Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner is taking offense at a toy hamster produced by Hasbro (HAS). She’s suing the toy company for using her name and likeness, and reducing her to a rodent.
Faulkner has filed a $5 million federal lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in New Jersey, saying she has suffered “emotional damage” from Hasbro’s character, which features in its Littlest Pet Shop product line.
The toy—a tiny hamster with a butterfly on its head—”willfully and wrongfully appropriated Faulkner’s unique and valuable name and distinctive persona for its own financial gain,” according to documents obtained by Deadline.
Lawyers representing Faulkner also allege that the toy is an inch-tall replica of the journalist: “Elements of the Harris Faulkner Hamster Doll also bear a physical resemblance to Faulkner’s traditional professional appearance, in particular tone of its complexion, the shape of its eyes, and the design of its eye makeup,” the papers allege, according to the New York Post. You can judge for yourself in a comparison here:
Fox news anchor @HARRISFAULKNER sues Hasbro over toy hamster http://t.co/Yr8rCnyY7k pic.twitter.com/ojFVJpRnPv
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 2, 2015
Faulkner is the anchor of Fox Report Weekend and Outnumbered, and her 10-year career at the channel has seen her cover the deaths of Whitney Houston and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, and online coverage of the U.S. elections.
Curiously, the toy—which was launched last year—doesn’t seem to be on Hasbro’s Littlest Pet Shop minisite today, as noted by Deadline. The Littlest Pet Shop line is often credited with boosting the company’s bottom line with toys targeted at girls. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Hasbro made special mention of this line in helping to bring about a 16% decline in sales in the girls category.
