Featured Image Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
Topics: Adult Industry, California, Court, Emily Willis, Health, Los Angeles, US News, Mental Health
Ella Scott
Topics: Adult Industry, California, Court, Emily Willis, Health, Los Angeles, US News, Mental Health
The hearing date has been set for the suit filed by Emily Willis’ family against a Malibu rehabilitation center, and it's set to take place this year.
Emily Willis, 26, whose real name is Litzy Lara Banuelos, is a former adult film star who is thought to have begun her career in 2017.
After her first scenes were released in 2018, Willis went on to appear in over 700 films before retiring from the industry in 2022 in the hopes of pursuing other opportunities.
In January 2024 - a year after appearing in the music video for Slipknot’s Grammy Award-nominated single ‘Hive Mind’ - the model was admitted to a medical facility at Summit Malibu for ketamine addiction treatment.
Willis' mother Yesenia Lara Cooper has since however launched legal action against the organisation, claiming Summit staff ignored Willis’ decline in health.
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Cooper claimed that before her daughter entered cardiac arrest, leading her to her becoming ‘permanently disabled’, she was exhibiting signs of disorientation, was in severe pain, and was also suffering from chills and tremors.
Despite emergency services being called to the Californian institution on February 3, 2024, Willis was reportedly not taken to hospital for further treatment and was ‘found unconscious’ a day later.
Most recently, the hearing has finally been set for 23 September 2025 in Department M at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, located at 1725 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401, as per docket entries submitted to legal tech platform UniCourt.
If you or anyone you know would like to support the adult star in her incredibly challenging road ahead, you can donate to her GoFundMe fundraiser.
At the time of writing, there has been $116,794 raised by almost 2,000 donors.
The ex-adult film star’s family accused Summit Malibu and its parent company, Malibu Lighthouse Treatment Centers, LLC, of 'abuse of a dependent adult, professional negligence, negligence and fraudulent business practices' at the end of 2023.
Cooper claimed her daughter was still currently largely paralyzed after suffering ‘irreversible brain damage’ due to being without oxygen for a long time.
The woman now reportedly suffers from a rare neurological disease called ‘locked in syndrome'; unable to move her body properly or form sentences, Willis is only able to communicate using her eyes.
On June 18, the claim, originally lodged with the Los Angeles Superior Court, moved to court.
Malibu Lighthouse Treatment Centers challenged the legal complaint, with Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Mark A. Young ruling Cooper must add more detailed facts to her elder/dependent-abuse claim against Summit Malibu.
“Plaintiffs must allege additional facts to establish that defendants’ care rose to the level of recklessness,” Young wrote.
Moreover, the case’s tentative ruling added that the complaint’s allegations failed to ‘establish any specific facts showing Defendants' responsibility for meeting the basic needs of Banuelos’, and that it included facts that ‘simply do not show her dependency or a custodial relationship’ with the institution.
Willis’ family were given 30 days to file the revised complaint and to add in the missing details to explain how their daughter qualified as a dependent and what duties Summit took on, so the case could proceed.
The plaintiff’s failure to do this could have resulted in the case being dismissed; with the hearing date now set, this did not turn out to be the case, though.