Now here’s something Candace Bushnell won’t be typing lovingly about anytime soon: her gay pal and former manager Clifford Streit is suing her for reneging on a $150,000 settlement, reports the New York Post.
Clifford Streit is the real-life basis for Carrie Bradshaw’s GBF (gay best friend) Stanford Blatch on the wildly popular Sex and the City franchise.
Streit claims that Bushnell, played by Sarah Jessica Parker in the series, has not honored a 2006 agreement to give him 7.5 percent royalties on anything she earns from the SATC franchise.
Though the two movies and TV series have generated hundreds of millions of dollars, Streit has only seen $230,000—and was last paid before SATC 2 came out, which grossed $295 million at the box office. Now he just wants his fair share of that amount: $150,000.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Sounds like a budding plotline for Sex and the City 3: Bitch Fight in the Hamptons!
Photo via HBO
the crustybastard
What did he do to claim he deserves a percentage of her work?
Exist?
MKe
@the crustybastard: He probably wrote with her to develop characters.
The Real Mike in Asheville
@the crustybastard: Says right there in the first sentence: “former manager.”
Managers typically earn 5-10%, so 7.5% seems right.
the crustybastard
@The Real Mike in Asheville:
You get paid for being an employee, not a former employee. This guy was fired in 1999, ferchrissakes. In the ensuing 12 years, she’s given him nearly a quarter-million, for which he’s done NOTHING.
He had a friend who hit it big, which made him a minor celebrity and scored him a nice payday. Most people would think “Wow, that was incredibly lucky!” not “Bitch, you better give me more or lawyer-up!” He sounds like a nasty, greedy little tick.
“But I inspired her to write a lame gay BFF stereotype!”
Shush.
PTBoat
@the crustybastard: Salary is cut if one is fired, but contractual agreements for residuals continue forever. It’s all about how the contract was written. He probably had a lot to do with the original premise so placed in the contract that he would have a back end deal on the characters and story line, just like someone who owns a trademark would get. I guess we’ll see what happens when lawyers, and possibly a judge, takes a look at all of this.
Tonic
Ditto what PTBoat said. Being involved in art (using that term loosely for SATC) isn’t like working at an office. If he had to do with the creation of the series, the stories and the characters his right to compensation doesn’t end when he’s “not on the clock.” Bushnell wouldn’t have made the agreement in the first place if she didn’t see his value.
Jakey
@the crustybastard: Hey, Captain Lawyer: it says right up there that they had an agreement and she’s not honoring it. However fair or unfair the agreement is doesn’t matter if she signed it of her own free will. (And what, you never heard of royalties?)