Design and life-style gurus Chip and Joanna Gaines have, over the previous decade, constructed a enterprise empire price practically $1 billion, by some estimates.

The Waco, Texas-based couple have been described in a Selection profile final month as having “unmatched attain and affect” within the “dwelling, fireside, meals and household” sectors, which incorporates “curating” the Magnolia Community, a 24/7 cable channel they co-own with Warner Brothers Discovery.

Chip, 48, grew up in Dallas, the place his mother labored for an organization that revealed books for the late televangelist Billy Graham.

“The impression that man has had on my life is immeasurable,” Chip mentioned of Graham in a 2015 interview.

Joanna, 44, can be deeply non secular, telling Oprah Winfrey final yr that she typically hears what she believes to be the literal voice of God.

“I’m very life like,” she mentioned. “I would like to listen to it. I’m literal. And in order that’s how He reveals up for me.”

However a venerable New York Metropolis literary agent who has represented not solely the Gaineses in e-book offers, however Pope John Paul II as nicely, claims they’ve acted removed from piously of their enterprise dealings with him.

“Whereas Joanna and Chip Gaines model themselves as ethical Christians who purportedly function in an moral method insofar as they handled [me], nothing may very well be farther from the reality,” David Vigliano says in a lawsuit filed Wednesday and obtained by The Day by day Beast.

Within the swimsuit, which was filed in Manhattan Supreme Courtroom, Vigliano, who has labored with authors from David Mamet to Kurt Cobain to Suzanne Somers, claims the Gaineses “outrageous and boastful breach of a publishing settlement” in 2017 cheated him out of hundreds of thousands.

Vigliano, within the easiest of phrases, was “screwed” by Chip and Joanna, in response to his lawyer.

“The fact is, we don’t have entry to what the gross sales of the books have been, so we don’t know precisely what’s owed to us,” Vigliano’s legal professional, Larry Hutcher, instructed The Day by day Beast on Wednesday. “We want an accounting.”

The Gaineses, who didn’t reply to a request for remark by way of their current literary agent, Byrd Leavell of the United Expertise Company (UTA), can be served with copies of the lawsuit within the coming days, Hutcher mentioned.

UTA can be named as a defendant within the swimsuit. Company executives didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

The lawsuit describes Chip and Joanna as “internationally recognized actuality tv stars who gained huge fame and recognition for his or her present Fixer Higher on the HGTV community, which aired from 2013-2018.” And though they’ve each change into successes in their very own proper, Joanna has been the principle draw in recent times, teaming up with Goal and Anthropologie, for instance—however not with Chip—to create bedding and residential decor strains, in response to the swimsuit.

Joanna and Chip Gaines on the 2022 Inventive Arts Emmys in Los Angeles.

Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage

In 2015, Vigliano brokered a three-book contract for the couple with HarperCollins. Gross sales have been “extremely profitable,” and at completion, HarperCollins supplied a brand new five-book deal, the lawsuit states.

“Nevertheless, because it was obvious that Joanna was the driving pressure behind the Gaines’ success, HarperCollins was solely eager about coming into into a brand new e-book cope with Joanna individually, not Chip,” the submitting contends.

Joanna’s new deal got here with a $12.5 million advance, for which she was to ship two cookbooks and three non-fiction books “on a mutually agreed upon subject,” the swimsuit goes on. They might be revealed over 5 consecutive years, and Joanna stood to earn an extra $250,000 bonus per e-book, relying on gross sales.

Along with a listing of assorted clauses pertaining to things like the correct of first refusal for a sixth e-book, the contract Joanna signed designated Vigliano as her “sole and unique agent” for the lifetime of the five-book contract, and that he could be paid a 7.5 % fee on gross sales of these 5 books, in perpetuity, in response to the lawsuit.

At first, issues went easily, Vigliano claims. Joanna delivered her first two books, Magnolia Desk: A set of Recipes for Gathering, and Magnolia Desk, Quantity 2: A set of Recipes for Gathering, and Vigliano acquired his commissions in full.

Nevertheless, in 2018, the Gaineses fired their supervisor and employed UTA—and that’s when issues began to collapse for Vigliano, he says.

First, the lawsuit states, Chip and Joanna wound down their firm, C&J Gaines, and changed it with a brand new one referred to as Magnolia Manufacturers, LLC. Then, on July 7, 2020, the pair “executed a purported modification” to the 2017 contract with HarperCollins. This lower down Joanna’s obligation to the writer from 5 books to 4, one in all which might now be written by Chip, not Joanna.

New York State Supreme Courtroom

Because of this, Vigliano would solely be getting paid for 3 books by Joanna and one by Chip, “whose reputation and fame doesn’t match Joanna’s,” his lawsuit notes, including that Chip was not a celebration to the unique settlement and can’t be added to it with out Vigliano’s permission.

“Joanna’s books are bestsellers and her model encompasses all areas of meals and life-style,” the swimsuit continues. “Chip has not discovered the identical success individually. HarperCollins knew this and excluded Chip from the Settlement, regardless of beforehand coming into right into a e-book cope with each Joanna and Chip.”

Moreover, Vigliano claims UTA negotiated a “facet settlement” for Joanna to publish an extra e-book, The Tales We Inform, which was revealed final month. Joanna obtained a $7 million advance for the mission, “with extra anticipated to be earned in royalties,” in response to the lawsuit. And for the reason that e-book was “delivered and revealed earlier than any of the remaining three books within the Settlement,” the swimsuit says it ought to thus depend because the third of the 5 titles within the authentic contract.

Treating it as separate, in response to Vigliano, was “an intentional breach” of the deal meant to chop him out of his rightful proceeds.

Vigliano is asking for “at least” $2 million, plus curiosity, from the Gaineses and UTA for breach of contract and tortious interference.

“It’s actually a quite simple story,” Hutcher, Vigliano’s legal professional, instructed The Day by day Beast. “My intestine tells me that [Vigliano] acquired caught within the crossfire between the need of the Gaineses to oust their current administration, and [Vigliano was] collateral harm.”

He added, “It’s vital [to consider] who you get into enterprise with… These are individuals who profess to have the very best Christian values. However they’d no drawback ignoring my consumer’s rights, so all of it comes right down to character.”

The post Agent Accuses ‘Fixer Higher’ Stars of Screwing Him in Guide Deal first appeared on Raw News.