My legal case with MGA

MGA entertainment, makers of L.O.L. Surprise, Bratz, and Little Tikes, used my image and likeness for one of their L.O.L. Surprise Dolls, without my knowledge or consent. I discovered it and recently shared it with the world, and they responded with a racially motivated personal attack via their CEOs twitter. This is an update to that situation, but you can read more about what happened in this article, and my earlier post. 

Enduring a storm of racially motivated personal attacks from a huge company has been terrifying and stressful to say the least, but your kindness and generosity have really made the difference. Thanks to your support, I was able to hire a lawyer to fight this and protect myself.

 And while I’m really grateful to have this platform and a community of so many kind people who have offered their help, it’s important that I stress how much I wish I didn’t have to be doing this. I would rather be focusing on stuff like making art, rebuilding Cloudland, and surviving the pandemic, instead of having to defend my identity and integrity against the wrath of a billionaire and his cutthroat toy empire.

But I have survived too much and fought too hard to allow another greedy corporation to steal the very thing that I’ve worked my entire life to become.

I take a lot of pride in my unique identity and all of the things that make me who I am, and an essential part of that is being Black. So I refuse to be silent while this company who sells toys to children, many of them marketed to young Black girls and POC, behaves this way.

MGA is using this historic fight for Black liberation to sell toys in one breath and then to bash and discredit me in another. All because  I tried to highlight that they were guilty of the very injustices done to Black people that they proclaimed to stand against. And while it’s common knowledge that large companies routinely steal from indie artists, it happens to Black creatives more than you could possibly imagine. But because of racism, when we speak up about these things, we are routinely not believed, silenced, or worse!

I have built a career by being myself and celebrating creativity, positivity and self acceptance, and I believe that standing up for myself is an integral part of that.

And given how hostile MGA has been regarding this situation, it’s in my best interest to not interact with them. All communications are being handled through my lawyer.

If you would like to help, please see the graphic and links below. This will not be easy, but I will never give up! Thank you so much for being here, your continued support is both needed and deeply appreciated 💜

1. Donate to my gofundme.
2. Sign the petition.
3. Support my shop.