Stevie Wonder Files Suit to Remove Longtime Occupant From Hollywood Hills Home

Stevie Wonder’s lawyers filed a civil suit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court asking a judge to remove Carmen Efferson from a three-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills, where she has lived without paying rent since 1988. According to the filing, the arrangement rested on an oral agreement between Efferson and Wonder reached that year. She is described in reporting on the case as a former fiancée.

The dispute hardened last July, when representatives for Wonder attempted three times to enter the property for an inspection connected to his insurance renewal. Efferson refused them access. Correspondence attached as exhibits shows her writing to Wonder’s attorney David Huff that she did not consent to entry and considered the requests harassment. Huff responded that the letter she objected to had been sent by his law partner, Tempestt Tatum, not by him.

A later email informed Efferson that the oral agreement had been revoked for noncompliance and served her with a move-out date of Aug. 27, 2026. That deadline passed without her leaving, prompting this week’s suit. Wonder is seeking an order of removal and $600 in damages, the amount he says he now owes because the insurance renewal lapsed. A representative for Wonder did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The claim is narrow: a landlord’s right of access, a decades-old verbal arrangement, and one unpaid insurance bill. What a court makes of an agreement never put in writing is the part that will take time.