Lindsay Lohan Files $100M Suit Over E-Trade’s 'Milkaholic' Baby
Updated: Lindsay Lohan claims in a $100 million lawsuit that the boyfriend-stealing, milkaholic baby featured in an E-Trade ad is modeled after her.
The ad debuted during the Super Bowl, the New York Post reports. It portrays a baby boy apologizing to his girlfriend via an online video chat for failing to call her the night before. The baby girlfriend replies, “And that milkaholic Lindsay wasn’t over?” The girlfriend’s suspicions prove true, as another baby girl at the boy’s home sticks her head in the frame and says, “Milk-a-what?”
Lohan’s lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, told the Post that her client is so well known that her first name brings instant recognition, the same as Oprah or Madonna. “They’re using her name as a parody of her life,” Ovadia told the Post. “Why didn’t they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody’s talking about it and saying it’s Lindsay Lohan.”
The ad agency, the Grey Group, contends the name was used because it is popular and happened to be the name of one of its account team members, the story says.
But a reporter for Esquire.com who had sat in with the ad agency during the creative process says the original script for the commercial had named the milkaholic baby Deborah. The reporter had asked in December if the change to “Lindsay” was a reference to Lohan. Gray’s chief creative officer, Tor Myrhen, denied it. “I don’t think we even thought of it at the time,” he said.
Hat tip to Pat’s Papers and USA Today.
Updated on March 10 to include the Esquire magazine information.
