This is one model who’s not so thrilled that her face is emblazoned on a shirt.
California model Hailey Clauson, who’s just 16, has filed a whopping $28 million lawsuit claiming that a racy photo of her is being used illegally on the company’s apparel. The Manhattan court filing rails against Urban Outfitters, two boutique stores, and photographer Jason Lee Parry for allowing the “blatantly salacious” shot to appear on a t-shirt. Clauson says the photo has damaged her reputation.
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The photo shows Clauson, clad in leather shorts, sitting with her legs perched on the back of a motorcycle. If you’re wondering what could possibly be so scandalous, the photo is still available on Parry’s website. (The image shows nothing illegal, but click with caution.) Now imagine that image splayed across the chests of millions. The lawsuit cites that “her crotch area [is] the focal point of the image” and notes that the shot is of interest to “the likes of pedophiles.”
Even at her young age, Clauson is a mainstay on the modeling scene, having worked in Los Angeles and Paris for haute designers like Gucci and Oscar de la Renta. The blond bombshell posed for Parry at the March 2010 shoot, when she was just 15. But the lawsuit says Parry agreed not to release the photographs after Clauson’s modeling agency complained. The murky situation began when the images wound up in German magazine Qvest and subsequently on t-shirts at Urban Outfitters.
But as with any court proceedings, cue the “he said, she said.” Photographer Parry, 32, says that Clauson’s parents were present at the shoot and gave permission for him to release the photos. But he later told the New York Post that “the images got [stolen] from me.”
Nick Carbone is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @nickcarbone. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
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