Bill Nye The Science Guy Suing Disney Over Underpayment Twenty Years Ago

Source- Bill Nye has filed a fraud lawsuit against Disney claiming that he was underpaid by $9.3 million for his successful TV series.

In a lawsuit filed with the Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday, the “Science Guy” says that unscrupulous accounting led the Walt Disney Company and its subsidiaries to make at least $28 million in “ill-gotten profits” from his show.

The suit states that Nye “believes and thereon alleges that as a direct and proximate result of the Defendants’ breach of fiduciary duty, Plaintiff has suffered damages in the amount of not less than Nine Million Three Hundred Fifty Thousand Five Hundred Sixty dollars (USD$9,350,565.00), the final amount to be proven at trial,” says the complaint. 

The popular host says that an accounting error first made him suspicious of Buena Vista Televisions’s royalty calculations and after years of “futile negotiations” to obtain the corresponding records and get an explanation for the error he was forced to hire an external auditor.

Eventually, even “in the absence of these essential documents, even without the ability to fully examine the accounting and related records of the Defendants … the Auditor identified hundreds of thousands of dollars in underreported payments owed to Mr. Nye,” his attorney Charles Rainey states.

“Bill Nye the Science Guy” was a live action science program that originally aired from September 1993 to June 1998.

Pick yourself up by your God damn boot straps, Bill. Break out the colanders and dry ice if you’re having a tough time making a buck. It’d be easy for Disney to write a check but they’re not going to. Why? Because it sets bad precedent. They’ve churned out millions of child stars. Cave to the Science Guy and the rest of them will start coming out of the woodwork. Although it may be worth if it brings Brittany and Justin back together. #NeverForget

I’m not a lawyer but accusing a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate of cooking the books seems like a lost cause. The whole thing started because he was salty over his contract. “Years of futile negotiations to attain accounting records.” Give me a break. Even if they did underreport earnings, so what? Everyone pays themselves before Uncle Sam. Unfortunately for Bill, he’s not Uncle Sam.

I’m not going to dive into his finances but the lawsuits begs the question; should Disney have financial literacy programs for talent the same way the NFL does for rookies. His show was on the air for five years. He won nineteen Emmy’s. He had to have made some good money. Where did it go? Best of luck to you Bill, you’re going to need it.

PS: On the off chance the court rules in favor of Bill, disregard this blog.