Kanye West Music Video Mannequin Loses Lawsuit Over “Jeen-yuhs”

An Illinois decide dismissed a mannequin’s lawsuit towards filmmakers Coodie and Chike over their Kanye West documentary Jeen-yuhs. In keeping with courtroom paperwork obtained by AllHipHop, Decide Steven Seeger rejected all counts of Cynthia Love’s criticism in a ruling on Tuesday (February 27).

Love sued Coodie and Chike for defamation, false mild, illegal publicity, intentional infliction of emotional misery and extra. Love, who appeared in Kanye’s “By means of the Wire” music video, accused Coodie and Chike of capturing her “darkest moments” within the Jeen-yuhs documentary. Decide Seeger decided there was nothing incorrect with the filmmakers utilizing outdated footage of Love.

“Plain and easy, any allegations about Love within the Jeen-yuhs docuseries are true,” Seeger wrote. “The docuseries consists of real-world clips of Love, with out doctoring the content material or including any false materials. It exhibits true clips of an actual occasion.”

He continued, “Holding up a mirror isn’t defamation. Holding up a 20-year-old image isn’t defamation, both. They each replicate actuality, prefer it or not. However defamation requires falsity. The Jeen-yuhs video precisely portrays Love in a second of time a number of many years in the past. The video doesn’t recommend that Love stays in an intoxicated state, or something of that kind. The video exhibits a previous fact, with out suggesting that the previous is the current. The footage is traditionally correct, so Love’s defamation claims can’t get off the bottom. “

Decide Seeger noticed no advantage in Love’s false mild allegations.

“Love runs into bother with the primary aspect of a false mild declare,” he wrote. “She concedes that the depiction of her in Jeen-yuhs was true on the time of filming. So, Love was not positioned in a false mild. She was positioned in a real mild. The truth that the sunshine may need been unflattering doesn’t imply that it was false. It’s a false mild declare, not an unflattering mild declare … Once more, Love might want to go away her previous within the rearview mirror (and off Netflix). However Jeen-yuhs doesn’t comprise false statements about her. With out falsity, it’s mild’s out for the false mild declare.”

The decide additionally struck down Love’s proper of publicity claims. Decide Seeger agreed with Coodie and Chike, who argued they’d an exemption to make use of Love’s identification with out her consent.

“Jeen-yuhs falls underneath the ‘audio-visual work’ exemption, however doesn’t fall inside the ‘public affairs’ exemption, to the Illinois Proper of Publicity Act,” the decide wrote. “However falling inside one exemption is sufficient to sink the claims.”

Decide Seeger denied Love’s different claims, together with civil conspiracy and unjust enrichment. He discovered no proof of intentional infliction of emotional misery.

“The Courtroom concludes that the video clips in query couldn’t give rise to a declare of intentional infliction of emotional misery,” he wrote. “The clips present Love doing a bit spin, apparently in an inebriated state, inside a barbecue restaurant. That’s not the kind of picture that’s ‘past the bounds of human decency and be thought-about insupportable in a civilized group.’”

Coodie and Chike’s Jeen-yuhs documentary dropped in 2022. The three-part movie is offered to stream on Netflix.