Irina Krupnik is not happy with the way her photograph was used.
Irina Krupnik never thought she would see herself in a movie… that is until she started getting phone calls from friends who said they saw a picture of her in the comedy Couples Retreat. Unfortunately for the former model, it wasn’t the star-making performance most hope for.
Krupnik filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit on Thursday against NBC Universal, alleging the studio used a ten year-old photograph of her in a bathing suit in a scene where one of the characters (played by Jon Favreau) uses it to help please himself in a solo sex scene.
Krupnik, 30, said the studio allowed her image to be transformed from “a commonplace swimwear ad to softcore pornography,” and that the “ongoing, unauthorized and defamatory use of her likeness in a derogatory and humiliating context” has damaged her reputation, both personal and professional.
However, NBC Universal says the image was theirs to use freely. “The photo at the center of this claim,” read a statement, “was licensed to Universal and the studio was entirely within its rights to use it in Couples Retreat.”
Krupnik, now a make-up artist, says she never would have given away the rights to a stock photo agency (which in turn sold it to the filmmakers) if she had known they would use it in a “quasi-pornographic context.”