You would think that Samsung at this point would have learned that paying high-profile celebrities to “promote” the brand may not be the smartest move. In a scenario we’ve seen play out countless times, celebrities paid to promote Samsung smartphones are often caught using or sending out tweets from their iPhone. A few years ago, for example, Samsung hired supermodel Kate Upton to promote the Galaxy Note 10 launch at an event in New York City. Sounds innocent enough, but Upton was photographed using her iPhone at said event, thus defeating the purpose entirely and providing some free advertising for Apple in the process.
Well as it turns out, Samsung has seemingly had enough of these types of shenanigans. According to a report from the Mirror, Samsung filed a $1.6 million lawsuit against brand ambassador and Russian socialite Ksenia Sobchak after she was caught using an iPhone X on camera, despite her mediocre efforts to hide the phone behind a sheet of paper.
A still of the event in question can be seen below.
Even more peculiar, and damning, is that Sobchak was reportedly spotted at a number of high-profile social events using her personal iPhone as well. The report makes a point of noting that Sobchak “is required by contract to appear in public with her Samsung smartphone.”
Of course, Samsung suing Sobchak might only serve to further embarrass the company by bringing the story into the limelight. It will certainly be interesting to see how Sobchak responds to the suit and if Samsung will aggressively go after her.
At the very least, Sobchak finds herself in rather good company. In recent years, there have been no shortage of celebrities paid to endorse the Android brand who were ultimately found to be iPhone users. Most recently, Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot was caught hyping up the Huawei Mate 10 Pro via a tweet sent out from her iPhone.
