{"id":1731,"date":"2022-12-12T10:01:59","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T02:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/?p=1731"},"modified":"2022-12-12T10:01:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T02:01:59","slug":"class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-celebrities-who-promoted-bored-ape-yacht-club-nfts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-celebrities-who-promoted-bored-ape-yacht-club-nfts\/","title":{"rendered":"Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Celebrities Who Promoted Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">A class action filed Thursday alleges that Madonna, Jimmy Fallon, and Paris Hilton, among other celebrities who promoted\u00a0<a id=\"auto-tag_bored-ape-yacht-club\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/\" data-tag=\"bored-ape-yacht-club\">Bored Ape Yacht Club<\/a>\u00a0NFTs, were compensated for those promotions and did not disclose such deals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">In the complaint, filed to the federal Central Disrict Court of California, plaintiffs Adonis Real and Adam Titcher said they purchased NFTs made by\u00a0<a id=\"auto-tag_yuga-labs\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/\" data-tag=\"yuga-labs\">Yuga Labs<\/a>, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club, among other NFT collections, after seeing the endorsement of influential celebrities, who they claim were part of a \u201cvast scheme\u201d to inflate the value of the NFTs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">The complaint further alleges that Yuga Labs executives conspired with Hollywood talent manager Guy Oseary, who\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">represents Bored Apes<\/a>, and the crypto-trading app Moonpay to get celebrities to promote BAYC NFTs while hiding that they were compensating those celebrities for promotion. Oseary and many of his clients\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AtelierAuctionsg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">were early investors in MoonPay<\/a>, which the complaint alleges handled the payments to celebrities, in crypto and in digital assets, for seemingly \u201corganic\u201d promotion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\u201cDefendants\u2019 promotional campaign was wildly successful, generating billions of dollars in sales and re-sales \u2026 The manufactured celebrity endorsements and misleading promotions \u2026 were able to artificially increase the interest in and price of the BAYC NFTs\u2026, causing investors to purchase these losing investments at drastically inflated prices,\u201d the complaint reads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">Among the examples cited in the complaint was when Moonpay\u00a0posted a clip in November 2021 from Post Malone\u2019s music video for \u201cOne Right Now,\u201d where the rapper is seen buying a Bored Ape on the MoonPay app with musician The Weeknd. \u201cThis just happened,\u201d read the MoonPay post on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">The plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers allege that blockchain transactions show that Malone was transferred $1.4 million worth of ether in October 2021, which they claim is evidence that he was paid for his promotion of BAYC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\u201cMoonPay\u2019s statement that \u2018this just happened\u2019 misleadingly suggested to investors that the promotion of MoonPay and the BAYC NFT collection within the so-called music video from Defendants Post and Tesfaye [the Weeknd] was something that occurred because of their genuine interest in the BAYC NFTs,\u201d the complaint reads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">The complaint repeatedly singles out Oseary as a kind of mastermind in the alleged scheme, saying that he \u201csaw an opportunity to profit from using his celebrity contacts to promote the sale of Yuga securities, and he took it.\u201d The complaint further characterizes Oseary as a \u201cfixer,\u201d alleging that he contacted artist Ryder Ripps to tell him to stop claiming that the Bored Ape Yacht club is embedded with neo-Nazi dog whistles. Ryder Ripps and Yuga Labs are currently embroiled\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AtelierAuctionsg\">in a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0over Ripps\u2019 NFT collection RR\/BAYC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">The celebrities named in the complaint include Oseary\u2019s client Madonna, who discussed Bored Apes in a\u00a0<em>Rolling Stone<\/em>\u00a0feature, Jimmy Fallon, who promoted them and MoonPay on\u00a0<em>The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon<\/em>, as well as Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Serena Williams, Kevin Hart, Wardell Stephen Curry II, and rapper Khalid promoted the Apes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">A spokesperson for Yuga Labs declined to comment at this time. Reps for Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, and The Weeknd did not return\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AtelierAuctionsg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">our sister publication\u00a0<em>Billboard<\/em>\u2018s requests for comment<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source\uff1ahttps:\/\/www.artnews.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A class action filed Thursday alleges that Madonna, Jimmy Fallon, and Paris Hilton, among other celebrities who promoted\u00a0Bored Ape Yacht Club\u00a0NFTs, were compensated for those promotions and did not disclose such deals. In the complaint, filed to the federal Central Disrict Court of California, plaintiffs Adonis Real and Adam Titcher said they purchased NFTs made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,7,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artist","8":"category-auction","9":"category-events","10":"category-gallery","11":"category-latest-news"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Celebrities Who Promoted Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs - Investable Art Auctioneer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A class action filed Thursday alleges that Madonna, Jimmy Fallon, and Paris Hilton, among other celebrities who promoted\u00a0Bored Ape Yacht Club\u00a0NFTs, were compensated for those promotions and did not disclose such deals.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-celebrities-who-promoted-bored-ape-yacht-club-nfts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Celebrities Who Promoted Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs - 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