Jennifer Lopez’s Company Slammed With $40 Million Lawsuit By Stripper Who Inspired ‘Hustlers’
Jan. 8 2020, Updated 3:39 p.m. ET
Just days after losing out at the Golden Globes, Jennifer Lopez could find herself missing much more, following word that the real-life stripper who inspired J. Lo’s character in Hustlers is suing the actress for $40 million!
According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com, Samantha Barbash has filed a federal lawsuit against Lopez’s production company Nuyorican Productions, along with STX Entertainment, Gloria Sanchez Productions and Pole Sisters LLC.
In the lawsuit, Barbash argues that while the movie may be based on a 2015 magazine article detailing her life as a stripper at Score’s Gentleman’s Club in New York, she never gave producers her consent, and accuses them of proceeding to “exploit” her likeness and character in the film and the promotion.
Barbash has said several times she is not a fan of the movie, a sentiment shared by Roselyn Keo, another one of the ex-strippers whose former crimes of drugging rich, male clients and running extremely steep, fraudulent charges on their credit cards inspired the story.
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“The movie is really half-fiction and half-real,” Keo exclusively told Radar in September, 2019. “So, they didn’t nail the movie 100 percent on the head because it’s just inspired by my life, not based on it.”
In 2017, Barbash pleaded guilty to conspiracy, assault and grand larceny in exchange for five years’ probation.
Hustlers was created after Jessica Pressler’s New York article, “The Hustlers at Scores,” went viral. The article explained how strip club host Barbash – played by J. Lo in the film, but renamed “Ramona” – operated as a ringleader of dancers, who would spike men’s drinks with a special blend of MDMA and ketamine and then steal hundreds of thousands from their credit cards.
Lopez was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globes, but lost out to Marriage Story’s Laura Dern.
Barbash is suing for $40 million dollars which breaks down as $20 million in compensatory damages and another $20 million in punitive damages.