Sued Over Calling Someone A “Nappy Headed Ho?”

15 Aug, 2007 by John Hawkins

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If there was a frivolous lawsuit hall of fame, this lawsuit would probably merit at least an honorary mention,

Don Imus is facing his first lawsuit from a player on the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team for derogatory comments that cost him his job as a radio host in April, ABC News has learned.

Kia Vaughn, star center for the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team, has filed a lawsuit against Imus for libel, slander and defamation — the first civil suit to be filed against the former radio host. Vaughn is asking for monetary damages of an unspecified amount.

“This is a lawsuit in order to restore the good name and reputation of my client, Kia Vaughn,” said her attorney, Richard Ancowitz, in an exclusive interview with the ABC News Law & Justice Unit.

The suit names Imus individually, but it is also waged against MSNBC, NBC Universal, CBS Radio, CBS Corp., Viacom Inc., Westwood One Radio and Imus producer Bernard McGuirk.

Today’s suit refers to terms used by Imus April 4 — including referring to women on the team as “nappy headed” — as “debasing, demeaning, humiliating, and denigrating” to Vaughn and her fellow players. “There’s no way these bigoted remarks should have seen the light of day,” Ancowitz told ABC News.

“Don Imus referred to my client as an unchaste woman. That was and is a lie.”

Kia Vaughn may not be a “nappy headed ho,” but she is certainly a lawsuit-happy, gold-digging scam artist who’s hoping that she’ll get a payday to make her disappear.

That must be what she’s angling for because her lawsuit is laughable on its face, but there’s something that Kia Vaughn didn’t think about before she decided to play lawsuit lottery: if anyone settles, just to get her to go away, they’re essentially inviting the 11 other members of the team to try the same thing.

For that reason, it’s hard to imagine Vaughn getting enough money to make this worth her while, but we’ll see.

PS: I’m not an Imus fan at all, but I thought the whole “nappy headed ho” affair was incredibly overblown and it was nauseating to watch the guy groveling and apologizing to anyone and everyone who would listen every five minutes, just to have it thrown back in his face by people like Al Sharpton.

PS #2: Wouldn’t you love to see Imus rip her up one side and down the other and tell her to shove it?