S&M Gets Rough For Rihanna

There’s always been a fine line between homage and infringement and now, in the dust up between Rihanna and renowned fashion photographer David LaChapelle, it will be in the hands of the court to decide just where that line is drawn.

Yahoo! Music reports that LaChapelle has filed a lawsuit claiming that the concept for Rihanna’s “S&M” video is directly based on eight of his photos and permission was never granted for their use.

In one of LaChapelle’s photos, a woman lays on a gurney and is attended to by a staff of clowns. By comparison, the Melina Matsoukas-directed video features the Barbados native resting on a desk, surrounded by clowns that happen to be reporters.

And since LaChapelle knows his way around a set, having directed vids for Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani and others, he took to Twitter with a suggestion – “The next time you make a David LaChapelle music video you should probably hire David LaChapelle”.

Not sure where the truth lies (and we hope they can work things out amicably) but this story is a good excuse to watch the video again: