REPORT – Legal Experts Say Kim Kardashian Has No Case Against Old Navy; Kardashian Barbie Deal Dead; Plus Kris Humphries Fires PR Firm!



Remember a time when everything Kimmie Kardashian and Ko. touched turned to gold? Everything from sex tapes to magazine covers to products no one much wanted? Well, it seems, my friends, that time has officially ended. The Kardashian family, kontrolled by pimpmomager Kris Jenner, believed they were untouchable, but one obnoxious scheme too many has come back to haunt them.

Back in the day, before Kim went from untouchable to The Untouchable, she filed a lawsuit against Old Navy via its parent company The Gap for supposedly using a look a-like in one of their commercials. The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star apparently believes hiring a brown haired woman to be part of their ads means Old Navy is emulating her. As retribution Kim wants them to pay her an estimated $20 million because she has a patent pending on being brunette or something.

If it seems to you that Kim’s claim is baseless you’re not the only one! Fox News decided to do some investigating of their own and asked several legal professionals to give their opinion on the merit of Kim’s suit. The over-whelming consensus? None!

“I think it is a tenuous claim,” stated attorney Alonzo Wickers. “The model didn’t even strike me as being obviously a rip off of Kim, and more importantly, didn’t do anything in the ad that evokes anything I associate with Kim Kardashian.” The model, one Melissa Molinaro, is featured in the commercial singing and dancing — which we know are two things Kim has proven unsuccessful at!

Which is exactly the point — The Gap’s attorney decided to combat Kim’s claim by attempting to prove that she is “libel-proof” or has tarnished her image so much it wouldn’t even matter if people believed it was her in the ads! And not only that, but what little reputation Kim has bears no relation to the theme of the commercial because Kim is not known as a musician, dancer, etc. — but a star whose entire “talent” stems from her publicity-seeking “real” life.

“What reputation? She doesn’t have one,” admonished legal expert Joey Jackson. “Kim Kardashian makes her reputation off of pushing the envelope, playing with the public psyche, and being controversial,” Mr. Jackson explained. “She is a publicity craver and seeker, thereby making any publicity is good publicity for her.”

Jackson believes The Gap will be able to prove that while the level of publicity may be detrimental to a star with actual talents, for someone like Kim whose celebrity stems from ubiquity, it will in no way hinder her brand.

The article compares Kim’s reputation to someone like Taylor Swift’s, whose image as an upstanding person is diametrically opposite to Kim’s image as a “notorious” person whose success was never built on being liked, respected or popular, but instead built on being controversial. Um… major burn!

Additionally, experts believe the disparagement of the Kardashian image has absolutely nothing to do with the Old Navy ad and was instead caused by their own actions. Ya think? “The Kardashians’ value has gone down by about a third and that damage was not done by an Old Navy ad,” explains Mike Paul of MGP & Associates PR, a New York-based crisis management firm. “The family destroyed Kim’s reputation.”

Steven Levitt an expert in calculating celebrity Q Scores or, in other words, a metric scoring system that evaluates celebrity value in terms of public perception, claims that Kim’s score is a 62 which means she is recognized by 62% of the American public. Q Scores are used by companies to determine if a celebrity is a valuable asset to their brand — in Kim’s case, she’s not.

In order to evaluate a Q Score researchers take into consideration negative and positive associations. For instance, someone like Casey Anthony garners mainly negative associations to most Americans, while someone like Betty White is positively identified. Unfortunately for Kim, her positive Q score is a 12; the average positive score is an 18. This breaks down to mean that Kim’s negative association is 58%. So while 62% of people recognize her image, 58% of them associate that image with something negative (sex tape *ahem* sex tape).

Levitt believes this analysis (which was not conducted by The Gap’s legal team, but an unbiased, neutral party) will play into The Gap’s defense against Kim as proof that she has no reputation to maintain. “Kim’s ratings are so negative she doesn’t have anything to protect.”

“We are talking about somebody who has four and a half time more negative sentiment than positive in the eyes of the American population. What kind of reputation is that?” Levitt questioned. The Kardashian Kamp did not comment on Fox’s report.

Sadly, for the family who was once on the top of the reality TV pyramid things are going steadily from bad to worse. Days after we reported that the Kardashian’s magazine deal fell through, no thanks to Kris’ irrational demands to control all published material of managing company AMI’s publications, MTV News is confirming that the deal is definitely dead — and the piece recently published in Star magazine questioning Khloe Kardashian‘s biological father is proof the deal is finished!

A rep for the family is of course denying everything, “Kris has never had a conversation with AMI regarding this issue [of her demands]. But the allegations contained in the Star article about Khloe not being a Kardashian are completely fabricated, false and untrue. Robert Kardashian is absolutely her biological father, so of course she was upset over their story.”

Furthermore, the family’s supposed deal with Mattel to release Kardashian Barbie Dolls has also fallen through! “As popular as the Kardashian sisters are, at this point in time we are not manufacturing Barbie-branded Kardashian dolls,” a rep for Mattel revealed.

And finally, Kris Humphries, spurned husband and by-product of the Kardashian media machine, has decided to ditch the PR firm he hired when Kim was trashing his image left and right to the press. 73-days after Kris employed Anderson Group Public Relations to manage his image, the Kourtney and Kim Take New York star decided to divorce the company. Hey, that relationship lasted longer than his marriage!

TMZ reports that Kris and AGPR differed on a long-term strategy for his career and the company was disappointed after his rather disastrous appearance on Good Morning America last month. Apparently, Kris has already retained the services of another PR firm and wants to focus on his reputation as basketball player, instead of attempting to rebuild his media image in the wake of Kimpocalypse.

Reports have already come out saying Kris seeks to get the show canceled for portraying him in false light in order to salvage Kim’s image and her decision to file for divorce.

You know what something tells me Kris has already come out on top and doesn’t need to try too hard to look like the better person in this instance!

And oh yeah, Kimmie Kakes co-hosted Live With Kelly this morning, further proving to the world that she has the personality of a turtle! Apologies to all turtles around the world, but Kimmie didn’t really reveal anything new simply stating she rushed too quickly into her marriage with Kris.

Of course, Kelly Ripa — who spent the entire hour kissing Kimmie’s butt — failed to make mention of our report, which was picked up by GMA and ABC News, of Kimmie faking scenes for her show.

[Photos Credit: WENN]

IS KIM’S TARNISHED IMAGE A VIABLE DEFENSE FOR THE GAP? ARE YOU SURPRISED THE DEAL WITH MATTEL FELL THROUGH? IS KRIS RIGHT TO FOCUS ON BASKETBALL AND IGNORE THE KIM-DRAMA?

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