These days, it seems that people will sue each other over practically anything. Here are a few real-life examples of unusual legal battles involving celebrities.
THE PLAINTIFF: Singer/composer Tom Waits
THE DEFENDANT: Frito-Lay
THE LAWSUIT: In 1988 Frito-Lay ran radio commercials featuring a singer with a raspy, gravelly voice that sounded amazingly like Waits. He had already been approached to do commercials by the same ad agency…and refused. So they used an impersonator. Waits sued for “voice misappropriation,” claiming the idea that he would use his music to sell Doritos sullied his reputation with his fans. THE VERDICT: Waits won. In 1992 he collected $2.4 million, the first-ever punitive award involving a celebrity soundalike.
THE PLAINTIFF: John Hartman, former Doobie Brother
THE DEFENDANT: Petaluma, California, Police Department
THE LAWSUIT: He left the band to join the force, then left the force to rejoin the band. When he wanted to get back on the force in 1994, the former drummer was turned down. So he sued for discrimination, claiming that he should be classified as disabled because he’d done so many drugs in the early 1970s.
THE VERDICT: He lost. The judge ruled that Hartman hadn’t done enough drugs to qualify as disabled.
THE PLAINTIFFS: James and Laurie Ryan
THE DEFENDANTS: MTV, Las Vegas’s Hard Rock Hotel, and actor Ashton Kutcher
THE LAWSUIT: Mr. and Mrs. Ryan walked into their room at the Hard Rock Hotel and discovered a mutilated corpse in the bathroom. Horrified, they tried to flee, but two “security guards” and a “paramedic” forced them back into the room. After some time, Kutcher came in and told them the whole thing was a joke, a prank staged for the MTV series Harassment. The Ryans didn’t think it was funny and sued for $10 million in damages.
THE VERDICT: Pending.
Why is the first vertebra of your neck called the atlas? Because it holds up your head.
THE PLAINTIFF: Hollywood producer Steve Bing
THE DEFENDANT: Movie-studio mogul Kirk Kerkorian
THE LAWSUIT: Kerkorian’s ex-wife, Lisa Bonder, sued for $320,000 a month in child support for their four-year-old daughter. Billionaire Kerkorian claimed he couldn’t possibly be the father—he was sterile. He also said he had proof that the real father was Bonder’s ex-boyfriend, multimillionaire Bing. How did he know? His private detectives had collected DNA evidence—they went through Bing’s garbage and found some used dental floss. Probability that Bing’s the dad: 99.993%. Bing sued for invasion of privacy, asking a staggering $1 billion in damages.
THE VERDICT: They settled quietly and the suit was dropped.
THE PLAINTIFF: Florence Henderson
THE DEFENDANT: Serial Killer Inc.
THE LAWSUIT: Henderson, the actress who played Carol Brady on the TV show The Brady Bunch, sued clothing maker Serial Killer Inc. in 1999 when they put out a T-shirt that showed her picture with the caption “Porn Queen.” The suit called the caption “highly offensive…and false.”
THE VERDICT: Serial Killer pulled all the offending merchandise out of stores the day after the suit was filed. No word on the outcome of the suit.
THE PLAINTIFFS: Anna Kournikova, Judith Soltesz-Benetton
THE DEFENDANT: Penthouse magazine
THE LAWSUIT: Penthouse published photos it claimed were of the famous Russian tennis player bathing topless. Kournikova denied it was her and threatened to sue. But the magazine’s editors said they had studied the photos in “painstaking detail” and refused to back down. It seemed Penthouse might win until Soltesz-Benetton (of the Benetton clothing family) came forward and said she was the woman in the photos…and then filed a $10 million lawsuit.
THE VERDICT: Penthouse settled with Soltesz-Benetton out of court. But that’s not the end: Kournikova’s suing, too. Will that put the struggling magazine out of business for good? Verdict pending.
Remember him? Time magazine’s Man of the Decade for the 1980s was Mikhail Gorbachev.