Kirstie Alley Weight-Loss Products Can’t Dance, Suit Claims
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Donna Ward/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Kirstie Alley might dance with the stars, but her weight-loss products deserve a “1″ from the judges, a new lawsuit claims.
The class-action lawsuit was filed against the former Cheers actress and Organic Liaison weight-loss supplements, which she hawks online and on television shopping network QVC and says have helped her lose 100 pounds.
According to a lawsuit filed by lead plaintiff Marina Abramyan against Organic Liaison LLC, Organic Liaison Management and Kirstie Alley in Superior Court, the products — including Rescue Me, which allegedly reduces cravings for food and appetite and Relieve Me, which allegedly supports colon cleansing, aids weight loss and prevents fluid retention and bloating — “are nothing more than run-of-the-mill fiber and calcium supplements.”
Abramyan, who claims that she didn’t lose a pound on the program, argues in the suit that there is no scientific evidence that the products cause weight loss. Furthermore, she alleges, although the ads maintain that the supplements are “USDA approved,” they are, “neither certified as an effective weight-loss aid by the USDA nor anything more than standard dietary supplements incapable of causing weight loss.”
According to the complaint, the Florida-based company used misleading before-and-after pictures of Alley, who did not shed her weight from the Organic Liaison Program, but because of, “an above average exercise regimen and extremely low calorie diet,” which included “five to seven hours of daily exercising as part of her stint on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ (DWTS) in the spring of 2011.”
“In peddling the Organic Liaison Programs, which are sold online and on QVC, Ms. Alley attributes her weight loss to the program, but in reality, Ms. Alley’s weight loss is due to nothing more than the tried and true concept of diet and exercise,” the suit says.
Organic Liaison disputed the claims, calling them “patently false.”
“Ms. Alley participated in DWTS for only a short period of time during her approximately 1 1/2 year participation in the Organic Liaison program; the vast majority of her weight loss had nothing to do with her participation in that show,” the company told ABC News in a statement. “It is Ms. Alley’s persistence over 1 1/2 years on the Organic Liaison program, coupled with regular exercise, that lead to her dramatic weight loss over that time period; this is consistent with Organic Liaison’s advertising and representations, none of which create false net impressions to the reasonable consumer…We will vigorously defend ourselves against these frivolous claims.”
The suit seeks an unspecified amount in damages for false advertising on behalf of costumers who have used the Organic Liaison program since July 2008.
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