Tatyana Ali is PISSED. She just sued everybody involved with "The Real" for allegedly stealing her talk show idea. Check it inside....
Tatyana Ali is NOT here for "The Real." The "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" actress filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros., the show's production company Telepictures, Hilary Estes McLoughlin, then-president of creative affairs at CBS Television Distribution, and Sheila Bouttier, who was SVP Development at Telepictures Productions, claiming they stole her talk show idea.
In 2012, about six months before the show aired during its summer run, Tatyana says she pitched her idea for a talk show to Telepictures execs. They decided to decline. Tatyana says, though, once "The Real" aired, she felt like that was her concept coming to life.
“With a great deal of disappointment and complete disbelief,” the suit says, Ali “witnessed [her] concept come to life on major network television at the hands of the Defendant Corporations.”
Damn.
Deadline reports about the lawsuit:
The suit claims Ali came up with an idea for a reality-based daytime talk show with “a unique and innovative format, which featured an eclectic group of engaging female celebrity hosts, each aged within their 20’s and 30’s … designed to pique the interest of the younger side of the mid-life/mid-career female population and featured a variety of contemporary discussion topics in a relaxed and informal setting.”
The makeup of the show "closely resembles" what Tatyana pitched as well, according to the lawsuit:
“The five female host panel cast members very closely embody and mirror the personal and professional profiles of the specific and potential female celebrity hosts openly proposed in writing and in discussion by the Plaintiff during ‘pitch’ meetings she held with the Executives,” the suit says. “The Defendant Corporations did not at any time, directly or indirectly, acknowledge the use of the Plaintiff’s Concept.”
Hmm. While it sounds like the description of any panel-style talk show currently on the air, maybe Tatyana has more details up her sleeve to prove her story.
The engaged mom-to-be is demanding unspecified damages from “all rightful gains, profits, and advantages derived by the Defendants.” That's not all. She wants a collective trust of “designated percentages of the proceeds resulting from past, current and future production and airing of The Real television program.”
Chick wants her COIN.
By the way, Tatyana appeared on "The Real" in its summer test run in August of 2013:
Photo: Getty