Winfrey

An absolute powerhouse that Oprah is, she isn’t immune to the dark side of her profession, either.

Back in 2006, a man named Keifer Bonvillain attempted to extort Winfrey claiming that he had recordings of shady happenings that were going on behind the scenes at Winfrey’s production company.

Two years later, Bonvillain emailed Oprah, saying, “there are a lot of people who would want these.” He also claimed offers of between $500,000 and $3 million from tabloids and book publishers.

Bonvillain was, however, willing to lose the tapes for $1.5 million from Oprah.

Working with the FBI, Oprah wired Bonvillain $3000 in “earnest money” and agreed to meet him in a parking lot the following day. When agents arrested him at the rendezvous point, he claimed “it was a big mix-up.”

Also Read; NCB Compares Aryan Khan’s Drug Case To Sherlock Holmes