The alleged plagiarizing of recipes is no longer a laughing matter for Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld.
An author today sued the latter today for stealing ideas from a cookbook she wrote, while accusing the comedian of defaming her as a "wacko" during an interview with David Letterman.
In a federal lawsuit, Missy Chase Lapine (pictured below) alleges that Jessica Seinfeld "brazenly plagiarized" from her 2007 book "The Sneaky Chef" in the writing of Seinfeld's own cookbook , both of which focused on on how to prepare healthy meals for children, without their knowledge of said nutrition.
When news stories appeared detailing similarities in the two books, Jerry Seinfeld launched a "malicious, premeditated, and knowingly false and defamatory attack" on Lapine, the complaint states. As part of that campaign, Seinfeld went on Letterman's show and described Lapine as "angry" and "hysterical."
He subsequently compared her to the kind of "wackos" that had previously stalked Letterman, despite the fact that Lapine herself had never uttered a public word about Jessica swiping recipes.
Missy Chase Lapine will see the Seinfelds in court!
The comedian then added that Lapine was a "three-name woman" and "if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins."
That is a pretty good line, Missy has to admit.
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8 Comments
January 8th, 2008 8:14 PM
seinfeld is such an arrogant a-hole, i hope she takes him for all his millions. what a c-sucker
January 8th, 2008 9:41 PM
Jessica Seinfeld SO obviously copied and only minimally changed Missy Lapine's cookbook and called it her own. Wow, READ THE LAWSUIT on "TheSmokingGun.com" website before you take my word. It's so amazing to see all of the stuff that Jessica Seinfeld copied and changed very little from the real book by Missy Lapine.
I mean, my god, what is wrong with her agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh (who also represented the PLAGIARIST Kaavya Viswanathan from Harvard)? Does she think that the public is stupid? It's sooooo simple to put the books together as the lawsuit papers show on thesmokinggun.com to see what happened. This makes Oprah look like an IDIOT!
IT IS SHOCKING!!! Jessica Seinfeld is SO BUSTED! Jerry is going to have to pay out the whazoo for this one! Good for Missy!
January 8th, 2008 11:31 PM
Jennifer Rudolph Walsh has a history of stealing books (yes, already PUBLISHED material) and now she has stolen Missy Lapine's book and GIVEN it to the dummmy Jessica Seinfeld. Ms. Walsh is just motivated by greed without ethics. Only now, Missy Lapine has some bad-ass attorneys who are demanding a jury trial. Ms. Walsh is what is wrong in publishing. Poor Jessica! See what Jerry got you into!!!
January 12th, 2008 10:22 PM
Wow, I have the Lapine cookbook and when I saw Jessica Seinfeld on Oprah I was very surprised by what certainly seemed like the same concept with a very similar delivery and feel to it. I think there should be a lot of latitude with regard to broad ideas used in different ways but this is clearly a case of plagarism. If Seinfeld or the publishers claim to have been unaware of the existence of the previous Lapine publication then shame on them for bad research/fact checking etc. Now that she has appeared on and was boisterously endorsed by Oprah, I wonder if she will get the same overzealous shaming and finger shaking James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces got for fictionalizing portions of his autobiography. I doubt it, even though I think plagarizing warrants far more criticism than exaggerating.
January 22nd, 2008 1:28 AM
I Only found out about the lawsuit yesterday, and today read the actual lawsuit on smoking gun. Jessica what were you thinking? I'd like to return my book back to Amazon....I haven't even read it yet
February 15th, 2008 10:57 PM
I think it is disgusting. Especially after Jessica Seinfelds publishers turned down Miss Lapine's book proposals twice. She even sent them up to four chapters including the introductory texts, etc. They told her the market is NO good for childrens books and there are lots of recipes on the internet. Imagine t hat.
My perception is that Harper Collins directly/indirectly collaborated with Miss Seinfeld using the drafts Miss Lapine had submitted.
February 21st, 2008 10:25 PM
This is an absolute disgrace. As if the Seinfeld's are wealthy enough. Jessica Seinfeld is a totally dishonest, stupid, woman. She does not have an ounce of sense, and, certainly lacks a conscience. How dare she steal Missy's work! Missy is highly educated in this area. What is Jessica's area of expertise? Being a gold digger?
August 2nd, 2009 3:21 PM
Now see that's funny, cuz it's real.