Tori Spelling hit with $60 million lawsuit over allegedly stolen show idea
Tori Spelling’s company Life In A Bowl Productions is in hot water over her and her husband Dean’s 2011 reality wedding show, sTORIbook Weddings. Three producers claim that the idea for the series was a rip off of one they created and now, they are suing for $60 million.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Denny O’Neil Jr., Jake P. Hall, and Charles W. Malcolm filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday against Tori’s Life in a Bowl Productions as well as Oxygen Media, Bunim-Murray Productions, and World of Wonder Productions. The suit claims “breach of implied in fact contract, breach of fiduciary duty, slander of title, false advertising, unfair business practices and more in connection with what they say was the theft of their idea.”
The producers are seeking $8.5 million for each of the seven allegations and a declaration of their rights and legal fees.
In the suit, it is reported that the three producers registered their idea with the Writers Guild for a show they titled Wedding Rescue back in 2009. The show was to feature Tori and Dean as wedding planners, helping pairs in their journeys down the aisle. After pitching the idea to Oxygen, they were told the network wasn’t interested.
Two years later, they caught an episode of Tori and Dean’s sTORIbook Weddings on Oxygen and noticed it was “uncannily similar” to their idea.
The producers also pitched a second idea titled Tattoo Star, a tattoo competition, to the network and were turned down. In 2012, the network aired Best Ink which they claim included “nearly every creative element of the Tattoo Star treatment.”
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