Jennifer Love Hewitt Sued for Whisper of a Profit

Tue., May. 1, 2007 7:45 PM PDT by

According to Jennifer Love Hewitt's former management firm, it wasn't just Ghost Whisperer that injected life into the actress' career. 

Handprint Entertainment LLC sued Hewitt last week for breach of contract, claiming that she reneged on an oral agreement to pay a 10 percent commission for every deal brokered for her while she was with the Los Angeles-area company.  

The particular deal in question is Hewitt's star turn on CBS' Ghost Whisperer, a role that has returned the former Party of Five player "to national prominence as a television star," according to the lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court. 

While Hewitt now plays on TV a woman who helps spirits resolve their unfinished business with the living, she "is having troubles 'resolving unfinished business with the living" in real life, as well, read the wittily phrased complaint. 

The fact that Hewitt did pay Handprint 10 percent of her earnings from the first season of Ghost Whisperer only proves her culpability, court documents state. "California law requires that even television stars comply with contract law," the suit continues. "Love Hewitt 'knows what she did last season,' and knows that she owes Handprint its 10% commission this season too." 

The supernatural drama is currently in its second season and, with its solid Friday night ratings, is expected to be renewed for a third. 

Per court documents, Hewitt hooked up with Handprint in 2002 and then dropped the company in 2005, taking employee Dannielle Thomas with her to continue on as her personal manager. 

Thomas "confessed that she had no rights to commissions from Love Hewitt, either present or future, for her work on Ghost Whisperer and that any such funds paid to her or her company were to be delivered to handprint," the lawsuit states. Thomas, however, has since been "induced" to breach that original contract. 

All in all, according to Handprint, when the company approached Hewitt to collect on the actress' earnings from her second season as a link between there here-and-now and the afterlife, the 28-year-old Tuxedo star allegedly treated the deal as if it were dead in the water. 

Handprint asking for at least $350,000 in damages for the perceived slight. 

In addition to more communing with the small-screen dead, Hewitt can also look forward to her upcoming big-screen turn in Shortcut to Happiness, in which her character—the Devil—purchases the soul of a writer, played by Anthony Hopkins, who's desperate for a hit. The dramedy, originally titled The Devil and Daniel Webster, is due in theaters July 13.

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