Chappelle Sued for Alleged Stiff
Dave Chappelle's former manager is not amused by the comedian's antics.
Mustafa Abuelhija has filed a breach-of-contact suit against his former boss, alleging that Chappelle stiffed him at least $864,500, according to court documents posted on the Smoking Gun Website.
During the 10 months he served as Chappelle's personal manager, Abuelhija helped to broker deals that earned the comic at least $10 million, according to his complaint.
But after Chappelle returned from his unannounced spiritual retreat to South Africa last June, he told Abuelhija that his services would no longer be needed and dismissed him with only a "paltry $40,000 as an 'advance' against the sum" that Abuelhija claimed he was owed, per the complaint.
According to his court documents, Abuelhija began working for Chappelle as a jack-of-all-trades in 2001 and gradually moved up the ranks until taking on the role of manager to the comedian in September 2004, though the "deal was never reduced to writing."
He is demanding portions of the profits from Chappelle's reported $50 million deal with Comedy Central (now largely down the drain due to the infamous shutdown of Chappelle's Show), as well as income earned through personal appearances, a future DVD and the Michael Gondry-directed movie, Dave Chappelle's Block Party.
Abuelhija claims that Comedy Central gave Chappelle a "nonrefundable up-front payment" of $4.5 million when he signed the contract to continue Chappelle's Show through 2006, and that the network agreed to pay the comedian $275,000 per episode and $25,000 per repeat.
The former manager also claims that the contract guaranteed Chappelle 50 percent royalties on sales of the show's DVDs, as well as merchandise sales retroactive to the show's first season.
Seeing as sales of seasons one and two of Chappelle's Show have been brisk enough to rate the sets as the best-selling television DVDs to date, Chappelle still stands to earn a hefty chunk of cash from his past body of work. According to his court documents, Abuelhija feels he deserves a 10 percent cut of the profits for his role in helping to negotiate the contract.
As of Tuesday evening, Chappelle had not commented on the legal action against him.
Meanwhile, Chappelle will continue to receive a paycheck from Comedy Central, as the network still plans to air the third-season episodes the comedian had completed before going AWOL.
The network said it will start broadcasting the unaired third season episodes--four in all--on TV in the second quarter of 2006.
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