The Daily has published its photograph of the elusive Nikki Finke, dramatically driving a Toyota and looking kind of angry! Is it her?

Looks like it to us, but who knows? Nikki told us yesterday—before she'd actually seen the photo—that she's never owned or rented a green Toyota Yaris, which the woman in this photograph is driving, and that she was home working at the time it was allegedly snapped. On the other hand, things that Nikki Finke says, like "I'm going to sue you!", are sometimes best taken with a grain of salt.

The accompanying story, unbylined but run under a photo of L.A. Bureau Chief Richard Johnson, doesn't identify the "intrepid photographer," but credits it to Splash News, which we can only imagine got more than $1,000 for it, which is how much we were willing to pay. (The Splash News credit is kind of puzzling, since it's been reported that Daily reporter Hunter Walker was behind the photo hunt.) It notably doesn't allege that the woman in the photo is Nikki, instead posing a question in the headline and simply saying, in a lawyerly fashion, that photo features "a blond woman who exited Finke's building" and that associates said "it looks like Nikki."

The story also says that Finke "called several executives from News Corp, which owns the Daily, and intimated there would be reprisals in the form of negative coverage of 20th Century Fox should we publish this photo." Weird reaction to a photo of someone else, no?

We reached out to Nikki to see what she thinks of the picture—which isn't at all unflattering. She looks like a normal lady. See? That wasn't so hard.

UPDATE: Finke says she doesn't have that lady's horrible "mouthlines."

This is the first time I've seen the Daily photo purporting to me. It is, in fact, not me. I can understand why someone might think it was me because the woman in this picture vaguely resembles my own 2006 photo.

But my nose and chin are different. I don't have those very pronounced mouthlines. I never wear industrial strength make-up (especially not blood red lipstick). I don't own gaudy jewelry. I wear my hair different now. Etc.

So the Daily should be embarrassed to have run the wrong photo. But let me also express relief that at least the editors didn't just post a picture of a circus bearded lady and claim it was me.