The former New York City strip club hostess whose life story inspired the character played by superstar Jennifer Lopez in the 2019 film Hustlers has filed a $40 million lawsuit against the production company owned by Lopez, and several other producers, alleging that they used her real-life experiences as the basis for the film without her permission, according to a report by the entertainment site The Blast.
The site’s report said that, in court documents, Samantha Barbash—a former stripper at Scores Gentlemen’s Club in the Big Apple—says that the film’s producers asked her to sign “a consent and waiver” allowing them to depict her in Hustlers. But Barbash, who also used the professional name Samantha Foxxxx, refused, and also declined to waive her privacy rights.
Barbash says that the film defamed her by depicting a character that is recognizably based on her "using and manufacturing illegal substances in her home” where she lived with her child. In the lawsuit, Barbash denies that any such incident took place.
She also told the Post in April of last year that the film depicts her stripping, but “I was never a stripper. It’s defamation of character.”
In 2017, Barbash pleaded guilty to conspiracy, assault and grand larceny in connection with a scheme in which she and her accomplices bilked Wall Street big shots out of their cash by drugging them, stealing their credit cards, and running up thousands in charges, according to a New York Post account.
Barbash was sentenced to five years probation.
Hustlers is based on an article by Jennifer Pressler that appeared in New York magazine, titled "The Hustlers at Scores,” giving a nonfiction account of Barbash’s crime spree.
The suit, which names Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions as well as production companies STX Entertainment, Gloria Sanchez Productions and Pole Sisters LLC as defendants, asks for $20 million in compensatory damages, and $20 million in punitive damages. Barbash also demands the producers hand over all copies of the movie, effectively taking the film out of circulation.
But Hustlers is already a major hit. According to data compiled by the site Box Office Mojo, the film was produced on a budget of only $20 million, but since its 16-week release starting on September 13 of last year, grossed more than $157 million at the worldwide box office, including nearly $105 million in the United States.
Photo By Ana Carolina Kley Vita / Wikimedia Commons
