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Pump Rules’ Ariana Madix and Katie Maloney Fire Back at Former Something About Her Chef in Court
Ariana Madix and Katie Maloney fired back at their ex-business partner, Penny Davidi, who accused them of breaching their deal over their sandwich shop, Something About Her, In Touch can exclusively report.
According to court documents obtained by In Touch, Ariana, 39, and Katie, 37, denied all allegations of wrongdoing in the case brought by Penny in July.
Their lawyer argued, “Plaintiffs fail to allege facts sufficient to support any claim for relief, including by failing to allege a justiciable controversy.” Ariana and Katie asked the court to award Penny nothing from her complaint and that the case be dismissed entirely.
The duo asked the court for a jury trial in the case. In her initial lawsuit, Penny claimed that Ariana and Katie screwed her on a deal they had for Something About Her. Penny claimed she was promised a 10 percent cut of the business to serve as COO/Director of Culinary at the reality stars’ West Hollywood restaurant.
Penny said the agreement was reached in June 2023. The agreement was to “jointly engage in the business of developing, creating, owning, operating, promoting … and otherwise profiting and benefiting from … a restaurant, fashion, merchandise, and lifestyle, brand, business, and property … to be known as Something About Her.”
In her lawsuit, Penny said she spent a substantial amount of time working on the business and obtaining trademarks for Something About Her.
Penny said she the deal assured she would be paid $7,500 per month and then the rate would increase to $10,000 per month with time.
The chef said that things turned ugly when Ariana and Katie allegedly refused to honor the deal. Penny asked the court to enforce the alleged deal that would provide her a cut of the successful sandwich shop. A judge has yet to rule on the matter.
Something About Her opened in May and still has lines down the street of people waiting to taste a sandwich.
As In Touch previously reported, Ariana is still in the middle of a nasty lawsuit with her ex-boyfriend Tom Sandoval and their former costar Raquel Leviss. Raquel, 29, sued Tom, 42, and Ariana for invasion of privacy. She accused Tom of secretly recording explicit FaceTime chats they had during their affair. Raquel said Ariana found the videos and she believes Ariana shared them with other. Tom and Ariana denied all allegations of wrongdoing in the case.
“I did not send the videos to anyone else. Nor did I share, display, or show the videos to anyone else,” Ariana said in a court declaration. “To be clear, I only saw the video of [Raquel] … in places secluded from others.”
Raquel argued against her case being dismissed.
She said, “[Ariana’s] implication that my mental health struggles were brief in duration or minor could not be further from the truth. I was in a state of extreme distress as a result of the events described in the lawsuit, and I entered treatment in an extremely dark and scary place mentally. My symptoms included severe emotional distress, physical manifestations of such distress, anxiety, shock, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation, powerless, sleeplessness, nightmares, and loss of enjoyment of life.”
Despite the objections, the court ordered the case could proceed against Tom and Ariana. Ariana recently filed an appeal over the decision.
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