Earlier this month T-shirt company Tees in the Trap put NeNe Leakes on blast for stealing the design for their 'Girl Bye' T-shirt [click here if you missed that].
Now Tees in the Trap owner Arsha Jones claims NeNe is trying to sue them claiming she made the 'Girl Bye' slogan popular…
From Radar Online
“When I saw that she took my shirt I was shocked. I was so disappointed,” Jones said. “NeNe talks about being real and it caught me off guard that she would portray herself like that on television and then come off as the complete opposite in real life.”
Jones filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint with Shopify, the site that was selling Leakes’ t-shirts, and they promptly removed the line. The following day, Jones received a cease and desist letter from the reality show star’s lawyer.
The letter, dated December 16, 2014, which Radar obtained, states that Leakes has made the phrase famous and demanded that Jones discontinue selling her shirt.
“Ms. Leakes has been using the phrase ‘Girl Bye’ for over two years on her television show The Real Housewives of Atlanta and in public,” it reads. “The ‘Girl Bye’ phrase is widely associated with Miss Leakes due to Ms. Leakes’ fame and high level of exposure in the public limelight. In fact the public commonly refers to the ‘Girl Bye’ phrase as a ‘Neneism,’ the letter states.
The letter demanded that Tees in the Trap discontinue production of anything with the phrase “Girl Bye.” “We hereby demand that tease in the trap cease-and-desist from any and all uses representations or associations of Ms. Leakes’ image and use of the “Girl Bye” phrase. We further demand that Tees in a Trap immediately discontinue all sales of T-shirts and/or any other clothing items and apparel bearing the “Girl Bye” phrase.
Jones told Radar that she doesn’t understand why NeNe “stole” from her.
“NeNe didn’t file for her trademark until the beginning of 2015,” she said. “I’ve been selling my shirts for much longer than that. I’m an experienced business woman and I am surprised that she didn’t come up with her own design. She can reach millions of people; we are just a small business. I am not going to be bullied by NeNe.”
