Forget The Pauly D Project: ICM is interested in Pauly D’s paycheck, and it’s taking the Jersey Shore star to court to get some of it.
In a 16-page civil complaint filed in LA Superior Court yesterday, the talent agency says its former client owes it more than $370,000 in past commissions from the hit MTV reality series. And ICM says Paul DelVecchio, his real name, also owes it more than $200,000 from the upcoming season of Jersey Shore. The suit says that it’s “standard custom and practice” for talent agencies to receive “post-termination commissions on all deals they negotiate for their client.” Pauly D left ICM on May 5, 2011, after less than a year. DelVecchio is now represented by WME which negotiated his current Pauly D Project spin-off series. It debuted on MTV on March 29, 2012.
Bryan Freedman and Brian Turnauer of Freeman & Taitelman LLP are representing ICM.
Saying that “no good deed goes unpunished,” the document details how ICM stepped in July 2010 and secured a decent chunk of change for Pauly. Jersey Shore debuted on December 3, 2009, and he was hot after the drinkin’ and tannin’ series became a hit. ICM says its efforts provided the 31-year old DJ with $100,000 an episode for the 12-episodes of season four plus a $200,000 “thank you” bonus.
Pauly D’s pay went up in season five of Jersey Shore, with MTV giving him a $400,000 signing bonus and $150,000 an episode. On March 19, 2012, four days after season five ended, MTV announced a forthcoming sixth season of Jersey Shore. According to ICM’s lawsuit DelVecchio’s going to get $175,000 an episode that season for 12 shows. ICM claims that, because of the lucrative deals it got him, DelVecchio needs to hand over $370,703.73 for seasons four and five of Jersey Shore. The agency also claims he owes it “a minimum of $210,000” from what he’s expected to earn in a forthcoming Season 6 plus 10% of any merchandising and other revenue streams from that season of the show and his loan-out company Blowout Enterprises.
“We are surprised by ICM’s contention that it is due commissions after ICM was terminated in favor of William Morris Endeavor,” Pauly D’s lawyer, Hilary Hughes of NYC firm Garvey Shubert Barer, said in a statement after the suit was filed. ”ICM was paid for its services. It is even more disappointing that an agency like ICM would choose to take advantage of its former relationship with a client and disclose his confidential business affairs to the public in disregard of any duties it owes as a talent agency.”
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Ugh, Nikki, the less these morons get air/net time, the better.
ICM sucks. Anyone who is repped there is desperate and should leave.
This is karma for foisting this guy on everyone in the first place.
This should be easily solved by finding his contract with ICM, right?
Wow, they pay this loser that much money to be a jackass on TV. No wonder why this country keeps going downhill.
lawsuits are here!
oh PLEASE. everyone knows in this business when your agent negotiated a deal for you, you owe the 10% on that and future earnings on season renewals. If WME negotiated an even higher rate, WME would be entitled to the increase in the rate, and ICM would still be owed the base rate. good grief.
who does straight renegotiation anymore? Everyone these days especially a ‘star’ of Paully D’s level (love him or hate him, he = $$$ which is king in Hollywood) gets the producers to effectively fire him i.e. rip up the old contract and has the new agent make a new deal circumventing the need to pay the old agent/manager any money at all.
I know because we’ve had a few former clients do this and lose the appeal because they were ‘fired’ for a day and resigned under a new deal a day later. It sucks but it is life. ICM is just sour grapes at this point.
Oh but more importantly, why the hell did ICM let the checks go to him directly in the first place? It’s called a check autho folks. You get paid, then pay them.
Interesting; though I still feel like ICM would/should be able to recover something, particularly if they could prove that WME orchestrated this simply to usurp their commission.
And as far as the check autho, it’s possible that one of PD’s other reps has it; he may well have signed one with his original manager (and everyone knows that the agents are afraid of the managers since they tend to whisper in clients’ ears that they should fire their agents).
Sounds like Pauly D needs to cough it up. ICM is due commission on the most likely multi-year deal they negotiated for him. I think any well-informed client knows that.
Yeah…not necessarily. A lot of us never actually sign papers with agencies, so you generally see these lawsuits when there is no “Materials and Services” agreement in place. (And I can’t remember the last time one of these “commission squabbles” went to trial — does anyone else?)
How the hell did ICM circumvent the Labor Commissioner on this matter? Or did they appear in front of the Labor Commissioner, get a bad ruling, and file de novo is Superior Court?
Time to fist pump that paycheck back out of your bank account PD. Tee shirt time is over son!
How is he getting a raise for season 6 when the ratings have been declining steadily and the most recent season finale was the lowest rated since season 1? Only in Hollywood this makes sense!
When it was my agency they didnt allow them to sign reality “stars”
Hope ICM does better with this lawsuit than it did with the one against Ed Limato.
Pauly D made serious $$$ from Shore and also got the MTV spinoff series while an ICM client. Chances are he’ll be sending the commission checks in any day now. DJ Pauly D achieved reality royalty…can you blame him for hittin WME music next?
Often the old agency and the new agency will cooperate on some sort of split. Wonder if there is any dialogue along those lines. Basically sounds like the guy is looking to get out of paying anybody!
This is very common in tv. Mostly stems from talent being so underpaid early on even with rating fall offs they are worth hire salaries.