Scarlett Johansson walks into a garage in northern France, and young mechanic Arthur Dreyfuss, who has never had much success with women, is smitten. For French writer Grégoire Delacourt this was intended to be a mildly amusing scene in his new novel, reports The Guardian.
The Johansson character turns out to be a French model and Johansson lookalike who laments that men only see her as a sex object. It was, said the best-selling author, fiction; but unlike the usual literary caveat, physical similarities with those living were entirely deliberate and meant to be flattering.
Johansson, however, was not amused. The star of Lost in Translation and The Girl With the Pearl Earring sued Delacourt for making false claims about her private life: the fictional character who was not really Scarlett Johansson had two affairs that the real Johansson never had. It was, she said, defamatory – and a French judge agreed.
However, the court threw out her argument that the book – La Première Chose Qu'on Regarde (The First Thing You Look At), which has sold more than 100,000 copies and been translated into several languages – "fraudulently exploited her name, her image and her celebrity" and should not be translated or made into a film, as planned. Instead of the €50,000 (£40,000) in damages Johansson claimed, the court awarded her just €2,500, plus €2,500 in legal costs, saying she had already talked about her private life in interviews.
Emmanuelle Allibert of the publishers J-C Lattès said they and Delacourt were happy with the judgment. "All of Scarlett Johansson's demands were rejected except one thing that was seen to be an attack in her private life over two relations that she never had.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.