Lindsay Lohan has dialed up the intensity of her defamation lawsuit against Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games, which alleges that her likeness was used in Grand Theft Auto V. The original 10-page complaint has been replaced with a new, more thorough 67-page complaint (via The Hollywood Reporter).
Lohan’s legal team filed at a Manhattan court in early July 2014, claiming that the GTA V character Lacey Jonas, a hot mess of a starlet involved in a few side missions, is a libelous imitation of her image, from which Rockstar and Take-Two have profited without her permission. Rockstar and Take-Two responded in August, calling the lawsuit frivolous and demanding that Lohan pay their legal fees for dragging them through the mud as what they framed as a publicity stunt.
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Undeterred, Lohan has fired back with a new, more evidence-laden complaint. The additional documentation amended to the original filing focuses on the advertising materials and merchandise using her alleged simulacrum. This focuses the lawsuit to be more amenable to New York’s particular version of the publicity rights statute, which only concerns works of “advertising” and “trade.” The complaint opens with a broad claim for the “common interest among all celebrities, actors, singers, and athletes … to protect their likeness and personas from misappropriation by unscrupulous merchandisers.”
This lawsuit is the latest in a flurry of litigious image-protection from Lohan. She has also sued E-Trade over a commercial involving a “milkaholic” baby named Lindsay, and rapper Pitbull for the lyric: “So, I’m tip-toein’, to keep flowin’, I got it locked up, like Lindsay Lohan.”
