If you’re a child of the 90s like me, you grew up with Bill Nye “The Science Guy.” Nye was the person who walked you through experiments, explained how the world around you worked, and made science pretty cool. As a child of the nineties, it’s been kind of weird to see Bill Nye transform from “beloved scientist for kids” to “political activist who kinda swears a lot.”
Nye has seemingly moved beyond those days of being “The Science Guy” but he’s still looking to get paid from his old show. While his run ended in 1999, Nye is suing Disney saying that he’s still owed a lot of money from those days.
Via Deadline, Nye is asking for $37 million because the company has “breached their fiduciary duties” and “enriched themselves” at his expense:
Bill Nye is suing the Walt Disney Company and a host of its subsidiaries today for more than $37 million, alleging he didn’t receive his fair share of the net profits generated by his long-running series Bill Nye the Science Guy.
“Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that as a direct and proximate result of the Defendants’ breach of fiduciary duty, Plaintiff has suffered damages in the amount of not less than Nine Million Three Hundred Fifty Thousand Five Hundred Sixty dollars (USD$9,350,565.00), the final amount to be proven at trial,” says the complaint, dropping some big bucks demands (read it here).
And then the big bucks get bigger, like three times bigger.
“Plaintiff is further informed and believes and thereon alleges that the Defendants, by breaching their fiduciary duties, enriched themselves, at the expense of the Plaintiff and the BNSG Owners, obtaining ill-gotten profits of not less than Twenty Eight Million Fifty One Thousand Six Hundred Ninety Five dollars (USD$28,051,695.00),” Nye does some math at Disney’s expense that alleges to be at his expense.
If Nye’s allegations are true, that’s shocking behavior from Disney and a lot of money that he’s missed out on over the years. Nye may have recently found a second life in popular culture by doing some different things, but he’ll always be “The Science Guy” to me. So while we’re here, let’s watch a cool video about volcanoes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K_ZjhTBwWI
There, that makes us all feel better.
[Deadline]
