'Real Housewife' Bethenny Frankel Sues Tea Company For Copying Skinnygirl

SG Marks, the company owned by Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel, has filed a lawsuit against the creators of SkinnyGirl Tea, a product which promises to promote natural weight loss.

According to the lawsuit, SkinnyGirl Tea proprietors Travis and Stacey Labarge owe their success to the brand recognition provided by Frankel, and have been unfairly piggybacking off her own brand, Skinnygirl (styled in earlier iterations as SkinnyGirl).

Frankel's brand, which began in 2009 with the book Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting and later launched a line of ready-to-serve cocktails, has since expanded to include snacks like hummus, popcorn, and nutrition bars.

Frankel is seeking damages and has asked a court to strip the tea company of its SkinnyGirl name.

According to TMZ, the Labarges maintain that the name is purely coincidental, and that it was generated based on Google keywords for weight loss tea. SkinnyGirl Tea's website is currently inactive.