- AFP
- 10 Hours ago
Maria B breaks silence on non-payment row with Turkan Atay
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- Web Desk
- Apr 25, 2025
ISLAMABAD: Fashion designer Maria Butt, popularly known as Maria B, has broken her silence over allegations made by Turkish influencer Turkan Atay, who accused her of failing to pay the full amount for the shoots.
In a video statement posted to her official Instagram account, Maria B rubbished Atay’s claims that she approached the influencer. “This social media influencer, who tried her best to make a scandal out of this, had approached me claiming that she likes my brand and want to work with me.”
Rejecting Atay’s claims about non-payment of the contract money, Maria B said, “Not once have we refused to pay her.”
She went on to say that the “influencer has received original money as discussed and has clothes worth millions of rupees.”
Explaining the delay in paying the remaining amount, Maria B said Atay was supposed to renegotiate the terms.
Shifting blames on a “junior PR girl” in her media team, Maria B said her “novice” team member made a mistake. “So what should I do to her? Kill her? Fire her? Or throw her under the buss? At Maria B, we don’t do that.”
She added that she was silent over the matter just to protect this “junior girl” arguing that everybody can make an honest mistake. “She is a human being and to err is human.”
Telling more about the “junior girl,” Maria B said the girl was deeply disturbed. “She can’t even get out of bed due to the stress caused by this major scandal that was orchestrated over a mere delay in payment.”
It may be added here that shortly after the controversy over non-payment to the influencer surfaced, Maria B had posted a response to the allegations on her Instagram story, but later took it down.
Besides the social media posts about Maria B, Turkan Atay also issued a legal notice to the designer for $8,000 and a formal apology.
Accusations levelled on Maria B
Atay is an Urdu content creator of Turkish origin who has around 850,000 followers. She stated that Maria B approached her earlier this year to assist with a location shoot in Turkey. The agreement depended on the number of outfits and the charges were also per outfit.
After the completion of the project, Atay claimed that she had received partial payment, adding that the brand was under the impression that payments were made per reel or video and not per outfit.
Atay did not mince words questioning Maria B’s integrity and adherence to ethics: “It has been three months, they have treated me unprofessionally and I will not be letting go of this.”
However, Maria B in return wrote in one of his comments on Instagram that “it hasn’t been 3 months. All details will be provided in court.”
This is not the first time that Maria B has come under scrutiny rather last year a Turkish artist had also accused her for copying her work which was for the Palestinian line she planned on launching. Maria B responded by saying that it was and oversight due to the plethora of digital content around her.
