Entertainment
50 Shades of Grey cuffs ex-WWE star Chelsea Green with cease and desist order
Former WWE superstar Chelsea Green has been rocked by a cease and desist order from 50 Shades.
The 30-year-old wrestler – who was released from the company last month – recently launched her 50 Shades of Green podcast playing on the title of the racy book and film series, but she’s been forced to rename it Green With Envy after some pushback.
Speaking on this week’s episode, she said: ‘On Tuesday, I received a surprising email from my lawyer and it read, “Chelsea, much to our surprise, we received the attached cease and desist letter concerning your use of 50 Shades of Green trademark concerning your podcast and merchandise.
‘”As you know from this letter, the complaining party is the owner of 50 Shades of Grey, the brand. My gut tells me they are not going away and they certainly had deep pockets to fight this.”
‘The real ****ing 50 Shades of Grey cares about me and this podcast. “Christian Grey, what are you going to do, handcuff me? How about we make up a safe word, Mr. Grey”. How about cease and ****ing desist.’
The UK-based company owns the trademark 50 Shades of Grey, and Chelsea explained how they cited ‘the overlap of goods and services and the similarities in the wording of the mark’ as a reason for ‘inevitable’ confusion.
Thus, they asked the star to ‘abandon’ her plans and use of the trademark.
Reflecting on her decision to use the name in the first place, Chelsea – who also goes by the nickname the Hot Mess – admitted there were a few factors as they whittled down around ’20 different options’.
‘Hot Mess was extremely oversaturated in the podcast world, as well as trademarks, so that was tough. We moved onto different options with Green in it,’ she explained.
‘The reason we chose 50 Shades of Green wasn’t because there was no podcast with the name. It was the opposite, it’s because there were two or three, which meant if they are coexisting then, in theory, we should be able to coexist with them.
‘The name also wasn’t oversaturated. There were a few podcasts with the name, but nothing to do with wrestling and nobody had the trademarks.
‘We thought it was great. What we didn’t consider was that a massive movie and book franchise would care about a tiny podcast hosted by a wrestler.’
Chelsea is currently focused on her career outside of WWE after her departure, and she recently revealed she is keen to pose for Playboy magazine.
She exclusively told Metro.co.uk: ‘I have a bucket list of things I wanna do… Definitely I wanna be killed in a horror movie. I’ve always wanted that, I always found it so hilarious where you see the girl running and they always trip and fall, and then they get killed.
‘It’s just how it works! So I wanna be that girl. Right now, I’m trying to work at making contacts in Playboy to hopefully do that.’
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