Famed
photographer David LaChapelle has filed a lawsuit
against Rihanna accusing her of stealing images from
his photos for her "S&M" video. The
lawsuit, made public today, alleges that "the
music video is directly derived from and substantially
similar to the LaChapelle [his] works."
LaChapelle
claims Rihanna took images from eight of his photos
and used them for scenes in the video and that it
copied the "composition, total concept, feel,
tone, mood, theme, colors, props, settings, decors,
wardrobe and lighting."
Though he describes himself as a good friend of hers,
the fashion and art photographer David LaChapelle
has decided to settle his differences with the pop
star Rihanna in a place where friends don’t usually
end up: court. Mr. LaChappelle, known for his candy-colored,
sexually over-the-top images, claims in a suit filed
Monday in federal court in Manhattan that Rihanna
helped herself to too many of the images in the recently
released video for her sexually over-the-top song
“S & M.”
The
suit, which asks for at least $1 million in damages,
argues that the video is “directly derived from
and substantially similar to” photographs he
has created and published that show, among other things,
a dominatrix walking a chained man on a leash, a woman
in latex headgear and another woman (Lady Gaga, to
be precise) wearing only screaming headlines. In all,
the suit claims, eight of Mr. LaChapelle’s images
were used to create scenes in the video, which the
suit calls a “willful, wanton and deliberate”
infringement of his copyright protections.
Representatives
from Rihanna’s record company did not immediately
respond to requests for comment.
In
the past several days the Web has been strewn with
still shots from the video, which LaChapelle fans
have paired with his similar-looking fashion shots.
Mr.
LaChapelle called the suit purely a business matter,
not personal, and said Rihanna – identified by
her full name, Robyn Rihanna Fenty, in the suit –
was a friend. “We’ve actually worked together
before,” he told the Website Radar. “I think
about her every time I’m caught in the rain without
my umbrella.”
