According to Manhattan federal court papers, Joan Rivers’s former personal manager, Billy Sammeth, is suing her for defamation and withholding commisions.
Sammeth claims to never receive his 10% cut from many pay days, including his commision on her winnings for celebrity apprentice. In total he believes that he is owed $179k from Rivers.
In the recent documentary on Joan Rivers life “Joan Rivers : A Piece of Work,” Sammeth says that Rivers defamed him by calling him a “missing manager” and saying that he was suing her. At the moment he is suing Joan Rivers and the production company for $2.2 million.
“Billy tried for months to amicably resolve this with Ms. Rivers. He wasn’t missing, and he wasn’t suing her — but now he is,” said his lawyer, Susan Chana Lask
And Rivers response to all of this? Her representative stated that Rivers is “confident that the judicial system will dispose of Mr. Sammeth’s lawsuit in the appropriate manner.”