Teri Hatcher is being told to pucker up and pay $2.4 million to a skin-care products company that says she promoted the wrong lip gloss.
Hydroderm's lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, claims that a 2005 agreement with ISBE Productions, Hatcher's production company, stipulated the star of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" wouldn't endorse other competing products as part of a $2.4 million endorsement deal.
According to the lawsuit, the company learned last summer that Hatcher was also promoting CityLips, a lip plumper made by City Cosmetics that competes with Hydroderm's lip plumper, called Volumizing Lip Serum.
Hatcher, 42, appeared in promotional materials for CityLips, said she was a "fan" of the product, credited it with "helping her appear beautiful at an awards event," and gave CityLips gift bags to guests at her birthday party.
The lawsuit also alleges that Hatcher promoted other products, but doesn't name them.
"Hatcher's name, image and likeness have been linked to so many competitors' products (at least 17!) that it is anyone's guess as to what product keeps her skin and lips youthful," the lawsuit said.
In a statement, Hatcher attorney Alan Wertheimer called the lawsuit an "unjustified and public assault on Teri Hatcher's good name, reputation and celebrity in a transparent and pathetic effort to distract from its own failure to live up to its end of the agreement."
Wertheimer said Hatcher complied with all of her contractual obligations despite "a frustrating series of changes in the ownership and management of Hydroderm over the last several years."
Hatcher will recover "everything she is owed under her contract, as well as compensatory and punitive damages for Hydroderm's outrageous accusations," said Wertheimer.
