GTA V is one of the biggest video releases of all time, and is a certifiable success for Rockstar Games. And when you’re a company with as much success as Rockstar Games, you get used to people coming out of the proverbial woodwork to get a piece of it.
Enter Lindsay Lohan.
LiLo and her lawyers have accused Rockstar Games of borrowing her likeness for the character Lacey Jonas. Lacey is a singer/actress with a notorious eating disorder who is hounded by the paparazzi and complains about the difficulties of being famous. Frankly, she comes across as a self-absorbed, delusional brat with minimal talent and too much fame for her own good. Two out of three of the game’s main characters seem to have no idea who she even is, depending who you encounter her as.
Lohan alleges that the character’s look, style, and description of her life mirrors her own, and that Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive illegally used her likeness for the game.
In reality, GTA V‘s Los Santos and Vinewood settings are based on real life Los Angeles and Hollywood which means that unintentional similarities to actual people could easily pop up in creating a realistic homage to that world. And there are more than a few female singer/actress combos in the relatively real world of Los Angeles that fit the model of Lacey Jonas. That’s the point of the character; she’s a parody of an archetype in our modern media culture.
If Lohan truly believes that Lacey Jonas, who is not a positive or empathetic figure in any way, is directly based on her, that unfortunately might say more about how Lohan views herself than anything else.
