A Dallas influencer who has cultivated an image for her 400,000 followers of a body-positive, health-conscious, family-friendly mother of three alleges an intimate apparel company “disempowered and humiliated” her by posting an AI-generated deepfake image appearing to show her partially nude body on Instagram.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco Tuesday by Molly Tranchin against EBY Inc. — an underwear brand co-founded by Renata Black and Sofia Vergara that stands for “Empowered by You” — brings claims for violation of the California deepfake statute, aiding and abetting disclosure of a nonconsensual deepfake, invasion of privacy, defamation, breach of contract, tortious interference and copyright infringement. Tranchin had served as a brand ambassador for the company since May 2024 and was compensated for posting content to her followers promoting EBY products in accordance with a contract.
“EBY’s conduct — violating plaintiff’s bodily autonomy in order to sell underwear — is the opposite of the female empowerment that EBY purports to champion,” the suit alleges. “When plaintiff contacted EBY about the public posting on Instagram of an offensive AI-generated image purporting to show plaintiff in a state of undress, EBY apologized for the ‘inconvenience.’”
EBY did not respond to a message seeking comment Thursday.
Tranchin’s lawyer, Brett Rosenthal of Reese Marketos, told The Texas Lawbook that EBY had not only disclaimed responsibility for the post, but at one point also threatened his client with a breach of contract claim after she declined to provide additional content to the company.
“It’s incredibly embarrassing, as you can imagine,” he said, discussing the impact the post has had on his client. “And most people don’t realize, because of the quality of an AI deepfake these days, that it’s not real. It looks real, and most people assumed she had crossed a boundary and completely changed the type of content that she was putting out there. … [It was] reputationally damaging to her business and her reputation among her followers, and also personally distressing to have people think that you would do this when you had nothing to do with it.”
Tranchin, whose Instagram handle is FashionVeggie, has been building a following since 2014 and has shifted her focus over the years from vegan clothes and beauty products to posts that highlight her life as a wife and mother of three sons. But her interest in fashion has remained, and according to the lawsuit she has regularly partnered with apparel companies that promote body positivity.
For the partnership with EBY, Tranchin’s agent and the company entered a contract Sept. 23, 2025, under which she would create three videos that EBY could “review and evaluate” prior to posting during “one round of reasonable edits to the content.”
If any revisions were requested, the company was required to send Tranchin feedback and she would “revise accordingly,” according to the lawsuit.
“Importantly, the contract does not permit EBY to unilaterally alter [the content] without review and approval from Ms. Tranchin,” the lawsuit reads. “Indeed, the contract expressly provides that Ms. Tranchin ‘retains full ownership of all right, title, and interest in and to the content, including all copyrights and other intellectual property rights therein,’ which includes the right to create derivative works.”
The contract also allows Tranchin to terminate the agreement if EBY becomes “the subject of public controversy, scandal, or disrepute, or otherwise takes or is the subject of any action which shocks, insults, or offends the community of creator, including, without limitation, creator’s audience, followers, or subscribers.” That clause, the lawsuit alleges, shows the value Tranchin places on her “reputation and personal brand.”
Pursuant to the contract, Tranchin sent EBY a video in October 2025 where she was wearing the company’s products and “modestly covering her chest and breast with her arms.”
“But EBY — a company that is purportedly dedicated to empowering women — did not post what Ms. Tranchin created, nor did EBY exercise its contractual right to make one round of ‘reasonable’ edits with Ms. Tranchin’s consent,” the lawsuit alleges. “Instead, EBY unilaterally posted an altered video (or ‘deepfake’) of Ms. Tranchin that depicts her exposing her breasts and nipples through one of EBY’s sheer bras.”
Her followers responded swiftly, according to the lawsuit, sending her messages that included screenshots, expressing they were “shocked to see such explicit content on Ms. Tranchin’s social media pages.”
EBY executives, including Black, initially wrote to Tranchin apologizing but has “avoided taking responsibility for its conduct” by “playing the blame game and pointing the finger at other companies that EBY claims (without providing evidence) are responsible,” the lawsuit alleges.
The case has been assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter H. Kang, who has scheduled an initial case management conference in the case for Sept. 9.
Tranchin is also represented by Leah Judge of Kessenick Gamma and Allison Cook and Margaret Terwey of Reese Marketos.
The case number is 3:26-CV-05559.