When Michelle Crosby first met director Joe Carnahan in 2020 at the pool of a Palm Springs hotel, they struck up an immediate friendship. Carnahan had arrived with another woman but quickly turned his attention to Crosby, then a Manhattan-based lawyer who was in town visiting her father. They bonded over their mutual love of film and experience in Hollywood. She shared that she had been involved as a coproducer on a Janis Joplin biopic and handled licensing on the movie. Carnahan leaned in, asking her to send him the script. He said he would reciprocate with a few of his own.
A couple weeks later, Carnahan, who was scheduled to start filming Copshop around that time, invited Crosby to rendezvous at L’Horizon, another swanky resort in Palm Springs, where their friendship blossomed into romance. And by 2023, at Carnahan’s urging, she says, Crosby had given up her New York apartment and moved into the director’s Los Angeles home. They discussed starting a production company together. But their union — both personal and professional — proved to be tumultuous and short-lived. Five years after they met, their relationship has turned to court, with both sides alleging violence.
Carnahan, director of The A-Team, The Grey and The Rip, is accused of sexual battery, assault and stalking by Crosby, who says he physically attacked her several times across their four-year relationship. The allegations surfaced in a cross-complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court responding to a lawsuit filed by Carnahan, 56, over a Porsche he says he let her borrow. He claims that Crosby, 45, damaged the vehicle, which she allegedly refused to return, and is harassing him, including through instances of physical assault.
In the cross-complaint, Crosby alleges a sexual encounter at an Indian Wells hotel in 2024 “turned violent when Carnahan suddenly yanked her hair as she screamed for him to stop.” She says the director subjected her to a “pattern of physical violence,” pointing to another incident in which he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her to the floor of his Sierra Madre home, according to the suit.
“This was monstrous behavior by a Hollywood director that should not be left unchallenged,” Crosby says. “These grave matters demand accountability.”
The allegations have been considered by law enforcement, according to documents and communications reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter. A spokesperson for the Riverside County district attorney’s office confirmed it received a claim against Carnahan in July for alleged sexual battery after the sheriff’s office referred the incident to prosecutors, though charges weren’t filed due to a “lack of sufficient evidence.” An officer in Riverside County submitted a second report to the district attorney’s office last week, which the department is also declining to pursue. “Charges are filed when our prosecutors can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the spokesperson said.
Crosby also approached LAPD with allegations of stalking to Los Angeles prosecutors. They declined to charge Carnahan but have received another claim against him from Crosby.
“I have to trust in the process and the fact there is a resubmission of evidence is a testament to the strength of the evidence to repursue it,” Crosby says in an interview.
Carnahan vehemently denies accusations of assault. “This was a completely consensual relationship which ended in Spring 2024 and since then the other party has consistently threatened Joe with exactly what you’re reading now – the threat to attack Joe publicly when his film was released,” said Wendy Slavkin, a lawyer for Carnahan, in a statement. “The allegations against Joe were dismissed in July of 2025 and he has not had any contact with the defendant outside of a courtroom last May, while trying to obtain a permanent restraining order against her.”
Crosby’s suit brings claims for battery, sexual battery, assault, stalking, defamation and breach of contract over a production company Carnahan allegedly promised her they would start together, among others. She seeks unspecified damages, including at least $3 million for luxury fashion items she claims the director stole from her.
Her cross-complaint was filed in September, before the start of a press tour for Carnahan’s Ben Affleck–Matt Damon chart-topper, The Rip, which premiered to 41.6 million views in its first three days on Netflix earlier this month. A spokesperson for Carnahan claims the timing of her filing was not accidental, saying “it was specifically timed to interfere with the publicity for the movie.”
Carnahan first rose to indie fame in 1998 with Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane. From there, he worked as a gun-for-hire, writing scripts for various studios, before directing Narc. The movie played at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and caught the eye of Tom Cruise, who joined as an executive producer and secured an 800-theater wide release with an Oscar push. He later had a 15-month stint as writer-director for Mission: Impossible III during its development, though he ultimately exited the project due to creative differences after clashing with the A-lister. “You’re dealing with a big movie star,” he said on a podcast last month. “It’s their face on the poster. It’s their name on the poster. At the end of the day, that’s how things are going to get done.”
After Carnahan left the Cruise-starring vehicle, a string of gritty crime and action thrillers, including The Grey and Smokin’ Aces, followed over the next two decades, punctuated by Sony Pictures’ 2020 tentpole feature Bad Boys for Life, which he wrote.
