Dua Lipa is taking South Korean tech giant Samsung to court, slapping them with a $15 million lawsuit after allegedly finding her image plastered on their product packaging without ever giving the green light.
According to Variety, the suit was filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. At the centre of it all is a photo of Dua Lipa mid-performance at the Austin City Limits Festival, which Samsung has reportedly been using on TV packaging since last year.
When Dua Lipa found out, she contacted Samsung and asked them to remove the image. They allegedly refused.
The complaint states that her face was used in a mass marketing campaign with zero knowledge, compensation, or input on her part, and that she never would have agreed to it. That last point matters, because Dua Lipa is notably selective about the brands she puts her name to, with the filing describing her as having an established “premium brand.”
The real world impact? The lawsuit points to posts on X showing customers who bought Samsung TVs specifically because they saw Dua Lipa on the box. One user wrote that they hadn’t even been thinking about buying a TV until they spotted her face on the packaging.
Samsung now faces claims of copyright infringement, violation of California’s right-of-publicity statute, trademark infringement, and a Lanham Act claim. The company is yet to publicly respond.
