14 DAY TRIAL // A former beauty queen who appeared on the popular television show “Wife Swap” when she was just 15 is now going after Disney, ABC and RDF Media, filing a lawsuit in which she claims her being on the show completely ruined her life. The way in which she was portrayed led to ridicule, bullying and mockery, and Alicia Guastafarro is asking $100 million in damages for it, the New York Post has learned.
Guastafarro’s claim is that, back when she was asked to appear on the show, she had no power to say no because she was only 15. Aside from the fact that she didn’t get a penny for her appearance, she was also instructed by producers how to behave and what to say to come across as a spoiled brat, which was far from how she was in real life. Because of this, she’s been living a nightmare ever since the show aired.
“A teen ex-beauty queen is suing Disney and the TV show ‘Wife Swap’ for $100 million – charging hat they intentionally ruined her life by making her look like a spoiled brat, exposing her to ‘ridicule, mockery and derision.’ ‘For their own profit, defendants purposefully, intentionally and knowingly caused severe emotional and psychological harm to a fragile 15-year-old,’ says the Manhattan Supreme Court suit, which also targets ABC and RDF Media. [Guastafarro] was so wounded by ‘incessant verbal and physical assaults from her peers,’ the suit says, that the former honor student had to finish high school in a special program,” the NY Post says of the lawsuit.
“The former Little Miss Buffalo said she was instructed to pretend to get a ‘Christmas present’ every morning, to angrily return her cereal to her mom and to repeat such lines as ‘I am the most popular girl in school.’ She adds that penalty clauses in her contract ‘prohibited and discouraged’ her from explaining her behavior and that while her mom, Karen, got $20,000 from the show, she didn’t get a dime,” the same media outlet points out.
The show, as fans would know, features two families who swap mothers, with one taking the place of the other for a short while and having to deal with the other family’s rules. So far, neither of the defendants has been available for comment regarding the claims made by Guastafarro.