Former Assistant For Tracee Ellis Ross Drops $300k Lawsuit Over Unpaid Wages

A former assistant of actress Tracee Ellis Ross has dropped a $300,000 lawsuit against the former Black-ish star after claiming Ross failed to pay her the proper overtime wages.

Finurah reported that Samantha Wilkins accused Ross of forcing her to work substantial overtime and not paying her in a suit she filed in August. According to Wilkins’ lawyer, the actress owed “approximately $300,000.00 in wages and penalties.”

However, Wilkins has reversed course, dropping the suit against the actress, telling the court she is dropping all claims against Ross and her company, Joy Mill Entertainment. According to reports, Wilkins worked for the Black-ish actress from November 2019 through July 2021.

A month into the position, Ross classified Wilkins as an exempt employee, paying her a $70,000 salary. In early 2020, Ross gave Wilkins a raise, increasing her salary to $100,000. However, Wilkins said she was still classified as a non-exempt employee, which qualified her for overtime.

According to Wilkins, Ross had her regularly work more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week, adding that the actress denied her meal and rest breaks violating state labor laws.

The suit claimed by November 2020 Ross and Joy Mill Entertainment corrected her employment status and began paying her an hourly wage, “Therefore, from December 19, 2019, to November 24, 2020, defendants misclassified Wilkins’ employment and treated her as a non-exempt employee,” the lawsuit states.

Ross is most notably known for playing lead roles in two long-running Black sitcoms. The daughter of Diana Ross was also on MTV’s Lyricist Lounge show in the late 1990s. Ross played Joan Clayton, a single lawyer living in L.A. on the UPN hit Girlfriends, which ran for eight seasons from 2000 through 2008.

In 2014, the actress starred opposite comedian Anthony Anderson on Black-ish where she played Rainbow, an anesthesiologist married to Anderson’s character. The show was an instant hit on ABC, running for eight seasons before the show’s finale in April. The show has also sparked two spin-offs, Grown-ish and Mixed-ish.