Dua Lipa filed a $15 million lawsuit against Samsung Electronics on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, saying the company used her image on the exterior packaging of its televisions without her permission.
The complaint alleges the photograph, taken backstage at the Austin City Limits Festival in 2024, has been used on Samsung TV boxes since last year as part of a mass marketing campaign. The filing says Lipa owns the copyright to the photograph and that she told Samsung to stop using the picture after she learned about it, but Samsung rejected her request.
The suit lists four claims: copyright infringement, a violation of the California right-of-publicity statute, a Lanham Act claim and trademark infringement, and seeks $15 million in damages. The complaint also emphasizes Lipa’s commercial stature, noting she has won three Grammy Awards and that she has “cultivated a premium brand and is highly selective about endorsements.”
In the filing Lipa framed the dispute as one of control and consent. “Ms. Lipa’s face was prominently used for a mass marketing campaign for a consumer product without her knowledge, without consideration, and as to which she had no say, control, or input whatsoever,” the complaint quotes. The suit adds plainly that “Ms. Lipa did not allow and would not have allowed this use.”
The complaint also cites consumer reaction on social media to argue the box image affected sales. It quotes internet users saying the packaging changed their buying behavior, including: "I wasn’t even planning on buying a tv but I saw the box so I decided to get it" and "I’d get that TV just because Dua Lipa is on it. That’s how obsessed I am. That’s how much I love her." Those posts are offered as evidence the image served as de facto endorsement that could harm Lipa’s control over her brand.
The suit targets a specific commercial practice: using a celebrity’s likeness on cardboard TV packaging distributed to retailers and consumers. The complaint says Samsung began that use last year, after the photograph was taken in 2024 backstage at the Austin City Limits Festival in Austin. Lipa’s lawyers say the image was deployed without a license, without negotiation and without any financial consideration to the artist.
The legal friction is straightforward in the filing: Lipa says she asked Samsung to stop and the company refused. That refusal frames the lawsuit’s tension — a global electronics company continuing a packaging campaign despite a direct request from the person whose face it used. The complaint pairs that factual claim with the statutory claims listed above, asking a federal court to enforce Lipa’s stated rights and to award damages for the alleged unauthorized campaign.
The filing puts the dispute on the court’s calendar and forces Samsung to answer the allegations in federal court. A report said Samsung did not respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.
The likely immediate next step is a court response and initial briefing on jurisdiction and the sufficiency of the claims. But the consequence the complaint seeks to lock in now is plain: a judicial determination that the use of the photograph on mass-market TV packaging violated Lipa’s copyright and publicity rights, and a $15 million judgment to compensate for the alleged harms. The suit makes clear she will not leave control of her image to chance or packaging decisions by others.
