Court Orders Shop Owner To Pay Rihanna £1m For Selling T-shirts With Unflattering' Image Of Her

Rihanna yesterday won a permanent ban on Topshop selling T-shirts (pictured right above) using her image - and an order that Sir Philip Green’s high street fashion chain must pay her estimated legal costs of almost £1million.

Topshop owners Arcadia Group were ordered by Mr Justice Birss at the High Court to pay £200,000 of this within 14 days, even though he found the size of her bill ‘startling’ and ‘somewhat surprising’.

The Chancery Division judge ruled in July that fans of the 25-year-old singer from Barbados, who was not in court, might have been deceived into thinking that she had endorsed the T-shirt.

Topshop had sold the garment - which bore an image of her taken from a photograph - between March and August 2012. The judge said sale of the T-shirt without her permission was ‘passing off’.

Rihanna also sought the return of any unsold T-shirts, but the court in Central London heard that all 12,000 had been sold - and only five were left and kept for the legal action.