Well, this certainly doesn’t paint a pretty picture of Gigi Hadid.
The model has been slapped with a lawsuit by a photographer who claims that she ripped off a picture that he took of her, according to court papers obtained by TheWrap.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York on Tuesday, photographer Peter Cepeda says that he caught a picture of Hadid wearing a customized jacket in New York in July 2016 “using great technical skill and timing.”
While Cepeda lays claim to the copyright on the photo, he says that, after the photo was licensed to a couple of news outlets, it was uploaded to Hadid’s Instagram account shortly after it was taken, and a link to the Instagram post was posted on Hadid’s Twitter account.
According to the suit, the Instagram post has received 1.2 million likes so far — which constitutes a heavy amount of exposure, but according to the suit the post also amounts to copyright infringement.
Worse yet, the lawsuit alleges, Hadid has not only jacked the photo, but she’s caused Cepeda to be deprived of credit for the image.
“As a result of Hadid’s Post, numerous prominent, commercial, online publications copied and posted the Copyrighted Photograph, crediting Hadid or Instagram,” the suit reads.
Cepeda’s lawsuit says that the photographer has made “numerous demands” to have the posts removed, without success.
TheWrap has reached out to a representative of Hadid for comment on the suit.
Alleging copyright infringement and other counts, the suit is seeking unspecified damages.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.