The stripper portrayed by Jennifer Lopez in new move Hustlers is threatening to sue the production company over the flagrant violation of her rights.
Samantha Barbash has claimed she did not give permission for the film to be made about her life, and she is now demanding a deal within the next 10 days or she will file a lawsuit.
Barbash was the mastermind before a group of strippers who drugged their clients and then stole their credit cards at the height of the Wall St crash in 2008; Barbash pleaded guilty in 2017 and was sentenced to five years of probation.
She told her story to New York magazine in 2005 and it is this article that STX have based their film off.
An STX spokesperson said in response to the lawsuit: We will defend our right to tell factually based stories based on the public record and look forward to resolving this matter before a judge.
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STX have cause to not be concerned; in 2017 a three-judge panel voted in favour of the First Amendment right to make a fictional film portraying real events when FX were sued by Olivia de Havilland over their depiction of her life in Feud.
Books, films, plays and television shows often portray real people, the court held in that case.
Whether a person portrayed in one of these expressive works is a world-renowned film star — “a living legend” — or a person no one knows, she or he does not own history.
Nor does she or he have the legal right to control, dictate, approve, disapprove, or veto the creators portrayal of actual people.
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The lawsuit comes after Barbash alleged Lopez never contacted her to find out more details about the person she would be playing on-screen and accused the producers of offering her peanuts for the rights to her life.
Lorraine, the producer, hit up my lawyer but it was a joke and I dont want to embarrass them with what they thought… lets put it this way, I have Hermes bags that are worth more, Barbush told TMZ.Read More – Source
