paparazzi
A paparazzo is suingKanye West over an alleged incident in which the rapper grabbed her phone and threw it into traffic, according to court documents obtained by Billboard.
Photographer Nichol Lechmanik is suing West (sometimes known as Ye) for assault, battery, negligence and interference with the exercise of her civil rights following the alleged altercation, which occurred on the afternoon of Jan. 27 outside Sports Academy in Newbury Park, Calif., per the complaint filed in California Superior Court in Ventura County on Wednesday (May 31).
Lechmanik alleges that while driving her car and filming Ye’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian as she exited the facility, she noticed that West was “angrily confronting” another photographer on the street outside. “Given Defendant Ye’s reputation for violence against photographers, his history of physically harming them, and based on his threatening body language, Plaintiff became fearful for the photographer’s safety,” the complaint reads. It states that Lechmanik then began filming the incident on her phone from inside her car with the window open.
Lechmanik alleges that Ye then walked up to her car and “aggressively” said, “You all ain’t gonna run up on me like that,” and when she replied that she wasn’t, he became “enraged,” reached into her car and “ripped her phone out of her hands” before throwing it “onto the street towards oncoming traffic.”
According to the lawsuit, Lechmanik said the incident caused her “great mental, and emotional pain and suffering” and that she “anticipates incurring medical and related expenses.”
Lechmanik is requesting general and special damages, punitive and exemplary damages, civil penalties and costs of the suit. Additionally, she’s asking for an order enjoining West and “all persons acting in concert with him or acting on his behalf, from touching, striking, annoying, contacting, molesting, attacking, threatening, or otherwise interfering with…the Plaintiff, and all persons similarly situated, to pursue the occupation of photographer.”
West has a long history of legal scuffles with paparazzi that stem all the way back to 2008 when he was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after breaking the flash of a paparazzo’s camera.
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Source: MEGA / Getty
Ye’s lawyers stay busy. Kanye West is being sued by the photographer whose phone he evidently grabbed and hurled back in January.
TMZ reports that Nichol Lechmanik is suing West for assault, battery and negligence.
In January, Ye got into a heated confrontation with paparazzi as he was driving away from his daughter North West’s basketball game, along with his new wife Bianca Censori. Apparently, Ye noticed he was being followed and stopped to confront the photographers.
Lechmanik wasn’t even the first photographer Ye argued with, but soon enough his attention turned to her.
Reports TMZ:
According to one of the photogs, Nichol Lechmanik, Ye was angrily confronting a different paparazzo, going through the man’s pockets … and she claims she feared the rapper might have had a weapon on him.
In the lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, Lechmanik says she was terrified he would come after her next … and he did. Video shows Ye approaching her as she sat in the driver’s seat of her car, recording him with her phone and yelling, “You all ain’t gonna run up on me like that!”
Ye told her, “If I say stop, stop with your cameras.” Then he ripped her phone out of her hands and tossed it — she says it landed in oncoming traffic.
We are going to point out the whole scary Black man trope that’s being insinuated here, but Ye didn’t do himself any favors in that regard. And she thought Ye might have a weapon, really?
Regardless, the incident was caught on video, so expect a settlement. Although Ye was named a suspect in local law enforcement’s battery investigation—and despite a long history of beefing with photographers—he was never charged.
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Kanye West, also referred to widely as Ye, was often seen being friendly with the throng of paparazzi that followed his every move at the height of his career. Now something of a pariah in some eyes, the Chicago superstar called the cops on the paps after claiming that someone challenged him to a bout of fisticuffs.
Page Six exclusively reports that Kanye West, 45, filed a criminal complaint against the paparazzi earlier in the week. According to a statement delivered to the outlet by a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, West was allegedly followed and contacted by a group of photographers on Feb. 14 during the late afternoon hours local time.
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The spokesperson says West allegedly argued with a member of the paparazzi who then challenged him to fight. Shortly after, West and his entourage visited the Sheriff’s Office to file the formal complaint.
Once a person who adored the fanfare that surrounds him, West is seemingly becoming more guarded about his personal space in the wake of all the controversy that ensued in the last year and continues to loom heavily over his every move.
In January, we shared details of an incident where West was being recorded by a woman where he then snatched her phone. He is currently at the center of a battery investigation regarding the incident.
So far, no charges have been filed regarding the criminal complaint filed by Kanye West.
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Photo: MEGA / Getty
Miley Cyrus has settled a copyright lawsuit a month after she was sued for posting a paparazzi photo of herself to Instagram, according to court documents filed Wednesday (Oct. 18) and obtained by Billboard.
In the original complaint, filed on Sept. 12 in Los Angeles federal court, photographer Robert Barbera claimed that Cyrus reposted his 2020 image of her without a license or permission to do so. In the snap, the “Midnight Sky” singer is seen waving to fans as she exits a building.
In his complaint, Barbera claimed Cyrus has an “immense presence” due to her millions of followers on Instagram, and that posting the image “crippled if not destroyed” his ability to make money licensing it.
According to court documents, the lawsuit was subsequently dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning Barbera cannot refile the same claim again in that court.
The lawsuit against Cyrus is not the first Barbera has filed. The New York-based photographer previously filed copyright complaints against Ariana Grande in May 2019 and January 2020, and Justin Bieber in October 2019, though both cases were later settled on confidential terms. Earlier this summer, he filed another lawsuit against Dua Lipa that at the time of publication is still pending in court.
Though these cases may seem unfair, the law is on the side of photographers like Barbera, as they own the copyrights to the images that they take — and using those photos without a license constitutes infringement. Simply appearing in an image does not give a celebrity co-ownership of it, nor does it give them a right to repost it for free.
Had the court found that Cyrus had infringed Barbera’s copyright, the singer could have faced damages totaling as much as $150,000. For that reason, most celebrities accused of infringement by photographers opt to settle out of court, likely for a smaller sum, in order to avoid the time and expense that come with continued litigation. Though the terms of these settlement deals are nearly always private, for a single photo, amounts likely range in the tens of thousands of dollars.
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