The Warner Bros.-owned website joins Huffington Post and Daily Mail in ending a $30 million lawsuit over whether a 5-year-old "Toddlers & Tiaras" star was sexualized online.
The removal of the child's "Sexy" performance comes 10 months after Susanna Barrett filed a $30 million lawsuit against Warner Bros., AOL and Associated Newspapers over a "brazenly attempt to sexualize" the 5-year-old pageant princess.
Each of the companies was charged with having subsidiaries that published false claims about Isabella. For Warners, it was two TMZ posts. For AOL, it was two stories that ran on Huffington Post. For Associated, it was an article that ran in the U.K. tabloid Daily Mail. Together, the articles were said to have suggested that the younger Barrett was "gyrating" in a nightclub and singing about her sex appeal as the older Barrett pushed her on, fed her lyrics and was "enjoying the raucous event far more than the bemused-looking child."
The articles in question allegedly got some minor facts wrong, including that Isabella was at a nightclub (she was in a restaurant) and that she was gyrating (she was sitting). But perhaps more intriguing from a legal standpoint, the lawsuit suggested that the presentation of a child's sex appeal was libelous insofar as it was malicious or reckless to post articles about a child who couldn't understand the concept of sex. The $30 million damage claim -- $10 million for each defendant -- was premised on the defendants allegedly placing Isabella in "serious physical danger" of sexual deviants and predators.
According to court papers, she agreed to drop the case in return for the defendants agreeing to disable public access to the controversial articles. The TMZ articles are now down. One of the Huffington Post articles in question is still online but without the accompanying video.
A Warner Bros. spokesperson confirms the settlement, saying, "We have resolved our dispute with Ms. Barrett, and she has elected to dismiss her lawsuit against TMZ.”
Read More: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/tmz-pulls-down-toddlers-tiaras-386394
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