Tina Turner sues simply the best tribute lookalike

Dorothea ‘Coco’ Fletcher bears a striking resemblance to the American pop star but is about 50 years younger.

Tina Turner impersonator Coco Fletcher of Germany performs in Las Vegas in 2020. Picture: Getty Images

What’s law got to do, got to do with it? Who needs copyright when copyright can be broken?

These are among the questions for a judge in a German court where pop star Tina Turner, 81, is suing over a tribute act that is said to look too much like the real thing.

Legal experts say the outcome may reverberate through the musical lookalike scene in a country where imitations of Robbie Williams and the Rolling Stones are a multimillion-euro industry. At the centre of the case is a poster for Simply the Best — The Tina Turner Story, a tribute show that has toured Europe for years. The woman in the picture is Dorothea “Coco” Fletcher, the star of the show, who bears a striking resemblance to Turner but is about 50 years younger.

Turner’s lawyers say the average punter could be misled.

She is not the first celebrity to wage this kind of battle in Germany. The country has a “right of personality”, which includes the power for individuals to determine how their image is used in public. Conceptual artist Yoko Ono, 88, widow of John Lennon, forced the owner of two bars, Yoko Mono and John Lemon, to rename them. Turner’s chances of success look slim. She won the first round of her case against Cofo Entertainment but it won an appeal. Now the case is before the Federal Court of Justice.

Brunhilde Ackermann, representing Cofo, said only a “chronically stupid person” would mix up Turner with her lookalike.

The case continues and the verdict is expected to be delivered in February.

The Times