L.A. chef denies wife’s claims that he assaulted her, killed family cats
A chef of popular Los Angeles restaurant Horses accused her husband and business partner of killing the family’s cats in a divorce filing in which she also asked for a domestic violence restraining order.
Elizabeth Johnson filed the request for the order in November 2022 to keep Will Aghajanian away from her out of fear that he might hurt her or someone else. She alleged he physically assaulted her on numerous occasions and killed the family’s cats.
Aghajanian strongly denied her claims in his own court filings, calling them “false allegations.”
Johnson said that “Will and I have had cats that mysteriously ended up dying, including one in 2017 who I took to a shelter when she became seriously wounded overnight. The shelter told me she had been seriously abused, but Will denied it,” Johnson wrote.
“I believed him. Then, last month, we were given another kitten.”
She claims that Aghajanian joked about feeding the kitten to coyotes and said he didn’t like the cat, according to the filing. Eventually, she alleges she witnessed him hurting their cat, she wrote in the filing.
“I caught Will violently shaking the cat late at night, and he died the next day,” she wrote. “Will put the dead cat in the trash and insisted on keeping the corpse in the house.”
Johnson claimed that Aghajanian’s mental and psychological abuse kept her from realizing sooner what he was doing to the animals.
The chef alleged physical abuse at the hands of Aghajanian. In 2019, she said, Aghajanian dragged her by the legs across the floor while she screamed and attempted to resist, according to her filing.
Each chef at Horses in Hollywood has a role in the collective good, forming a kind of informal system of checks and balances.
The star chef responded to the claims on Wednesday. He said Johnson was “trying to take my businesses away from me through divorce” and making up false narratives.
“I love cats, mice. And every other animal under gods/allah whatever each religion calls him/her and have loved all animals since I was a child,” Aghajanian wrote in a direct message to a reporter. “I have problems killing lobster, and usually try to do it in the most humane way possible.”
A buzzy restaurant
The Hollywood restaurant opened in October 2021 to fanfare, garnering national praise for its stylish clientele, its inventive approach to stalwart, modern-American classics. It featured a co-chef kitchen system that purported equal say each night to at least four chefs who were in charge of the menu. On Eater LA, Horses remained on the site’s “heatmap” of “hottest new restaurants” for months.
The Los Angeles Times called it “a new modern L.A. institution” and “the city’s most exhilarating new dining experience in the last year.”
In August the restaurant found itself at the center of another controversy: When opening Horses, the restaurant’s owners had enlisted former Spotted Pig restaurateur Ken Friedman of New York to help acquire their lease, according to a report. In 2017 Friedman was accused by employees at Spotted Pig of sexual harassment and retaliation, in one of the earliest bombshell cases of alleged abuse within the restaurant industry.
Horses ownership said that Friedman was never a partner in the Los Angeles restaurant, and in a series of operating documents reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, including Horses’ lease, Friedman was not listed as an owner or operator.
“Ken Friedman has never or will ever receive compensation, or benefits of any kind, from the businesses that we are a part of,” Johnson told the Times in a statement at the time. “He is not a partner, a silent partner, an investor, a consultant, nor someone I would consider a friend..”
In their divorce case, a judge approved the domestic violence restraining order against Aghajanian in December and reissued it on May 1, according to court documents. In one of her filings, Johnson also requested that Aghajanian remain 100 yards away from their dogs, Pancho, Javi and Spud.
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Both of them were allowed in Horses after the first restraining order went into effect, but Aghajanian was required to stay 10 feet away from Johnson, according to Johnson’s filing.
Johnson wrote in a court declaration that when Aghajanian showed up in November, the entire staff of the restaurant staged a walk out.
In his own filing for a restraining order, Aghajanian requested custody back of the dogs Pancho and Javi, saying that Johnson “misled the Court into making orders against me.”
Aghajanian claimed that he was the victim in the marriage. He claimed that Johnson threatened to kill him repeatedly and burned him at least twice with a metal spatula and a spoon she had first placed into a fryer, according to court filings.
Aghajanian also said in the filings that it was Johnson who abused their animals. “She falsely accuses me of things that she has done or that she threatened to do to me and my pets,” he wrote. “My pets are like children to me and I love them dearly.”
“I am fearful of [Johnson] since I am the victim of [her] long-term abuse that has occurred throughout our relationship,” he wrote.
This story has been updated.
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