NEWSLady Gaga Threatens London Ice Cream Parlor with Lawsuit
March 8 2011, Published 3:14 p.m. ET
Lady Gaga may not have found her meat-clad outfit offensive but there's one thing that's worth crying over spilled milk for: Ice cream made of human breast milk in London with the name, "Baby Gaga." The Grammy winner is threatening to sue The Icecreamists, the ice cream parlor in London that she claims used part of her name to sell its ice cream for $23 a serving.
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About two weeks ago The Icecreamists debuted the ice cream but Lady Gaga wasn't too pleased. According to PopEater, her lawyers sent the owners a legal letter asking them to stop using the name "Gaga" in their ice cream. They mentioned it's "deliberately provocative and, to many people, nausea-inducing." In addition, attorneys indicated the references to Lady Gaga are deliberate and intend to "take advantage of her reputation and good will. Associating the Lady Gaga mark with a food product which may be unsafe for human consumption (owing to the risk of it carrying such viruses as hepatitis) is also highly detrimental."
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Controversy is brewing for safety reasons as well. Many fear the spread of hepatistis and inspectors from Westminster Council's food standards confiscated the ice cream to see if it met requirements of the country's health standards. The Icreamists say they have all of their Baby Gaga ice cream cleared and then put it up for sale.
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All in all though, the ice cream parlor owner Matt O'Connor said the legal threats are unfair. "We think this is very unnecessary, the whole thing will be over by next week, but we are prepared to fight this in court." He added, "This is a David versus Goliath battle. I'm convinced we will eventually win. The world's biggest superstar has taken umbrage with the world's smallest ice-cream parlor. For Lady Gaga to accuse us of stealing her image is laughable when you consider how much she has borrowed from popular culture to create her look and music. She also seems to have forgotten that since the dawn of time the word gaga has been one of the first discernible phrases to come from a baby's mouth. This is why we chose the name."
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O'Connor added, "As for her assertion that our product is distasteful, perhaps she should reflect on her blood-spurting performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, or the fact she wears clothes fabricated from the flesh of dead animals. We have applied to register the trademark Baby Gaga and are confident we'll secure this."
What do you think? Is Lady Gaga's lawsuit much ado about nothing or is the ice cream parlor in London taking advantage of her name?
