Credit: Shutterstock/Featureflash Photo Agency, Instagram
The dust has mostly settled from The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City finale. Of course, fans remember that Monica Garcia was revealed as being partly behind the Reality Von Tease troll account that has plagued the ladies for years. Many also remember that the profile picture was clearly of Dita Von Teese. Now, Dita is speaking out about her likeness being used for the account.
As many know, Dita has been a fixture in pop culture for quite a while. Perhaps most known for burlesque, she is also a model and businesswoman.
Dita recently sat down on the Behind the Velvet Rope With David Yontef podcast to discuss her life and career. However, the topic of Monica also came up during the conversation. According to Dita, she was aware of the situation but didn’t have a name to blame for stealing her likeness.
She said, “I didn’t know there was a name to it. I’m taking notes. What’s the name? I saw it, but I didn’t know who was behind it.”
Dita continued, “Yeah, people were like, oh, there’s this troll account using your picture. They’re using your picture and a little play on words on your name, and I was kind of like, what? Why do people think it’s okay to use my picture for someone else, for anything really.”
She went on to say, “But I don’t know. I don’t watch the show. I just had a few people say you should get this taken down. Don’t let them use your photo to spew this stuff. But I don’t know anything about it. You’ve just told me more than anybody’s told me.”
Of course, at the time this was all happening, Dita called on her fans to report the picture to Instagram. Dita has about 2.7 million followers on the platform. She also reached out to Meta about having the picture removed.
According to Dita, “I did report it, the image, and Instagram wrote back to me like, oh, can you prove that this is you? And I was like, yeah, it’s a selfie I took during the pandemic with a mask made from the lace of my lingerie brand. I can prove it. But then I also was too busy. Sometimes you just can’t be bothered. I’ve got a long to-do list of things that are more important.”
Based on the podcast, it appears Dita is not interested in taking legal action despite now knowing that Monica was behind the account.
“My attorney actually reached out, and he was like, do you want me to handle this? And I was like, I guess. But do I really wanna put energy into this? Do I really care? There’s so many people that steal photos for whatever reason and use it for things? I was a little bit like, I just can’t put energy into this. I don’t even know what this show is,” she shared.