It was around that time Carnahan started a relationship with Crosby. After meeting at the Palm Springs hotel, he continued to court her, the suit says, with the director on one occasion purchasing a plane ticket for her to stay with him for six weeks in Malta, where he was filming Not Without Hope. There, Carnahan pressed for Crosby to move to Los Angeles so they could formally start their production company, according to the cross-complaint. She finally relented later that year after he showed her a 7,000 square foot residence in Sierra Madre he said would be “our home,” the suit says. Once she relocated, Crosby says their relationship quickly changed.
Days after moving in December 2023, the suit claims, the two fought over a comment she made to his daughters. In response, Carnahan shoved her into the Christmas tree and “struck her repeatedly though a sofa cushion while pinning her beneath his nearly 300-pound frame,” the cross-complaint says.
After the incident, Carnahan called the Sierra Madre Police Department and told officers that Crosby had attacked him, according to the suit. She was arrested for domestic violence and later released under a five-day protective order that barred her from contacting Carnahan.
The pair reconciled, but in February 2024, another fight escalated into violence when Carnahan seized Crosby by the throat and slammed her to the floor, the cross-complaint claims. Days later, he obtained a temporary restraining order requiring her to move out of their home. “When she asked what is happening, he gave no reply,” the suit states. “Instead, he charged at her, tackled her to the floor in the foyer, and screamed in her face that if she did not leave, he would kill her.” After the incident, Crosby was arrested a second time after Carnahan filed a frivolous domestic violence report, according to the cross-complaint.
In the suit, Crosby says that she moved out of the Sierra Madre home she lived in with Carnahan in March. Soon after, she alleges Carnahan began to surveil and threaten her. On one occasion, the suit claims, a truck pulled up beside her, with the driver loudly speaking into his phone, “Joe, we found her, do you want us to grab her?” She started to received text messages from Carnahan showing that he knew her exact location, requiring her to receive psychiatric care for post-traumatic stress disorder, the suit says.
With limited funds remaining, Crosby in May agreed to meet Carnahan, who was engaged in talks to close his deal with Artist Equity for The Rip, at the Sands Hotel in Indian Wells, according to the cross-complaint. Once in her room, he sexually assaulted her while “pulling her hair and ignoring her screams to stop,” the suit says. In an interview with THR, she says she was “subjected to violent battery during a non-consensual sexual act, causing permanent scalp damage.”
Crosby later reported the encounter, which Carnahan said was consensual, to law enforcement in Riverside County. It’s among several reports she’s filed, including one in Sierra Madre for assault, another in Monrovia for the theft of roughly $3 million in luxury fashion items allegedly stolen by Carnahan from her storage facility and a third in Los Angeles for harassment.
Last week, Sgt. Jeffrey Cryder of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department issued a supplemental report to prosecutors. “I spoke to the DA supervisor and she will be reviewing it herself,” he wrote in an email sent to Crosby on Jan. 21. On Tuesday, a spokesperson said charges will not be filed, citing “insufficient evidence.”
In his lawsuit, Carnahan says that Crosby is harassing him and his family members. He seeks at least $33,000 for damages to his Porsche and a court order barring Crosby from initiating contact with him.
Crosby says there “remains a lapse in accountability” in Hollywood by companies that partner with people “knowing about the abuses and hoping it stays quiet.” Her lawyer, James Daly, says the allegations are “all supported by photographic evidence, communications, and other documentation.” He added, “These are not mere accusations; they describe a monstrous abuse of power by a prominent Hollywood figure now enjoying renewed success with the release of The Rip on Netflix.”
Artists Equity, which produced the cop drama, did not respond to requests for comment. Netflix, which distributed, declined to comment.
Carnahan released a full statement through his rep, below:
It’s very upsetting that Joe and his family have been subjected to an endless retaliatory campaign of baseless allegations from an individual who has twice been arrested for domestic violence — against both Joe and his children and by the person’s own mother — and the same someone who stole a car leased in Joe’s name and was involved in a DUI hit & run involving a municipal bus, causing bodily injury to others.
This was a completely consensual relationship which ended in Spring 2024 and since then the other party has consistently threatened Joe with exactly what you’re reading now – the threat to attack Joe publicly when his film was released. The allegations against Joe were dismissed in July of 2025 and he has not had any contact with the defendant outside of a courtroom last May, while trying to obtain a permanent restraining order against her.
Joe is committed to seeing this process through for the sake of his children and their safety and hopes that the other person will seek the help they need.