hno:[h=1]Aretha Gives No Respect to Creditors, Report Says . Is the pink Cadillac about to get repossessed?[/h]According to a rather lengthy Detroit Free Press report, beloved Motor City diva Aretha Franklin has accrued more than 30 lawsuits from local merchants and business people since 1988 for not paying thousands of dollars in bills.
The report (titled "Why Doesn't Aretha Pay Her Bills?") includes a court history and comments from dozens of Detroit creditors who have taken the 56-year-old Queen of Soul--renowned for such monster hits as "Natural Woman," "Respect," "Think" and "Freeway of Love" and the recent A Rose Is Still a Rose--to court, one as recently as January, seeking anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
The singer, however, claims that not only is the front-page story old news, it unfairly mentions a small, negative fraction of the myriad successful business deals she conducts.
According to the Free Press, many Detroit-area plumbers, florists, limousine drivers and other business folks believe Franklin's local-hero status (she grew up in Detroit and returned there in the early '80s), is unfounded: Dean Pitcairn, whose Hilton Limousine service won a $1,500 settlement from Franklin: "I think it was the type of thing where [Franklin and her lawyers] felt if they prolonged it long enough, we would forget about them. It just made me mad because everyone thinks she's a big hero, and she doesn't think twice about stepping on little people."
David Greenbaum, Franklin's accountant until '92, when his firm sued the artist for nearly $7,000 in nonpayments: "She was above all the mundane activity of paying bills."
Bruce Bolton, a florist who had to take Franklin to court to collect over $1,100 in late payments: "Sometimes, you write these things off. But I think I just felt that she does this to so many people, and I didn't want to be among the people she did it to."
Frank Winton, a caterer who claims he put off suing Franklin for months before finally taking her to court to collect $2,300 in unpaid bills: "She did a lot of charity work, and I didn't want to embarrass her."
According to the newspaper, lack of income probably isn't a problem for Franklin, who still can command $80,000 for a concert appearance. But some sources claim the untimely payments relate to Franklin merely being bad at managing her finances. (She's reportedly overseen a great deal of her own business since her brother-manager Cecil Franklin died in 1989.)
Says her former attorney, Harvey Tennen, now a local county circuit judge: "She's a wonderful artist who shouldn't be handling her own business, but she does."
Adds record-store owner Larry Robinson, who helped the artist sell tickets for a 1996 Christmas concert at the church her preacher father used to preside over, only to have the overture blow up in his face when Franklin's camp oversold the event: "She really needs somebody else to serve as buffer. She's not a bad person. But when you're trying to play every position on the team...it's going to be rough."
As for Franklin, she released a statement Tuesday calling the Free Press story "malicious and vicious."
"Due to my travel and performance schedule and lack of a secretary in place during that period of time, that small fraction of people, less than 0.1 percent of the people with whom I do business, who were not paid, utilized their option to sue. This is not uncommon," she says. "Celebrities are sued every day for a number of reasons."
The report (titled "Why Doesn't Aretha Pay Her Bills?") includes a court history and comments from dozens of Detroit creditors who have taken the 56-year-old Queen of Soul--renowned for such monster hits as "Natural Woman," "Respect," "Think" and "Freeway of Love" and the recent A Rose Is Still a Rose--to court, one as recently as January, seeking anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
The singer, however, claims that not only is the front-page story old news, it unfairly mentions a small, negative fraction of the myriad successful business deals she conducts.
According to the Free Press, many Detroit-area plumbers, florists, limousine drivers and other business folks believe Franklin's local-hero status (she grew up in Detroit and returned there in the early '80s), is unfounded: Dean Pitcairn, whose Hilton Limousine service won a $1,500 settlement from Franklin: "I think it was the type of thing where [Franklin and her lawyers] felt if they prolonged it long enough, we would forget about them. It just made me mad because everyone thinks she's a big hero, and she doesn't think twice about stepping on little people."
David Greenbaum, Franklin's accountant until '92, when his firm sued the artist for nearly $7,000 in nonpayments: "She was above all the mundane activity of paying bills."
Bruce Bolton, a florist who had to take Franklin to court to collect over $1,100 in late payments: "Sometimes, you write these things off. But I think I just felt that she does this to so many people, and I didn't want to be among the people she did it to."
Frank Winton, a caterer who claims he put off suing Franklin for months before finally taking her to court to collect $2,300 in unpaid bills: "She did a lot of charity work, and I didn't want to embarrass her."
According to the newspaper, lack of income probably isn't a problem for Franklin, who still can command $80,000 for a concert appearance. But some sources claim the untimely payments relate to Franklin merely being bad at managing her finances. (She's reportedly overseen a great deal of her own business since her brother-manager Cecil Franklin died in 1989.)
Says her former attorney, Harvey Tennen, now a local county circuit judge: "She's a wonderful artist who shouldn't be handling her own business, but she does."
Adds record-store owner Larry Robinson, who helped the artist sell tickets for a 1996 Christmas concert at the church her preacher father used to preside over, only to have the overture blow up in his face when Franklin's camp oversold the event: "She really needs somebody else to serve as buffer. She's not a bad person. But when you're trying to play every position on the team...it's going to be rough."
As for Franklin, she released a statement Tuesday calling the Free Press story "malicious and vicious."
"Due to my travel and performance schedule and lack of a secretary in place during that period of time, that small fraction of people, less than 0.1 percent of the people with whom I do business, who were not paid, utilized their option to sue. This is not uncommon," she says. "Celebrities are sued every day for a number of reasons."
didn't see it, was driving, butt the news reports seem to love her performance (at least the ones I've seen)
knowing how I feel about the Anthem, and reading comments about her rendition here, I'm thinking this just shows how disconnected our media is from the rest of the country
knowing how I feel about the Anthem, and reading comments about her rendition here, I'm thinking this just shows how disconnected our media is from the rest of the country
