A Kate Upton ‘GTA 5’ Lawsuit Has A Better Chance Than Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan’s GTA 5 lawsuit against Take-Two Interactive may be going full steam ahead, but if you consider the evidence you would think super model Kate Upton might have more right to complain based upon the similarity between Upton and Grand Theft Auto 5’s beach girl.
In a related report by The Inquisitr, GTA 5 developer Rockstar claims that Lindsay Lohan is essentially suing them for publicity.
“Lindsay Lohan complains that her image and persona have been wrongfully used by Take-Two in the video game Grand Theft Auto V, but her claim is so legally meritless that it lacks any good-faith basis, and can only have been filed for publicity purposes.”
The main reason Lohan insists that her image was used by Rockstar in GTA 5 is due to the character Lacey Jonas. The alleged Lohan doppelganger is shown avoiding the paparazzi, and there’s even another scene which takes place in a location very similar to where the real Lindsay Lohan was known to live. One final potential reference somewhat mirrors Lohan’s scene with Charlie Sheen at the beginning of Scary Movie 5.
Of course, the main issue is the GTA 5 beach girl artwork, which Lohan claims highly resembles a photo taken back in 2007.
“The portraits of the Plaintiff (Lohan) incorporated her image, likeness, clothing, outfits, Plaintiff’s clothing line products, ensemble in the form of hats, hair style, sunglasses, jean shorts worn by the Plaintiff that were for sale to the public at least two years [before the game was released].”
This past week, Lohan’s lawyers turned in 45 pages of evidence, with the primary claim being that Rockstar “used a look-a-like model to evoke the persona and image” of Lohan based upon this image.
The real life GTA 5 beach girl is actually named Shelby Welinder, and when she proved that she was the model behind the art, she wasn’t exactly thrilled to be compared to other possibilities.
“It’s nice to see all these people referring to me as a porn star and a slut. Quite entertaining to say the least. I worked for Rockstar and signed a release that said I’d be listed in the game credits.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, lawyers also note that “The Plaintiff has been using the peace sign hand gesture for years before and after its use in the video game.” They even tried dragging other celebrities into the lawsuit by suggesting there is a “common interest among all celebrities, actors, singers, and athletes … to protect their likeness and personas from misappropriation by unscrupulous merchandisers.” The idea is not completely without merit since GTA 5 does include a number of celebrity doppelgangers, including Kanye West and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, but none of them have expressed any interest in suing despite the GTA 5 lookalikes being well-known.
Even though we know who the real model is behind the beach girl art, at one point it was insisted that Kate Upton’s GTA 5 resemblance was almost a certainty based upon the pose and expression of Upton in a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
One intrepid Reddit user even went so far as to create a video to prove the remarkable resemblance.
Kate Upton is not attempting to sue Take-Two Interactive even though the uncanny resemblance has been known about for months. As for the actual court case, Lindsay Lohan’s lawsuit would have to prove in court she suffered from actual damages from the scenes depicting an alleged satire of her actual life. Since comedians like Jon Stewart’s Daily Show are allowed to skewer Lohan’s real life on a whim, it seems likely the lawyers for Lohan will have quite a job proving their case.
