Dr. Phil Sues Gawker Media and Deadspin For Using VIDEO from Manti Te'o Hoax Interview
Television host Phil McGraw, known as Dr. Phil, filed a lawsuit Monday against sports website Deadspin and its parent company Gawker for using footage of an interview he did without prior consent.
Dr. Phil claimed the companies used a segment from his meeting with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man who was behind the hoax regarding the girlfriend of Notre Dame's linebacker Manti Te’o. Peteski Productions, which work for Dr. Phil, said the sports website posted parts of the interview online before it had aired in most markets, causing a decrease in ratings for his show.
The two-part interview aired over two episodes of Dr. Phil on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, and ended with Tuiasosopo's impersonation of Te'o's alleged girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. In the second part of the interview, Tuiasosopo spoke in the voice he used to fool the football star.
The lawsuit filed by Peteski Productions on Monday in Texarcana, Texas, claimed that Deadspin, which reported the Te’o hoax in January, used the copyrighted material and posted it online "hours before the Dr. Phil Show aired to over 98% of its viewers."
It added, "Although the second show was expected to exceed the ratings number of the first show, in fact, the ratings declined substantially because the result of the 'CLIFFHANGER' was no longer in doubt. It had been misappropriated by Deadspin."
The suit also claimed that the company had planned to steal the material, saying, "Gawker deliberately set out to get 'the jump' on the rest of the country and 'scoop' Dr. Phil with his own content.”
