The famous reality TV star from The Real Housewives of Atlanta – NeNe Leakes, has been accused of design theft.

NeNe Leakes is in the middle of a bit of a mess with Tess in the Trap, an indie t-shirt design brand accusing her of stealing the brand’s t-shirt design.  Here is what a representative from Tess in the Trap had to say:

“While we can’t stop her from selling a Girl Bye tee, we did legally stop her from selling a design that looked exactly like ours. She has now changed the font completely and is selling her own version of the shirt, which was completely fine with us until she had her lawyers send us a cease and desist letter saying that we had no right to have her shirt taken down and since she’s more popular and made the saying “Girl Bye” famous that she has the exclusive right to use it on shirts and we don’t, so we need to take ours down. NO ACTUAL legal defense other than, she’s more famous.”

Below, NeNe Leakes is seen wearing Tess in the Trap’s t-shirt on the left and then her own design on the right.

This looks to me like she copied the design, simple. This is way more than an inspiration here. I have heard NeNe say ‘Girl,bye’ a couple of times on The Real Housewives of Atlanta,  but that doesn’t mean she owns the phrase and it doesn’t give her the right to copy it so blatantly. That said, it looks like NeNe has gone as far as trademarking the phrase. I just hope this is all a lie. I respect NeNe too much for her to steal a common indie t-shirt design. What do you think?