In non-wedding planning or ass-shaping Kim Kardashian news, it is being reported that Kim is threatening Old Navy with a $20 million lawsuit for intentionally having someone who looks like her in one of their ads. TMZ broke the story and wrote Kim was upset because she believed the clothing company was attempting to profit off of her name and her brand by suggesting that she’s affiliated with the company. You can see the actress (and the commercial she stars in) below.
Does this chick look like Kim Kardashian? Yes. Is putting someone who looks like Kim Kardashian in your commercial illegal? No. If Kim really decides that she wants to go through with this lawsuit, then she’s going to have to prove that during the casting process for this commercial, a conversation took place between producers where they all agreed that their company would profit from using an actress who looks like Kim Kardashian because it would almost be like they were conveying to viewers that Kim is a supporter of Old Navy (in other words, they’d be capitalizing on Kim’s brand and her massive following). From an outsider’s point of view, that seems like it would be very hard to do. However, it turns out that these kinds of lawsuits aren’t uncommon: in fact, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis went to court to prevent Christian Dior from running someone who looked like her in one of their print ads. Bette Midler even sued Ford Motors for having a Bette Midler “sound-alike” singer perform Do You Want To Dance for one of their commercials. And while the court acknowledged that what Ford Motors did was considered theft in the “if we can’t buy it, we’ll take it” way, the court didn’t have any legal grounds to prevent the motor company from putting someone who sounded like Bette Midler in their commercial. When Midler appealed the decision though, she won because her lawyer proved that her voice was an attribute of her personality (which, at times, can be “more distinctive and more personal than sometimes visual accessories”), and then it became clear that hiring another singer because she sounded like Bette Midler constituted identity theft.
And so again, if Kim really wants to go through with this, she’s going to have to prove that Old Navy decided to capitalize on her identity by hiring someone who looks like her to sell their products without her consent. I think we all just kind of assumed she had better things to do.
Sources: THR, TMZ, Personality Rights Dabase
