Actress from Innocence of Muslims Suing Film’s Producer and YouTube for Making Her Life Miserable

Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress who starred in the unfortunately-infamous Innocence of Muslims, is suing both the film’s producer and YouTube, claiming that her involvement in the low-rent, Islamaphobic flick has made her life pretty unpleasant.

A complaint filed by Garcia’s lawyer earlier today in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges fraud, slander, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. Garcia claims that after the YouTube splash Innocence made in the Middle East last week, she has received “credible death threats,” lost her job, and is no longer allowed to care for her grandchildren. Moreover, Garcia says she unwittingly stumbled into this trifecta of suckitude — she claims that producer Sam Bacile (an apparent pseudonym, explains the LA Times, for Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) tricked her into working on Innocence, having told her that he was really making an adventure movie called Desert Warrior about ancient Egypt. And, really, who wouldn’t want to be in a movie about ancient Egypt?

M. Cris Armenta, the lawyer representing Garcia, says that the lawsuit “is not a First Amendment issue. This is an invasion of privacy issue.” All Garcia wants to do, he says, is “clear her name, get the content taken down and let the world know that she did not consent to have her image used in this way.” Otherwise, she could struggle to regain some semblance of normalcy in her life — just ask Salman Rushdie.