Supermodel-turned-TV personality Tyra Banks has been named in a US$3 million lawsuit filed against the producers of her talk show after a teenage "sex addict" appeared on the programme without her mother's consent.
Georgia resident Beverly McClendon filed suit in an Atlanta federal court earlier this month, claiming Banks, alongside Warner Bros executives and producers of The Tyra Banks Show failed to secure legal permission to air the story of her 15-year-old daughter Jewel Ciera Washington during an episode about sex addiction.
The teenager responded to an open call on the show's website for self-proclaimed sex addicts in October 2009. She was invited to appear as a guest and was flown alone to New York in November 2009. She also claims to have been paid to tell her story.
But McClendon insists TV producers should have alerted her to their plans to feature the girl on the programme and violated Georgia state labour laws by failing to do so.
In the legal papers, she also objects to the show being promoted as featuring a "15-year-old sex addict", insisting the tag line would have attracted unwanted attention from "sexual deviants, perverts and paedophiles alike".
McClendon is suing on the grounds of negligence and is asking for an injunction against airing any future repeats of the episode, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
WENN.com