Lawsuits for gigantic amounts of money crop up every once in a while and usually over something pretty stupid.
Remember the woman with the hot McDonalds coffee in her lap? What no one remembers is that the multi-million dollar award was eventually overturned and greatly reduced but still, coffee + lap = bad idea to any half-wit in a drive-thru.
One of my favourites was the guy who broke into a building and crawled along inside a false ceiling which he fell through and broke several bones. He won his lawsuit against the company he was trying to rob.
Now a failed contestant on American Idol has found a lawyer to go after $300 million dollars from Simon Cowell and the show. I remember this dude. He was a terrible singer who was under some sort of delusion and absolutely indignant when he was rightly turfed from his audition. Because he had made such an impression, albeit a negative one, the producers invited him back for the series finale where he ruined comic Dane Cook’s comedy set by pulling a Kanye West and grabbing the mic from Cook and shouting some sort of rant before producers cut to commercial.
Now this dude wants $300 million because he claims producers told him to “gay it up” for the finale and he was cut out of the big race.
Here’s what I think happened. He truly thought he had the stuff to win American Idol and probably still thinks so. He’s what the industry calls a “fame whore” and cannot cope with his impossible dream not coming true. He reminds me of a performer I know who is singularly focused on being famous. A quest for fame alone, when you’re a singer or performer, is a shallow pursuit because it’s not about the music or the love of performing. It’s about desperation and a hunger for approval and that’s not what the public responds to. In fact, it repels us. I’m looking forward to the day that this sad sack’s suit is tossed out of court.