Everyone can breathe a collective sigh of relief because the issue has been resolved, and Kardashian is back to micro-blogging every second of her existence. But this would-be case of illegal celebrity impersonation is far less nefarious than Old Navy's Kim Kardashian lookalike. Actress and singer Melissa Molinaro -- a dead ringer for the ubiquitous reality TV star -- stars in an obnoxious new commercial for the retail chain that will give you nightmares. (Apparently, Old Navy didn't want the real thing as their spokeswoman, so they hired a more-affordable someone who looks exactly like her instead; Kim reportedly can get up to $25,000 just to tweet about a product, and has a multimillion-dollar contract to endorse Skechers footwear.)
The 28-year-old Canadian Molinaro's been a finalist on the reality competition "Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search For the Next Doll," had roles on "The Young and the Restless" and "How I Met Your Mother," and appears in the upcoming "Honey 2," a direct-to-video sequel of the 2003 Jessica Alba dance movie.
How does Kardashian respond to the uncanny resemblance? We won't know, of course, until she tweets about it.
Here's the TV spot, which has been completely inescapable in primetime lately, and which has prompted a huge spike in Yahoo! searches for "Melissa Molinaro," with an increase of 16,000% in the last week: