UPDATE: The Massey family announced Jan. 8, 2013, that hey had reached a "mutually satisfactory settlement."
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Life's not such a trip for Bristol Palin these days.
Hot on the heels of a lawsuit from a heckler featured on her show Life's a Tripp, the reality star is now facing another legal hiccup after the show's producers were sued by her former Dancing With the Stars castmate Kyle Massey and his brother Chris, who claim that they came up with the show's idea and were slated to costar before being booted out.
The brothers sat down with E! News to air their side of the story and explain whether there's any bad blood between them and Bristol...
"When the press release came out from the actual show was when we realized, 'Wait? Where's our producer credit? Where's our creative credit?'" says Chris about the moment they discovered the concept for Life's a Tripp.
"This isn't a personal thing, this isn't some sort of vendetta—this is me and my brother just wanting what's rightfully ours," he explains, noting that "we hate that it had to come to this, but this is the business part of Hollywood."
Kyle adds, "We never wanted or intended it to get this far. We solely just wanted to make quality television that families could enjoy…And it just went to a completely different level."
"This is not about personal feelings or personal animosity," says the Masseys' attorney, Courtney Coates. "It's a matter of handling business according to the contracts and making sure that we're being prudent in how we go about that. So there's plenty of time, of course, to befriend and reconcile any relationships, but there's no need for that at this time. This is a matter of just handling the business at hand."
So do the brothers have any beef with Bristol? Not in the least, they say.
"It had nothing to do with Bristol, the Palins," Chris explains.
Kyle agrees: "The Palins are all great people, but that's irrelevant," he says, adding that Palin isn't named as a defendant in the suit.
The Masseys, along with their mother, Angela, have sued producers for copyright infringement, fraud and deceit, breach of contract, bad faith, misappropriation, tortious interference and unfair competition.
The brothers claim that full episodes had been shot featuring them alongside Palin.
"We had countless locations, friends of ours were on the show, it was going great when it originally started," Chris says. "We had fun with Tripp, Willow, Bristol."
They also allege that you can actually hear them off-camera on Life's a Tripp.
"There's blatant footage of me and my brother laughing and joking in the background," Chris says.
"You can hear us talking, but we're not there," adds Kyle. "You can hear us laughing, and a lot of the footage, people were actually making references to us, and talking to us, but we were just erased."
Per the lawsuit, they're seeking compensation for damages, as well as an injunction against the producers.
"I would like to see the producers and the production company step up," says Kyle, "and do what they know is right."