Ariana Grande Sues Forever 21 For $10M
There is a whole lot of money to be made in celebrity beauty products. These days, for instance, Rihanna presumably makes a whole lot more from her Fenty Beauty line than she does from music royalties. And Ariana Grande is not about to sit here and let a mall retailer use fake Ariana Grandes to sell their makeup.
Reuters reports that Ariana Grande has filed a $10 million trademark-infringement lawsuit against Forever 21 in Los Angeles federal court. Grande claims that the company used her name and likeness to sell products like a makeup company that Forever 21’s founders’ daughters started. Linda and Esther Chang, daughters of Forever 21 founders Jin Sook and Do Won Chang, recently started up the beauty brand Riley Rose, and Grande says that she had talks with Riley Rose about putting together a joint marketing campaign. But those talks, Grande says, ended in February, since Riley Rose wasn’t offering enough money.
Grande also claims that Forever 21 used her image anyway, hiring models who look like her and using audio and lyrics from her single “7 Rings” in an attempt to convince customers that Grande had endorsed the company.
In other news, CNN recently reported that Forever 21 plans to file for bankruptcy, so Grande had better hope that the lawsuit goes through quickly.