MTV continues to ride the wave of success that "Jersey Shore" has brought ever since it premiered in 2009. However, success on this scale almost inevitably comes with complications. For "Jersey Shore," many of those complications have come in the form of lawsuits. Earlier this year Pauly D was sued over his stage name. This was followed a few months later by Mike "The Situation" suing Abercrombie & Fitch over what he claims was use of his image for marketing without compensation. Most recently MTV has been sued by a man who claims that the very idea for the show was stolen from him. Now Snooki has been thrust into the legal fray as Reuters reports that her one-time business partner SRG Ventures is suing her to the tune of $7 million.
SRG is a licensing company that claims it had entered into an agreement with the reality star to create a number of different Snooki-branded products. These were supposedly to include lingerie, watches and even school supplies. These products would have helped build Snooki as a brand name. It's SRG's claim that even while entering into an agreement, Snooki began negotiating with other companies behind SRG's back. Snooki's management company is also being sued for allegedly being aware of Snooki's activities.
It turns out that SRG and Snooki already have a history in the courts. In October, Snooki sued to be released from her contract with them. At the time she was claiming that SRG was failing to live up to their end of the arrangement and were not successful in making as many merchandising deals as she felt they should have. This context gives the new legal action from SRG the feeling of spiteful vengeance rather than a legitimate grievance.
More likely than not, SRG is hoping for a quick settlement to offset whatever losses it suffered from the deal with Snooki falling through. This latest lawsuit seems to illustrate the continuing issues that the stars of the show are having with trying to market themselves outside of reality television. It feels like whenever one of the cast tries to make a name for themselves in some other way, it blows up in their face. It's almost as though karma is trying to tell them to just stick to reality TV and leave the rest of it alone.
