Celebrities sued for promoting Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs
Who can forget the worthy maintenance on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon earlier this year where host Fallon and Paris Hilton sprang from their Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs?
Well, that Tonight’s show eastern segment now gone of one class action against dozens of celebrities who promoted Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs with its parent company Yuga Labs.
According to the two plaintiffs who filed the complaint, Yuga Labs “conspired” with celebrities such as Fallon, Hilton, Madonna, Kevin Hart, Justin Bieber and Snoop Dogg, to artificially inflate the price of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, and defraud their fans who have invested.
The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Los Angeles on December 8. The plaintiffs are seeking at least $5 million for themselves and others involved.
Other celebrities named in the lawsuit include Gwyneth Paltrow, Post Malone, Stephen Curry and Serena Williams, among others.
There are also other notable names included in the lawsuit, such as Williams’ husband, Reddit founder Alex Ohanian and Amy Wu, an investor who recently left FTX, the Cryptocurrency exchange failure founded by Sam Bankman-Fried.
One particularly notable name being sued is Guy Oseary, talent manager for Madonna, U2 and other musical superstars. Osary is a partner in Yuga Labs and also manages a number of celebrities involved in promoting Bored Ape NFTs. Additionally, Oseary is an investor in Moonpay, a crypto payment platform that has essentially acted as a concierge service for many celebrities’ NFT transactions.
And this multi-layered relationship that connects everything is at the heart of the complaint. Plaintiffs say Oseary recruited celebrities he had a relationship with and Yuga Labs paid them to endorse Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs through Moonpay. Then these celebrities would go and promote Bored Ape NFT to their fans without disclosing the arrangement. For example, this very Tonight’s show segment with Fallon and Hilton showing their Bored Ape NFTs and explaining why they bought them, is explicitly described in the lawsuit.
“In our view, these claims are opportunistic and parasitic,” a Yuga Labs spokesperson said in a statement provided to a number of outlets. “We strongly believe they are without merit, and we look forward to proving it.”
Critics have already sharp about the close relationship between celebrities, their talent agents, and those agents’ investments in crypto companies that their talent then promotes.
This newest crypto class action lawsuit follows one that was deposit against Larry David, Tom Brady and Giselle Bündchen last month for their promotion of FTX.
As for Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT owners, their investment in non-fungible tokens is currently down significantly. The floor price for a Bored Ape NFT sharp in April at around $430,000. Currently, the floor price for a Bored Ape NFT is around $86,000.
