Tatyana Ali, best known as sweet Ashley from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, is suing Warner Brothers Telepictures; she says it stole her idea for daytime talk show The Real.
Ali claims that she pitched the idea of a daytime talk show with female celebrity hosts in their 20s and 30s in late 2012 but was told that they “decided to decline.”
The Real debuted about six months later, and Ali filed a suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday (read it here [pdf]).
The suit claims that Ali came up with an idea for a reality-based daytime talk show with “a unique and innovative format, which featured an eclectic group of engaging female celebrity hosts, each aged within their 20’s and 30’s … designed to pique the interest of the younger side of the mid-life/mid-career female population and featured a variety of contemporary discussion topics in a relaxed and informal setting.”
The Real premiered in July 2013 for a test run on Fox-owned stations, featuring co-hosts Adrienne Bailon, Tamar Braxton, Loni Love, Jeannie Mai and Tamara Mowry. It eventually went national, and in May, Braxton was fired from the show.
“The five female host panel cast members very closely embody and mirror the personal and professional profiles of the specific and potential female celebrity hosts openly proposed in writing and in discussion by the Plaintiff during ‘pitch’ meetings she held with the Executives,” the suit says.
The suit seeks unspecified damages.