In Halle Berry's directorial debut, Bruised, the actress play a mixed martial arts fighter. The movie has resulted in the actress sustaining some injuries, but now one professional MMA fighter claims she's been injured financially by Berry's movie, which has led to her filing a lawsuit against the actor. Former UFC fighter Cat Zingano is suing Halle Berry for damages claiming that Berry offered her a role in Bruised but then did not follow through.
Cat Zingano currently fights for Bellator but she was previously under contract to UFC, and according to the lawsuit obtained by TMZ, Halle Berry's MMA movie Bruised is part of the cause for the change. According to the suit, in July 2019 Zingano met Berry and the pair discussed the fighter appearing in the film in some capacity. Zingano says Berry told her to keep her schedule clear because filming would be starting soon.
However, UFC then offered Cat Zingano a fight. Zingano says she spoke with Halle Berry, and on Berry's advice she passed on the fight, with the feeling that the movie's insurance carrier might have an issue with one of its performers being put at risk. As a result of turning down the fight, Zingano was released by UFC.
This might not have been a major issue if the movie had still gone through. However, Cat Zingano says she was then told by Berry that because she was no longer working for UFC, she could not be in the movie, because apparently the movie was only working with UFC fighters.
This is certainly only one side of the story, Halle Berry's legal team has not responded to the lawsuit directly or with any comment to the media as of yet. Cat Zingano has also said that Halle Berry ceased communications with her at some point as well, which is likely why things escalated to the lawsuit level.
This isn't even the first time that insurance companies have been at the center of a news story associated with Bruised. Halle Berry revealed that she broke two ribs while filming the movie, but she simply worked through the pain, in part because she didn't want to deal with the production delay that would be caused by informing the insurance company. Insurance is a big deal, especially on small films like Bruised, but even on big budget blockbusters it can be a major stumbling block as insurance companies really don't like it when actors do things that might injure them, causing delays in production.
Now that a lawsuit has been filled we certainly will Halle Berry's side of this story. With Bruised set to hit Netflix in November there will almost certainly be a desire to eliminate any bad press.
