Rapper T.I. and his wife Tameka "Tiny" Harris have won a $71 million lawsuit against the maker of the popular L.O.L. Surprise! dolls after alleging the brand's line of "O.M.G." dolls copied the likeness of members of the now-defunct OMG Girlz, a teen pop group founded by the pair 15 years ago that included Harris' daughter.
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MGA launched the L.O.L. Surprise! (short for "Li'l Outrageous Littles") line of dolls in December of 2016. The dolls tapped into the "unboxing" phenomenon that was taking over kids' content on YouTube at the time and saw young creators opening toys or other products online, capturing the packaging and the creator's reaction in real time. The L.O.L. Surprise! Dolls were billed as the ultimate unboxing experience -- kids were able to peel back seven layers of surprise packaging one at a time, with each revealing a sticker, charms, shoes or accessory and, ultimately, a collectable doll. Consumers weren't able to tell which doll would be inside from the packaging -- buyers had to purchase and open them to find out -- and they sold for as little as $7 each. Within five months of launch, L.O.L. Surprise! became the top-selling doll in the country with more than 2.5 million units sold, according to market research firm The NPD Group. The company then released other related lines of L.O.L. Surprise! toys including the O.M.G. line Three video games have been released based on the toys and Netflix released two original animated movies.
Harris, known professionally as Tiny, was a member of the R&B vocal group Xscape in the 1990s and won a Grammy Award for her writer's credits on TLC's hit song "No Scrubs." She formed the OMG Girlz in 2009 with Pullins and Rodriguez and signed the band to her Pretty Hustle record label in 2011, after adding Womack as the third member. The group released several albums, appeared in T.I.'s music video for "Hello" and were featured on BET's "The Tiny & Toya Show" and VH1's "T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle." The group broke up in 2015 but reunited and released a single in 2023.