Artist News Business News Industry People Legal Management & Funding

Mariah Carey’s ex-manager plotting “blockbuster exposé lawsuit”

By | Published on Tuesday 17 April 2018

Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey’s ex-manager has filed paperwork with the courts in New York ahead of a lawsuit against her former client. That planned lawsuit is set to include allegations of breach of contract, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty and violations of employment and civil rights law, while seeking allegedly unpaid fees, damages, interest and costs.

It already sounds like a fun bit of litigation. And that was before lawyers working for Stella Bulochnikov told gossip website The Blast that Carey is a “train wreck” who is “addicted to alcohol, prescription pills and marijuana” and owes her former manager millions of dollars. If Carey doesn’t settle with her former manager, the legal people add, a “blockbuster exposé lawsuit” will definitely follow, including, says The Blast, “several sordid details”.

Carey parted company with Bulochnikov last year. At the time the singer and manager said that they had “determined that it is in their mutual best interest to part ways on day-to-day management”. But, their statement added, the two women would continue to work together on a number of business ventures in which they were both partners.

However, the real story behind the collapse of the two women’s working relationship might now come to light if this litigation goes ahead. In his conversation with The Blast, Bulochnikov’s lawyer Pierce O’Donnell also talks about one of the higher profile Carey moments that occurred while his client was managing the star: her disastrous turn on the ‘New Year’s Rockin Eve’ show from Times Square in New York at the end of 2016.

The poor performance was blamed on technical issues at the time. However, The Blast now quotes O’Donnell as saying that the real problem was that Carey was “stoned out of her mind”. The lawyer goes on: “Stella pled with Mariah to get sober and she refused. Stella then became her constant guardian and protector”.

Much more recently, Carey was in the news just last week after giving an interview to People magazine. In it, she revealed that she was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder in 2001, but until recently refused to accept this.

“I didn’t want to carry around the stigma of a lifelong disease that would define me and potentially end my career”, Carey told People. “Until recently I lived in denial and isolation and in constant fear someone would expose me. It was too heavy a burden to carry and I simply couldn’t do that anymore. I sought and received treatment, I put positive people around me and I got back to doing what I love – writing songs and making music”.

O’Donnell says that this is “a big lie”, and that while Carey does have a diagnosis of bi-polar, “the reason that she is in the position she is in now is she refused to take her medication”. Although that statement would more seem to vindicate Carey’s fears than prove she hasn’t begun receiving proper treatment.

Either way, this is all presumably a preview of the kind of claims that could be made in court if this lawsuit is actually filed and then goes the distance. O’Donnell adds that his client helped Carey revitalise her career but was then fired. “What did she get in return for her success as a manager and protector?” the lawyer asks. “Being summarily discharged”.

For now, at least, Carey doesn’t seem to be in any mood to settle with her former manager. A rep for the singer told the gossip site that “if this frivolous and baseless claim is filed, we will defend against it vigorously and successfully”.



READ MORE ABOUT: |