Fox Settles ‘American Horror Story’ Legal Battle Over ‘Zombie Boy’ Tattoo

Zombie Boy otherwise known as model Rick Genest, who appeared in Lady Gaga’s Born This Way music video filed claims with Fox stating that his copyrighted body art was stolen and replicated for the FX hit show American Horror Story. Now it looks like the model may be receiving at least some relief as lawyers from Twentieth Century Fox Television have settled the copyright fight.

Rick Genest, is known for his body art and has appeared in the media for it so much that he copyrighted his art. It is said that Genest was not pleased in hearing that actor Evan Peters wears a similar tatt’d image of the skeletal design during some flashback sequences on the Emmy winning show American Horror Story. The flashback scenes were detrimental to the character’s arc and eventually revealed (SPOILER ALERT) that the character went on a killing rampage in his high school and later committed suicide.

After the two parties reached an agreement, Genest released a statement to the Hollywood Reporter:

“For complete clarity, I was not approached by Fox to license what I consider to be the use of my likeness or my copyrighted body art in American Horror Story. However, I understand that there was no intent to connect me with the character in their show and I am pleased that I have come to a resolution of this matter with Fox.”

It’s likely that Fox came to a settlement because it would have been a strenuous and expensive task to digitally edit out all the scenes where the make up is worn by Peters. Ultimately it is believed that the settlement was reached to avoid a lawsuit that would expose Fox to hundreds of thousands in copyright infringement penalties.

Do you think the American Horror Story tattoo is a replica of Rick Genest’s tattoo?