Queen Latifah Sues over "The Perfect Holiday"

Queen Latifah is an Academy Award-nominated actress who has appeared in such movies as Chicago, to which she also lent her vocal talents as a Grammy Award-winning singer (actually, she started out as a rapper). She can now be seen gracing our television screen in the occasional Jenny Craig commercial. She is undoubtedly recognizable, so it seems odd that a production company would simply not pay her for a cameo role in a film. However, this seems to be the case at the moment. On Wednesday, Queen Latifah, whose real name is Dana Owens, sued a small production company which was partly responsible for financing the film, The Perfect Holiday. Owens says she has not been paid any money for her cameo in The Holiday to date. Perfect Christmas Productions breached her contract and owe her $270,000 for her cameo appearance in the film, according to her lawyers.

The Perfect Holiday, a 96 minute Christmas comedy, was released in December of 2007. Dana Owens coproduced this film which starred Terrence Howard and Gabrielle Union. The Perfect Holiday, originally known as The Perfect Christmas, grossed over $5.8 million by February 2008. The lawsuit against the California-based production company was filed in Manhattan federal court.