Between giving birth, getting married and divorced all on their E! reality show, The Kardashians are pretty much an open book.
But there's one book the public family wish to remain closed — their late father's diary.
The Kardashians are suing Ellen Pearson, who their father Robert Kardashian married two months before his death in 2003, for allegedly selling personal family possessions to the media — including her late husband's diary, family photo albums and a family holiday photograph.
"The items are said to document the lives of the Kardashians before they were famous and have recently turned up in the media," reports The Hollywood Reporter.
Pearson is said to have licensed portions of diaries and photos to Bauer Publishing, owner of In Touch and Life & Style, which have been using the material for sensational magazine covers.
In a lawsuit filed on Thursday in California federal court, the Kardashians and Kris Jenner claim that Pearson has engineered a "despicable and unlawful scheme to hold in secret and convert, and now exploit ... private personal and copyright protected" material.
According to the Kardashians, their father’s will gave them the rights to the “bulk of his personal tangible and intangible property" and they're now arguing that the diary and family photo albums are "incontestably" their inheritance and property.
"The reality stars are further alleging that Pearson willfully hid the possessions, and failed to declare them when she filed for bankruptcy in 2010, despite knowing they held monetary value as a result of the family’s ever-growing fame," reports GossipCop.
Instead, the reality TV family is arguing that Pearson hold onto the diaries and photos “with the express intent to one-day capitalize and exploit the valuable property and celebrity of the famous Robert Kardashian.”
They’re suing for “conversion and copyright infringement and demanding a full and complete accounting and imposition of a constructive trust,” according to The Hollywood Reporter, which adds that the sisters are seeking “at least $500,000 in damages, plus more in profits, statutory damages, punitive and exemplary damages.”
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