Reality Star Sues Entourage Creator

An MTV reality star has filed suit against Entourage creator Doug Ellin over allegations of copyright infringement surrounding a character portrayed by actor Kevin Dillon.

Dillion played struggling actor Johnny Drama on the hit Hbo series, in which his character signed up to voice a gorilla cartoon called Johnny's Bananas.

The name of the animated show landed TV bosses in trouble with former The Real World star Johnny Devananzio, who claims to own the rights to hisnickname Johnny Bananas.

His lawyer issued a cease and desist letter to network executives in August (11), demanding they pull episodes of Entourage from U.S. broadcast or face "judicial intervention".

Hbo chiefs ignored the warning and aired the eighth and final season ofEntourage as planned until it wrapped for good last month (Sep11), prompting Devananzio to follow through with his threat to sue, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

He has named executives from Hbo and its parent company Time Warner as defendants in the lawsuit alongside Ellin, claiming he has "undergone tremendous emotional distress that has been intentionally inflicted upon plaintiff by defendants' unwarranted, unauthorised, and unjustified use of plaintiff's name and characterisation in an offensive and disparaging manner".