Fresh Prince’s Alfonso Ribeiro Sues Fortnite Over Use of ‘The Carlton Dance’

Fortnite has grown to be one of the biggest phenomena of the year, and it's popularity just seems to keep growing. What's interesting is, the developers Epic Games have found themselves in a lawsuit for making use of ‘The Carlton Dance'.

According to CNN, Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Carlton Banks in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, has sued the game developers from unfairly profiting from a dance that he popularized back in the 90s. He claims that he was not asked permission to use the dance in the game nor has he received any royalties from Epic.

The lawsuit reads, "Twenty-seven years later, The [Carlton] Dance remains distinctive, immediately recognizable, and inextricably linked to Ribeiro's identity, celebrity, and likeness."

Just for context, here's a compilation of the dance in Fresh Prince:

Here's also a clip of Ribeiro doing the same moves at 2014's Dancing with the Stars:

As per the suit, Epic is said to be faking endorsements and is asking the court for damages, plus they want the company to stop profiting from the dace.

With Epic making a huge amount of money with their game, I'm sure they'll come down to some kind of settlement. With Fortnite dances now being such a huge thing in pop-culture, ‘The Carlton' is probably seeing an all-new rise of popularity thanks to the game. I'm sure a lot of people would protest to having it removed.

Fortnite is now playable for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, and iOS.

See Also: Fortnite Developers Teaming Up with Lucasfilm to Work on Live-Action Series