Josie Steven's Doll Maker from Married to Rock on Sinthetics Dolls vs. RealDoll, video below.
Today's Kiss and Tell Report.
Last week I did a story called “Married to Rock: Reality TV Love Lessons” about relationship lessons from the crazy E! Network reality show. In the article I talked about Josie Stevens making a large sized sex doll modeled on herself as a gift for her rocker husband Steve Stevens while he was on the road. I mistakenly attributed the doll to the RealDoll Company. Thankfully the actual sex doll maker Matt Krivicke from the Sinthetics Doll Company set the record straight.
Matt Krivicke who is the creator of the life-sized, anatomically correct Josie Stevens doll got in touch to share a little bit about his business. He gave me the inside scoop on making the Josie Stevens doll and working with married to Rock on The Passionista Playbook. But first it was critical to explain to readers the difference between RealDoll and Sinthetics Doll, and why he took such issue.
Matt Krivicke’s Statement & Opinion on His Personal Experience with Sinthetics Dolls vs. RealDoll.
(Please note we have not contacted RealDoll for their side of the story.)
“The reason I was especially upset with the idea of your story being linked to RealDoll is this: From May 2006 to May 2008 I was the CEO for Abyss Creations (makers of the RealDoll ). About 10 years before that though the owner of Abyss worked for me. When he worked for me he developed the idea for the RealDoll and I helped him with his first prototype.
“After being in business for 10 years he courted me over a 5 month period at the end of 2005 to come run his company because as he put it, I was the only one who knew more than him because I taught him much of what he knew. That and his company had started to take a downturn due to his unavailability to run the business over the previous 5 years. Long story short, business and friendships mix like oil and water and after two years, despite me having made major improvements and helping the ailing company to flourish again, he decided to lay off both me and my assistant/girlfriend.
“Because of the improvements I had made and my very visible role in the company, customers were very unhappy to see the two of us let go and asked me to start up a new company making dolls. I had gone back into Halloween product development (my career of 15 years prior to working at RealDoll ) to make ends meet and my girlfriend stayed active within the doll community where people would continue to ask her if I would ever consider making life sized dolls.
“I had started to lay out a business plan to try to raise capital but was not able to get the seed money I needed to get started as it is an expensive product to develop and no one was willing to take the risk. I had the idea to have her ask a handful of trusted people if they would be willing to seed this venture by taking a chance on me by purchasing a doll before it exists and five of them stepped up and sent me money. This was about 3 months after we were let go. I created a doll in record time, got it into production and started my company with the intent to compete with RealDoll under the name Lovable Dolls.
“In this time frame I had also consulted a handful of attorneys due to being laid off and not having my contractually owed profit sharing paid to me. After sending multiple letters attempting to settle this situation with Abyss and being told basically that I would never get a dime, I filed a lawsuit against them to try to retrieve the money owed. In response, Abyss filed a suit against me and it got very ugly very quickly. In the end, they were able to hire a much flashier lawyer than I and despite having all evidence and fact on my side, the jury found that in favor of Abyss.
“They made many outrageous claims, but the one that stuck with the jury was that they said that I "must" have started to thinkabout creating a doll before I was laid off. If I had thought about creating dolls, then according to their lawyer my first two dolls or as they coined them, my signature dolls, should belong to them. Again, despite showing evidence of these dolls being created months after I was let go, the jury awarded damages against me for the sales of all dolls sold and awarded them my first two dolls (1 female, 1 male).
“In the end, the judge then awarded them more damages for injunctive relief and my only remaining female body - in other words he gave them all my doll product except for three remaining female heads, plus the name of the business, the website, all logos and graphics etc. He imposed damages against me, my girlfriend and my company as well. The male doll which they were able to take away from me was not even released until January of 2010. I showed proof of all of this and still the judge and jury awarded them everything they asked for and in essence shut me down. Needless to say we are suspicious about how this was able to happen against the undisputed evidence on our side and when their "evidence" consisted of speculation and conjecture.
“Now onto Sinthetics: In mid 2010, I was approached by a company who wanted to get into the business of making dolls and they were looking for someone with the expertise to assist them. The owners of this company saw the problems I had with my lawsuit and was aware of the impending doom of my company after the initial court loss in April 2010. They had followed my progress during the time I was making dolls and been fans of my work for a very long time.
“They took the opportunity to have me create the doll for the reality show "Married to Rock" for their company. The final injunctive relief stage of my court case pretty much sealed the fate of my company and left me with a huge debt not only for the judgment, but to many customers who had ordered dolls from me that I was longer able to make. The owners of Sinthetics have stepped in and taken on my debt load and made it possible for me not to default on my customers who have placed not only their hard earned money with me, but their trust as well that I would create the doll of their dreams for them. We will be moving to LA early in 2011 to the Sinthetics studio as that is where one of the owners is located.” [continued]
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I'm Abiola Abrams, Love Journalist & Lifestyle Passionista. Come play with me on twitter @abiolatv, facebook and The Passionista Playbook and Blog TV where trending love, sex, dating and relationship topics include: Dating Diary: An Almost Love Story, Gay Celebrity Parents, First Date Advice, How to Pursue Your Dreams and The BBC Radio Gabby Cabby.
I went on to interview Matt Krivicke about working with Josie Stevens on her Sinthetics Doll, whether he had a doll fetish and even what roll his girlfriend plays in his sex doll empire. Matt was a great sport. Read the entire Josie Stevens’ Sinthetics Dollmaker Interview Exclusive here.
















Comments
Dolls are for what?
I would be more inclined to believe the verdict of an independent jury ruling on sworn testimony and viewing evidence, than that of the losing party after the fact. If the jury didn't believe him why should we now...especially whereas he has provided no evidence whatsoever?
The story of LD is found at dollforum.com in the LD forum forum. It is a story of misinformation, contradictory posts, not delivering as promised and skillful manipulation through media. Here's hoping SINthetics is indeed owned by a more reliable third party and not going to be a repeat of the LD company.
hi
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