New court documents reveal that a man named Alvin Gray-El is suing World of Dance executive producer and judge Jennifer Lopez for allegedly stealing the idea for the NBC competition series from him. He’s requesting $6.5 million in damages.
In the suit, Gray-El alleges that he sent the idea for the show (working title: Let’s Start the Dance) to dance icon Debbie Allen—whom he is also suing—back in 2009. He says he never heard back from Debbie, and when he later tried to file his idea with the U.S. Copyright Office, he was told that a similar show was being developed by NBC and J.Lo.
What is unclear is how Gray-El’s idea was supposedly passed on from Debbie to J.Lo—Debbie is not involved with the show, which debuted in 2017 and currently stars J.Lo, Derek Hough, and Ne-Yo as judges.
According to a source close to J.Lo, who spoke with TMZ, the idea for the show had been “floating around NBC years ago” and it was the network that brought it to J.Lo.
For her part, J.Lo doesn’t seem to be too hung up on the suit.
