In 2011, Steven Tyler’s manager was angling for a big raise for the singer to return as American Idol judge for a second season. The manager claims the lawyer they hired undermined them, basically sacrificing Steven’s 6-8 million dollar raise in order to do more business with American Idol. The lawyer then went on to represent some of American Idol’s talent. On Thursday, the Steven’s ex-management brought an 8 million dollar lawsuit against the lawyer and her firm.
The Aerosmith lead singer’s former manager says lawyer Dina LaPolt poisoned Steven Tyler’s contract renegotiations with American Idol, costing him a multimillion-dollar raise. Kovac Media Group/Tenth Street Entertainment today filed an $8 million lawsuit (read it here) against the entertainment lawyer and her West Hollywood firm. American Idol and its former judge are not named in the breach of fiduciary duty complaint. In fact Tyler is not named at all. Instead he is referred to as “The Artist” throughout the filing, though it is pretty clear from the players, his touring band and his role as judge for two seasons on the Fox show exactly who he is. The suit claims that in 2011 LaPolt lost “hot commodity” Tyler a $6 million to $8 million raise in his Idol contract for a second season on the show.
Also, the lawsuit claims that the lawyer undermined the plaintiff to a senior manager at the firm, who left Kovac to join XIX, Simon Fuller’s company, taking Steven with him. The plaintiff also asserts that the defendant failed to pay the management company commissions that were due.
Via Deadline