A portrait donated by Sunny Leone for a charity auction has turned out be a copy. The social media portal Diet Sabya, which monitors mainly the plagiarism in B-town fashion, has called Leone out for her copied painting. Diet Sabya wrote: “We are all for charity, but stealing an artists’ original work — without credit — and auctioning it off for charity (as your own) is just dirty (sic).”

Sunny wrote in response, “Hello. Just to give you the correct information, I was given a photograph of this piece of art. I then decided to paint it! At no time did I claim to come up with the idea. I simply painted a piece of art that I saw and loved. It should be taken as a compliment as it was being donated to cancer patients for charity. Nothing more and nothing less. Sorry, you don’t like the version that I choose to create while helping children in Need. The painting was about trying to help !!!! Best of luck !!!! Keep creating (sic).”

However, the original artist Mallika Favre seemed unimpressed and unconvinced by Leone’s explanation. She tweeted, “A credit would have been the minimum... intellectual property is a thing you know? What if I didn’t want a copy of my work to be copied by you and auctioned? The cause is commendable, the attitude not so much.” We now hear that Leone’s charitable fraudulence is being looked into, and the unauthorised painting may not be auctioned after all.