Ariana Grande is filing a lawsuit against Forever 21 for at least $10 million for allegedly hiring a model that resembles her, not long after failing to come to an endorsement deal.
Ariana Grande has had a lot on her plate these days.
She recently had to cancel meet and greets due to her anxiety and depression being at an “all time high”.
“My depression and anxiety have been at an all-time high lately. I have been giving you all I’ve got and trying to push through as hard as I can and mask it,” she wrote on Instagram.
“I feel like the wisest decision would be to not do soundcheck party or [meet-and-greet] today and preserve my energy for the show .”
And to make matters worse, she’s had to add a lawsuit into the mix.
After failing to make an endorsement deal with Ariana Grande, Forever 21 allegedly hired a look-a-like model to copy Ari’s signature style, pose, accessories — and directly copied her song lyrics into their social media campaign.
The lawsuit is demanding at least $10 million for using this alleged look-a-like model for Forever 21’s social media campaign.
According to the official complaint, Forever 21 reached out to Ariana Grande’s representatives in anticipation of the release of her album thank u, next , hoping for an endorsement deal.
Considering all of the hype surrounding Ariana’s breakup with Pete Davidson, everybody was in understanding that anything she released following that was going to be a big hit.
And by big hit I mean, make her and everyone associated with her brand quite a lot of money.
So, naturally, everybody wanted a piece of the pie.
“Notably, the endorsement deal Forever 21 sought with Ms. Grande centered around social media marketing, including, but not limited to, Twitter posts, Instagram posts, and Instagram stories,” the complaint read.
However, they never came to any official agreements.
Ariana and her representatives were inclined to presume the market value of even one Instagram post would be “well into the six figures”.
Negotiations were discussed, but the deal “never came to fruition.
Forever 21 was unable to make an offering worthy of what Ariana’s album was going to amount to.
“The amounts that Forever 21 offered to pay for the right to use Ms. Grande’s name and likeness were insufficient for an artist of her stature.”
Although a deal was never agreed upon, Forever 21 went ahead and incorporated Ariana into their campaign in a very obvious way.
I’m amazed they thought that no one would notice…?
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The complaint continues, stating that Forever 21 straight up “stole” the right to use Ariana Grande in their campaign.
“Rather than pay for that right as the law requires, Defendants simply stole it by launching a misleading campaign across its website and social media platforms.”
“The campaign capitalized on the concurrent success of Ms. Grande’s album Thank U, Next”.
“By publishing at least 30 unauthorized images and videos misappropriating Ms. Grande’s name, image, likeness, and music in order to create the false perception of her endorsement.”
The complaint adds that Forever 21 has a history of lawsuits involving knock-offs — but none quite as forthcoming as this one.
Ariana asserted that the model in the campaign’s hairstyle and accessory was “strikingly similar” to her own in the music video for 7 Rings .
Ari added that even the model’s pose was similar to one that she is known for doing.
To add insult to injury, the caption used in Forever 21’s post mimicked the official lyrics of the song 7 Rings .
Ariana is being represented by a well known entertainment attorney, Daniel Petrocelli at O’Melveny.
He claims that Forever 21’s activity “constitutes a violation of California’s right of publicity statute, false endorsement under the Lanham Act, trademark infringement and copyright infringement.”
So, in a nutshell, and in regular terminology instead of all that legal mumbo-jumbo:
Forever 21 copied Ariana Grande — in what was quite possibly the peak of her career — without her permission, and she would like to be compensated for all the money they made off of her hard work and success.
