Last year, TikToker Asheba (@sheba_baby) was sued by her best friend’s husband for $15,000 for defamation of character. Here’s what happened. So, they have been best friends for 20 years.
At the end of 2024, her best friend went to jail. She was there for four or five months. The case against her was bad, and she was looking at 20 years in prison.
One night, she asked Asheba to share her story on the internet. Asheba’s elders warned her not to get involved, but she thought that if the roles were reversed, she would want someone to help her out.
She wrote up the story and made a GoFundMe account, asking for $15,000 in donations to get her best friend a good criminal defense attorney because all she had was a public defender.
She started off by saying that her best friend was a wonderful mother, person, and entrepreneur. Three years ago, her husband uprooted her from a foundation she had built in New Jersey and moved them to Georgia, where she knew no one.
Next, she talked about how he hadn’t been able to hold down a job for over 10 years. Her best friend has paid for him to go back to school and complete multiple degrees.
She spent her twenties taking care of his two kids from a previous relationship and his dying mother.
Then, she wrote about the physical, mental, and emotional abuse her husband had put her through. When she found out he was cheating on her, he kicked her in the stomach, called her names, and kicked her again.
“So, I did all that; I posted on all my socials and didn’t think anything about it,” she said. “Just prayed that hopefully some good people would help.”
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At the beginning of 2025, Asheba received a cease and desist text message from her best friend’s husband. She deleted the message and blocked him.
Three weeks later, she received court documents in the mail stating that she was being sued for defamation of character for $15,000. Her heart dropped when she read the papers.
He was living in Georgia, while Asheba was in New Jersey, which meant he had to travel all the way to New Jersey to file these papers.
She claims she did not commit defamation of character. All she did was speak about what her best friend had told her throughout the years, and everything that had been going on lately.
Asheba had to go down to the courthouse and state her claims and reasons for why she said what she said. Then, she waited two or three months for the trial.
She started to worry that her best friend’s husband would win the lawsuit, and then she would somehow have to cough up $15,000.
At the time, she did not have a job and was financially supporting her best friend in jail. She was stressed and annoyed to find herself in such a precarious position after just trying to help someone out.
During the trial, her best friend’s husband tried to feed the judge a bunch of lies. He claimed that everything Asheba had written in her story was defamatory. He also dodged many of the questions the judge asked him.
Apparently, the parts of the story that made him upset enough to sue were when Asheba mentioned that he couldn’t hold down a job and brought up his dying mom.
He corrected her, saying that he had a job driving for Uber and that it was disrespectful of her to mention his mom.
“At the end of the day, the judge found me credible and found him not to be credible, and the case was dismissed and sent him packing,” said Asheba.
She waited in the room while he was being escorted out because she did not want to be anywhere near him. She had a security guard walk her back to her car. Now, she’s glad the legal battle is over.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
