You're already watching Bill Nye The Science Guy on Netflix, but the next place you might see him is in court. The famed science enthusiast is suing Disney for fraud and breach of contact, claiming they tricked him out of millions of dollars.
CNN reported that Nye filed a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company and its subsidiaries, Buena Vista Television, Touchstone Television Productions, Inc, and ABC, for denying him $9 million in earnings from his '90s TV show Bill Nye The Science Guy. In the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Nye says Buena Vista claimed he had to repay the company "a large portion" of his 2007 Bill Nye The Science Guy earnings because of an "accounting error" that caused him to be overpaid.
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In the 28-page suit, obtained by The Wrap, Nye claims he tried to negotiate with Buena Vista, but instead the company stopped paying him royalties on the show, which ran from 1994 to 1999 on PBS, in 2008. The suit claims that Buena Vista only agreed to pay Nye once he repaid what he allegedly owed.
In the suit, Nye also claims that for years he has been trying to have an auditor review the company's books to figure out the discrepancy, but "defendants failed to engage in the process in good faith," allegedly not providing the correct documentation. The court documents go as far to accuse Disney and its subsidiaries of engaging in "an ongoing, deliberate conspiracy to deceive Mr. Nye."
In his complaint, Nye says that the documentation that he was given shows "revenues were skewed and royalties went unreported." The Wrap reported that Nye is claiming he suffered at least $9.4 million in damages and over $28 million in "ill-gotten" profits that the defendants took from him. In total, Nye is suing for over $37 million.
Neither Disney nor its subsidiaries has responded to Nye's lawsuit at this time.
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