On the night of June 26, 2016, Natalia Lugo was interviewed by Ángel González for his podcast "Dulce Compañía" (# 049). From the 23:04 mark to about the 30:57 mark, the conversation covered what happened with this film and the aftermath after it was found to be an unauthorized copy of Secret Admirer (1985). During the conversation, she revealed that when she finally saw Secret Admirer (1985) on YouTube a few days after 'Vasos de papel' had been released in theaters, her first reaction was "uncontrollable laughter" (as she said it: "una pavera"), followed by "Is this really where I'm at in life right now". She also compared the experience to "having married the man of her dreams, then finding out he only liked men", and said that when she approached the production team of this film about this situation, they asked her to "keep quiet", and told her not to worry because "most people would not care about it"... and "even if they did, it would blow over in a weekend or so". Ms. Lugo shared her own title for this film: "Vasos de papelón" (rough English translation: "Secret Admirer with Extra Cheese") and, as she had previously done when expressing her sentiments over what happened with this film, refused to refer to Eduardo Ortíz by name.
The plagiarism controversy surrounding this film ended up inspiring the sarcastic Twitter hashtag #películasdeTransfor (translation: "Transfor films") - Puerto Rican "remakes" of classic films "written" by Eduardo Ortíz, who is also known as "Transfor" Ortíz. Among the suggested remakes: "Totanic" (Titanic (1997), with Jennifer González Colón), "El guaraguao de la maltita" (The Maltese Falcon (1941)), "Big Jaiba's House" (Big Momma's House (2000), with Luis Vigoreaux Jr.), "La yal y la bestia" (Beauty and the Beast (2017), with Mr. Ortiz's producing partner Jorge Pabón and with Natalia Rivera), "La hora del tapón c*br*n" (Rush Hour (1998)), "A caballo (Brokeback Mountain (2005), with Roque Rocky the Kid Gallart and Jorge Pabón), "Maripilander" (Zoolander (2001), with Maria del Pilar Maripily Rivera Rivera), "Gone Chiquigirl" (Gone Girl (2014), with Puerto Rican personality Lady Mágica), "Las cazafantasmas" (Ghostbusters (2016), with Alba Nydia Díaz, Sonia Valentin, Linette Torres, and Wanda L. Sais), "Meet the Fonalledas" (Meet the Parents (2000)), "CRB & RHC" JFK (1991), with Nicolas Cage in a dual role as both Rubén Berríos and Pedro Rosselló, Robert De Niro as Rafael Hernández Colón, and Anthony Hopkins as Carlos Romero Barceló, "Noche en el museo de Santini" (Night at the Museum (2006), set at the Jorge Santini museum), and "The Taking of Urbano Uno Dos Tres" (The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), with Tito Kayak)... among many, many others.
This film was part of an intense, front-page-of-newspapers scandal in Puerto Rico in early March of 2016 when it was revealed that writer/director Eduardo Ortíz had basically plagiarized Secret Admirer (1985) almost in its entirety - word-for-word, scene-for-scene, and shot-for-shot, and had tried to make everybody believe that the screenplay had been created and written by himself. The film had only been playing at Puerto Rican cinemas for a few days when the first articles pointing out the similarities between the two films, and pointing out that there was no mention anywhere of it being based on 'Secret Admirer', arose. Once the film was no longer being shown in cinemas across Puerto Rico, Mr. Ortíz first issued a statement saying that there were "certain similarities between one film and the other, not plagiarism. Everything is a matter of interpretation". Only a few hours after making that statement, Mr. Ortíz changed it, saying in a radio interview that he "had done something terribly wrong", and apologizing to his cast and crew. Mr. Ortíz had ignored and/or refused to comment on the issue until the lead actress of this film, Natalia Lugo released a statement on social media where she both condemned the film and expressed the embarrassment she felt when she saw 'Secret Admirer', and came to understand how she and her fellow actors and crew had been completely duped.
Between the social media post written by Angel M. Sanjurjo on February 17, 2016 exposing the plagiarism situation, and the social media post by Natalia Lugo written on the night of March 7, 2016 that made the situation front-page news in Puerto Rico, two other articles were instrumental in changing the response from "writer" / director Vasos De Papel (2016) and his production team from denial / mockery to reluctant admission. The first of those articles was published on Friday February 19, 2016 - one day after this film was released in theaters. The article was written by Puerto Rican film critic Orlando Maldonado, and it made comparisons between four sequences from this film with their nearly-identical counterparts from Secret Admirer (1985). Mr. Maldonado stopped short of directly accusing Mr. Ortíz of plagiarism, choosing to leave that decision up to the reader. The second article was published about a week later, and was written by filmmaker William Rosario Cruz. Mr. Rosario-Cruz's article, which he titled "Copy / Paste Cinema", called this film "one of the most blatant cases of plagiarism in the history of cinema" and concluded that the reason for this film only being "about 95% identical" to Secret Admirer and not 100% was because of budget limitations. It also took the Puerto Rican media to task for ignoring the plagiarism issue, but did not go into why that was (an issue that came to light after this film had been yanked out of movie theaters), and wondered how it could be that, in the year 2016, a United States territory could still operate "like the Wild West of the 1800s". Mr. Sanjurjo's social media post exposed the issue, Mr. Maldonado's article gave the issue legitimacy, Mr. Rosario-Cruz's article made the issue go viral in Puerto Rico, and Ms. Lugo's post turned the issue into front-page headlines on the island. As of February 2017, Mr. Sanjurjo's social media post and Mr. Rosario-Cruz's article are no longer public.
The title page for the screenplay for this film had the line "An original screenplay by Eduardo Ortíz. This is what all cast and crew members believed to be true during production of the film. Mr. Ortíz had shared a photo of this page on social media, but it disappeared after Mr. Ortíz apologized for plagiarizing Secret Admirer (1985) on the Puerto Rican radio program "El Goldo y la Pelúa" (co-hosted by Mr. Ortiz's production partner Jorge Pabón) on Monday March 7, 2016.