Former Dancing With the Stars professional dancer Louis Van Amstel (seasons 1-3) is choreographing for a new dance show called Ballroom With a Twist. He’s poached a bunch of professional dancers from the ABC hit Dancing With the Stars including Valentin Chmerkovskiy, Emma Slater, Sharna Burgess, Peta Murgatroyd and Jenna Johnson. The problem is DWTS Productions (and BBC, DWTS originated in the UK), are claiming infringed rights and unfair competition. They filed a complaint in California’s federal court this week.
The promotional materials for Ballroom With a Twist do look pretty familiar – the logo is made of the same color, font and design as DWTS, and Ballroom even makes a reference to DWTS in its ads – “a non-competitive spinoff of Dancing With the Stars, featur[ing] sizzling performances by jaw-dropping ‘DWTS’ celebrity pros.” Think the lawsuit has legs?
