Key Takeaways
- Stevie Wonder is seeking to evict former fiancée Carmen Efferson from the California home she has occupied rent-free since 1988, arguing he can revoke her permission to stay.
- Efferson calls Wonder a “gaslighter and manipulator” and says he verbally promised her ownership of the house during their engagement.
- Wonder’s lawsuit alleges Efferson blocked an insurance inspection, triggering cancellation of the property’s coverage, and asks a judge to order her out and award damages and legal costs.
Carmen Efferson is firing back at Stevie Wonder as he tries to remove her from the California house she has occupied rent-free since 1988. The singer’s former fiancée accused him of being a “gaslighter and manipulator” and argued that he had promised her the property decades before their dispute landed in court.
“He’s going to paint this like I am the one who is lying, and there is no talking to this fool,” Efferson said, according to E! News. “I’m so sick of someone like him always getting away with this sh*t.”
The outlet said it contacted Wonder’s legal team for a response but had not received one at the time of publication.
At the center of the fight is a verbal agreement made while Wonder and Efferson were engaged in the late 1980s. Court documents acknowledge that she began living at the property in July 1988 without a written lease or monthly rent.
Efferson now says the arrangement went further than simply allowing her to stay there. “I didn’t even want the house at first—but he kept insisting,” she said. “I’ve never been a materialistic person, and I never asked for a house. But we came to an agreement, a verbal one, that this would be my house.”
Wonder’s lawsuit presents the arrangement differently. His attorneys describe Efferson’s occupancy as an “at-will license” he could terminate. According to the complaint, his team notified her in July that an insurance representative needed to enter the property “for purposes of updating and retaining property insurance on the Premises.”
Efferson refused, warning in a written response that she would call law enforcement if Wonder’s representatives attempted to enter.
The filing claims that her refusal caused the property’s insurance policy to be canceled, leaving Wonder “at substantial risk of economic loss.” His legal team subsequently gave Efferson 30 days to leave, with an earlier report placing her deadline at Aug. 27.
“Owner hereby terminates your at-will license and any right you may have or claim to have to remain on the property,” the notice stated. It also warned that remaining after the deadline could be treated as trespassing.
The legal correspondence had already turned ugly before Wonder filed the complaint on Oct. 22. As previously reported, Efferson accused one of his attorneys of using a “racist cold-blooded ‘white male privilege’” tone and demanded that the lawyer stop contacting her.
Attorney David Huff responded that the lawyer who originally contacted her was neither white nor male, then reiterated that blocking the inspection could lead to eviction.
Wonder, 76, is asking a judge to order Efferson out and award him damages and legal costs.
