Country star Luke Combs issued a public apology to a Florida woman ordered to pay $250,000 for using his likeness on fan merchandise she sold online — and the “Fast Car” singer promised to pay her back double the money that was frozen in the legal action.
Nicol Harness, of Pinellas County, has congestive heart failure and makes her living by selling tumblers and t-shirts on Amazon, she told NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa.
A big fan of Combs, she sold 18 tumblers on her online shop, making just $380 from those sales.
She had no idea she was sued by Combs in October in a copyright infringement case filed in Illinois federal court against her and a slew of other online shops. Harness told WFLA the email notice of the suit went to her spam folder.
The case closed on Nov. 15, when a judge found she was liable for federal trademark infringement and counterfeiting. She was banned from using his trademarks and ordered to pay statutory damages of $250,000.
Harness said that’s money she doesn’t have.
“It’s very stressful. I don’t have money to pay my bills. I just want this resolved. I didn’t mean any harm to Luke Combs. I quit selling the tumbler. I pulled it down. I just don’t understand,” she told WFLA in an interview that published Tuesday.
One day after Harness’ interview went live, Combs took to social media to apologize to her, saying he felt “sick to my stomach”.
“I woke up at 5 a.m. to use the restroom and the first thing I saw is this: a woman that’s being sued by me for $250,000. I spent the last two hours trying to make this right, trying to figure out what’s going on because I was completely and utterly unaware of this,” he said in a video on Instagram.
“So, we do have a company that goes after folks, only supposedly large corporations operating internationally, that make millions and millions of dollars making counterfeit t-shirts, things of that nature, running illegal businesses,” the singer explained. “And apparently this woman, Nicol, has…
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