Ex-Model Jael's Barebones Settlement

Cycle eight finalist settles up with agent and photog she accused of publishing nude pics without permission

By Natalie Finn Feb 08, 2008 3:30 AMTags

No one's losing his shirt over this one.

Onetime America's Next Top Model finalist Jael Strauss has settled her invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against her former talent agent and a photographer she accused of publishing underage nude pictures of her without permission.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but a court clerk confirmed that no further action was on the docket.

In her suit, filed in July in Los Angeles Superior Court, Strauss claimed that writer-lensman Marc Baptiste took revealing photos of her in 2000, when she was only 16, and then included two particularly bare shots in his book Beautiful: Nudes by Marc Baptiste without getting an okay from the minor's parents.

More material from the long ago photo shoot hit the Internet when Strauss, 22, made it into the top five on the eighth cycle of Top Model.

The complaint against Baptiste, Rizzoli/Universe Publications, her ex-agent, Christopher Donahue—who she claims signed off on the book without informing her—and his company, Millennium Agency, alleged invasion of privacy, theft of image and unjust enrichment.

Strauss, the raspy-voiced former band manager who impressed Tyra Banks, et al., with her look but antagonized with her lack of professionalism, also charged that Baptiste offered her alcohol during the Malibu shoot to relax her and then, back at her home, "inquired whether Jael would like to have sex with him.

"She declined."

The book's publication and the unwelcome Internet presence "damaged [Strauss] in the beginning of her entertainment career and caused severe damage to her public image," the lawsuit stated.