As word leaks that Spears blew $60 million in the last year, Johnny Wright, Spears’ former manager (and current Timberlake co-manager), is looking to collect on an old debt.
Despite a management contract signed in 1999, which entitles Wright Entertainment Group (WEG) to royalties and commissions through February 20, 2008, Spears quit paying in December 2006, and Wright sued in 2007. Since then, she’s put out two albums, Greatest Hits/My Prerogative and Blackout. However, exactly how much she owes isn’t even known, says Clay Townsend, Wright’s attorney in Orlando, Florida. The total bill “cannot be determined without an accounting (getting records of what she made from different sources—merchandise, etc).” And Spears and her reps have ignored Wright and Townsend’s requests for financials.
“We are disappointed she never responded to our lawsuit only because such matters proceed more smoothly with an orderly exchange of documents,” Townsend tells Radar, adding that Spears defaulted last year, long before the game of musical chairs with her representatives, lawyers, boyfriends, and money managers. As for his client, Wright, Townsend says, “Johnny has expressed publicly his regrets for what she is going through, but we have simply not received accounting and payments from her organization for quite some time, not just during the recent chaos.”