Kendall Jenner, 21 and her younger sister Kylie pulled the $125 garments – which featured pictures of musical icons with their own likenesses superimposed over the top – from sale earlier this year but photographer Al Pereira has now filed a lawsuit against Kendall Jenner Inc, claiming she had no right to use an image he shot of Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G. and Redman in the collection, TMZ reports.
Photographer Michael Miller previously sought legal action against the sisters for using his pictures without permission, and planned to sue for any profits they made from the garments during the short time they were on sale.
However, the Kendall + Kylie brand insisted the copyright infringement lawsuit was “baseless” because they obtained the shirts with the rapper’s image from a company that had a valid license to sell them, and admitted they only sold two of the garments before pulling the stock from sale.
The company said in a statement: “The allegations made are completely false and the lawsuit is baseless.
“There has been no infringement or violation of anyone’s rights.”
The ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ stars were also threatened with legal action by the estate of Notorious B.I.G., who claimed they would sue the pair if the t-shirts were not removed from sale.
Following the controversy – which also saw criticism from the likes of Metallica, whose album artwork featured on one shirt, and Sharon Osbourne, who objected to her husband Ozzy Osbourne’s likeness being used – the sisters posted an apology on their social media accounts, in which they admitted the designs were “not well thought out”.
They said: “These designs were not well thought out and we deeply apologise to anyone that has been upset and/or offended, especially to the families of the artists.
“We are huge fans of their music and it was not our intention to disrespect these cultural icons in any way.
“The tee shirts have been pulled from retail and all images have been removed. We will use this as an opportunity to learn from these mistakes and again, we are very sorry.”
And after reading the apology, the estate for ‘Juicy’ rapper B.I.G. released a statement claiming the issue was “yet to be resolved”.
The statement read: “While we appreciate that the Jenners have made an apology and pulled the unlawful and unauthorised items, this matter has yet to be resolved.”