Lingerie company sues Hollywood actor ‘Daniel Giovanni Watson’ for allegedly posing as talent scout

By: Lisa F.

A Hollywood actor has been posing as a lingerie company’s talent scout as part of a lurid scheme to convince women to send him nudie photos, according to an explosive lawsuit by the company.

Daniel Giovanni Watson, who appeared in “Canal Street,” “Love Triangle” and “Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G.,” has been falsely claiming to work for New York-based Adore Me as part of a sick scheme to convince women to take off their clothes, the company said in a Los Angeles federal court complaint filed Tuesday.

The actor, who also helped produce “Canal Street,” would tell women that the lingerie company was looking for models — and claimed he needed photos to seal the deal, the lawsuit said.

“Looking for busty, curvy, ideally plus size women to be a part of two major campaigns,” Watson allegedly wrote in one email. The email encouraged women to include “name age bra size any and all photos that show face, breast, etc.”, according to the complaint.

Watson won women’s trust by falsely claiming to be affiliated with Lindsey Hayes Kroeger, a well-respected talent scout who worked for “Gossip Girl” and “The Strangers,” according to the complaint. That allowed him to reassure alleged targets that their photos would go straight to Kroeger, a woman, according to the lawsuit.

“She also said all photos are seen only by her so u can send any with no discretion,” Watson said in one exchange, according to the suit.

If a woman replied by saying she would have her agent look at the opportunity, Watson would reject her, the lawsuit said. “Ok nvm she wants to leave agents and managers out,” he wrote in one text exchange, the lawsuit said.

Adore Me, which sells frilly undergarments through a subscription service, filed the complaint after hiring a private investigator to identify the person who had been targeting women through fake Instagram, Snapchat and other social media accounts, the lawsuit said.

The actor also met some of his targets at a Los Angles night club called Station 1640, the lawsuit claimed.

Reached by The Post, Watson said he had nothing to do with the alleged scheme — saying it was someone posing as him.

“I guess someone is using my name and my credibility as clout,” he said. “Somebody else is trying to slander me. I was aware of the situation. I found myself in the middle of a cesspool. I’m an actor.”

Watson said he thought the mix-up in identities had been handled by his attorney and agent. “This is very shocking,” he said of the complaint.

Adore Me did not contact Watson before filing the complaint, but attorneys for Kroger reached out to him when they became aware of the alleged scheme, according to a person familiar with the situation.

“We’ve learned from the #MeToo movement, among others, that exposure is the best hygiene,” Adore Me’s general counsel Charlotte Morgan said in a statement. “We made a calculated decision that a lawsuit is the most effective way of permanently stopping this unacceptable and abusive conduct.”

Adore Me is donating any proceeds it might get from the lawsuit to a nonprofit organization focused on victims of revenge porn, BadassArmy.