If nothing else, Scott Stapp and Kid Rock's joint release is generating lots of billable hours for attorneys.
A new lawsuit involving the Stapp-Rock sex tape was filed Thursday in Miami, the Smoking Gun reports. This time out, the reputed plaintiff is a woman who claims she was one of the video's costars.
The woman, identified only as "Jane Doe" in the 12-page complaint found on the Smoking Gun, alleges invasion of privacy, unauthorized use of her likeness and infliction of emotional distress. For good measure, the woman essentially accuses Stapp of leaking the sex tape to sex up the sales of his solo album.
Stapp, who admittedly shot the video, and World Wide Red Light District, the adult entertainment company that planned to sell the video, are named as defendants.
Kid Rock, who told the Associated Press this week he must have been drunk to let Stapp roll tape while they entertained fans in a tour bus in 1999, is not named as a defendant.
The way Doe tells it in the complaint, she had a "romantic interlude" with Stapp in December 1999 when the then-Creed frontman was on tour with Kid Rock. Following said "romantic interlude," Doe joined three other women in "performing various sexual acts in the privacy of [Kid Rock's] chartered bus."
From the complaint, it seems as if Doe knew Stapp was filming. But Doe says she didn't know the tape was going to go public. The document states she believed Stapp was going to keep the videotaped "various sexual acts" for his own private collection.
The subsequent release of the tape to Red Light District--Stapp says the tape was stolen by "someone" out to destroy his career; the company says it got it from a "third party"--was particularly damaging to Jane Doe because she wasn't just any female in the tape, she was, her complaint says, "the star of the females."
From the department of no coincidences, the Doe lawsuit claims Stapp "released" the video to Red Light District, a company "he knew or should have known" was behind celebrity sex tapes, a la Paris Hilton's 1 Night in Paris, "around the time" of the release of his first post-Creed album.
Stapp's The Great Divide began moving sluggishly out of stores in November; the sex tape zoomed into the zeitgeist in February. (Not that the lawsuit noted it, but Kid Rock's new concert album, Live Trucker, was even more well-timed to the sex tape--it debuted Tuesday.)
Reached for comment late Friday, Red Light District attorney Ray Tamaddon said he hadn't yet seen the Doe lawsuit. But he said, in general, the company's position is that the tape was shot with the knowledge and consent of all the featured players.
"The claim [of invasion of privacy] is a little hard to fathom because the tape depicts a large number of people in a very public place," Tamaddon said.
As for the woman's intimation that Stapp partnered up with Red Light to orchestrate the tape's release, Tamaddon responded: "We did not get the tape from Scott Stapp."
Per the lawsuit, the unidentified woman is seeking unspecified damages "in excess of" $15,000. She's also seeking a temporary restraining order barring the sale and distribution of the tape.
Kid Rock's legal team has already lent a hand on that last request. On Feb. 21, his side went to federal court to win a preliminary injunction idling Red Light District's sex-tape selling sites, KidRockSexTape.com and ScottStappSexTape.com. The company was also forced to pull teaser trailer footage from its sites.
A call to the attorney representing Stapp was not immediately returned Friday.
Rock weighed in on the Stapp matter on Thursday, telling the AP that Stapp is "an idiot" for the tape's public debut.
Said Rock: "I'm holding him responsible."