Reality star slaps WE TV with $5M defamation lawsuit
Kelly Shapiro, star of “Money. Power. Respect,” filed a defamation lawsuit against WE TV, claiming that she was defamed and forced to endure misogyny.
Kelly Shapiro, the star of “Money. Power. Respect,” has filed a $5 million defamation lawsuit against WE TV, claiming that they not only intentionally defamed her on national television but also that she was forced to endure misogyny in the show.
The show focuses on “six high-powered female entertainment attorneys” in the entertainment industry “who use the tricks of their legal training to get Money, Power and Respect in their personal & professional lives,” and Shapiro said in her suit that she was led to believe the show was meant to “raise the bar” on how women of color are portrayed in entertainment.
To that end, Shapiro said that she wrote in an ethics clause into her contract that stated that she could object to any scene with negative implications or false statements. So in January 2015, when she was filming a scene with Kendall Kelly in which Kelly questioned her ethics. She ended the scene and told producers that she did not want to film any more scenes with Kelly, but a few episodes later, she was filming with Kelly again. This time, Kelly accused her of defrauding and stealing from a client.
“Naturally, fraud and theft are expressly prohibited by the attorney ethical rules and such conduct could result in an attorney being disbarred,” the court documents stated.
Shapiro has since filed not only for breach of contract but for $5 million in compensatory damages. She is also demanding that WE TV destroy all copies of the defamatory material as well as paying attorney fees and punitive damages.
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