Teri Hatcher courted for paying lip service
Natalie Finn

LOS ANGELES—Hydroderm wants Teri Hatcher to put her money where her mouth is. The skincare company, which boasts that its products are “better than botox,” filed a $2 million breach-of-contract lawsuit Tuesday against the Desperate Housewives star, claiming that she wrongfully promoted another firm’s product. According to the complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Hatcher inked a deal with Hydroderm in November 2005 to tout the benefits of the company’s line of aging antidotes. Then, despite their contract’s no-competition clause, Hatcher got on board with City Cosmetics, as well.
The former Bond girl was photographed in association with the competitor’s products and agreed to be interviewed about using City Cosmetics-brand products, including its centerpiece City Lips lip plumper, which directly competes with Hydroderm’s lip enhancer, the suit states.
Apparently Hatcher had signed up with City Cosmetics beforehand, and Hydroderm wouldn’t have entertained her as a celebrity sponsor if it had known about the deal, the company claims. While no one’s arguing that Hatcher obviously has no trouble putting on the perfect pout or puckering up for her Desperate duties, her attorney said Tuesday that Hydroderm’s lawsuit is “a transparent and pathetic effort to distract form its own failure to live up to its end of the agreement” and that it’s his client who has had to put up with the company’s inter-office woes.
“Despite having to deal with a frustrating series of changes in the ownership and management of Hydroderm over the last several years, Teri Hatcher has more than fully complied with all of her contractual obligations over the course of the relationship,” her counsel said in a statement to E! News.