One of the most unfortunate and infrequently talked about aspects of being a musical legend is that while most fans assume you’re living a life of million-dollar paydays due to the steady stream of royalties constantly heading your way, if this isn’t your reality, you can be in quite a bit of trouble.

Much of your money can find its way into the pockets of labels, lawyers, and unscrupulous hangers-on, and once the money is all gone, there’s few places to turn, particularly if you’re in no state to tour or record. It’s not like there’s any rock star unions to join.

That’s why many were despondent to discover that, despite his status as a rock and funk legend, Sly Stone, frontman of the iconic group Sly and the Family Stone, was basically homeless, following years of drug abuse and run-ins with shady accounting practices by his management team.

But things may be improving for the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. As Rolling Stone reports, he was recently awarded $5 million after a Los Angeles Supreme Court jury found that the icon had been cheated out of over a decade’s worth of royalties by his former manager and an entertainment lawyer.

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During the breach-of-contract lawsuit, Stone’s lawyers argued that Gerald “Jerry” Goldstein and Glenn Stone tricked the musician into becoming an employee and co-owner of a company called Even St. Productions, which the two used to pocket Stone’s royalties through “shady accounting”.

“It’s a good day for Sly, it’s a good day for entertainers in general,” Nicholas Hornberger, a lawyer for Stone, told the press following the verdict. “This was an important verdict for people that are artists, entertainers, music composers, etc.”

The legal battle between Stone and Goldstein began back in 2010 when the musician sued his former manager for $50 million in unpaid royalties. It was around this time that Stone was revealed to be living out of a white van in Los Angeles after years of “financial mismanagement”.

A year earlier, Stone went on a highly publicised tirade against Goldstein whilst on stage at the Coachella Music Festival, accusing the manager of fraud and embezzlement, which prompted Goldstein to sue Stone for slander.

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During the recently settled suit, lawyers for the manager and Glenn Stone claimed that the frontman approached the company in 1989 with the hope of “re-creat[ing] his career”. They claimed that Stone didn’t see any royalty payments from 1989 to 2000 because the money that Even St. collected was used to pay off Stone’s outstanding tax debts.

However, despite the lawyers’ claim and Goldstein’s libel suit, the jury disagreed. They returned a $5 million verdict in favour of the musician, with Even St. ordered to pay Stone $2.5 million, Goldstein ordered to pay $2.45 million, and Glenn Stone $50,000.

However, since Stone is listed as a co-owner in Even St. Productions, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013, how the company will repay Stone remains unclear. A judge will reportedly sort out the matter and other issues when the case returns to court “in a few weeks”.

“Sly’s a deeply religious guy and he loves everybody and they just took him. It’s sad that people would treat other people like that,” said Hornberger. “This is endemic of the entertainment industry. There are bad people who leech off people and this has got to stop.”

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