{"id":7445,"date":"2025-08-20T08:50:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T08:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/prince-estate-faces-lawsuit-from-purple-rain-co-star-apollonia\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T08:50:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T08:50:06","slug":"prince-estate-faces-lawsuit-from-purple-rain-co-star-apollonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/prince-estate-faces-lawsuit-from-purple-rain-co-star-apollonia\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Estate Faces Lawsuit From ‘Purple Rain’ Co-Star Apollonia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tT<\/span>he singer and actress Apollonia, a Prince protegee who co-starred in his 1984 film Purple Rain<\/em>, alleges in a new lawsuit that the estate of the late pop icon is trying to \u201csteal\u201d her name in bad faith trademark proceedings.<\/p>\n

\n\tApollonia (Patty Kotero) brought the claims in a Tuesday (Aug. 19) complaint against Paisley Park Enterprises LLC, one of the entities that has managed Prince\u2019s affairs since his death in 2016. Apollonia rose to fame playing a character of the same name in Purple Rain<\/em>, and has since used the moniker for music releases, acting credits and a podcast hosting gig.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cAll of the goodwill associated with the name and trademark \u2018Apollonia\u2019 for the past four decades is attributable to plaintiff,\u201d writes her lawyer, Daniel Cislo<\/strong>, in the complaint. \u201cThere is only one Apollonia, and Apollonia is the source of the goods and services provided under this name. Therefore, to protect her brand, Ms. Kotero owns several \u2018Apollonia\u2019 trademark applications and registrations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the lawsuit, Prince never had an issue with Apollonia using this name professionally and even encouraged her to do so. But after the singer\u2019s death, Apollonia says, his estate has been on a mission to \u201cacquire all things related to Prince even though it has no legal right to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tApollonia alleges that as part of that mission, Prince\u2019s heirs have \u201cembarked on an aggressive campaign\u201d to cancel her trademarks and claim ownership of the name \u201cApollonia\u201d at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).<\/p>\n

\n\tPrince\u2019s estate has allegedly claimed that Apollonia signed over her rights to this name as part of her Purple Rain <\/em>movie contract in the 1980s. But she argues in Tuesday\u2019s lawsuit that this is legally meritless.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEven assuming arguendo that Plaintiff signed any agreement decades ago, the statute of limitations for breach of contract expired long ago, and neither Prince nor anyone on his behalf ever requested Apollonia cease using her name or demanded she stop using her name on a personal or professional level,\u201d the lawsuit reads. \u201cContrary to defendants\u2019 claims before the TTAB, Prince and Apollonia were friends, and he wanted her to be successful as Apollonia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tApollonia is now seeking a court declaration that she, not Prince\u2019s heirs, owns this name. She claims the Prince estate\u2019s trademark litigation is threatening \u201cto disrupt not only Apollonia\u2019s livelihood, but also her identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLegal reps for the Prince estate did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\tApollonia\u2019s song from Purple Rain<\/em>, \u201cSex Shooter,\u201d spent six weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984. She continued collaborating with Prince after the film, providing vocals on his No. 25 hit \u201cTake Me With U\u201d and co-writing the Bangles hit \u201cManic Monday\u201d with the High Priest of Pop. She went on to appear in the soap opera series Falcon Crest<\/em> and release the self-titled album Apollonia <\/em>via Warner Bros. in 1988.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The singer and actress Apollonia, a Prince protegee who co-starred in his 1984 film Purple Rain, alleges in a new lawsuit that the estate of the late pop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6661,6660,70,458,303,2427,6658,6659],"class_list":["post-7445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-apollonia","tag-costar","tag-estate","tag-faces","tag-lawsuit","tag-prince","tag-purple","tag-rain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}