A couple months back, we reported extensively on the convoluted saga surrounding Tame Impala’s missing money, which started with project leader Kevin Parker revealing that he’d made no money from the band’s overseas record sales.
It soon became apparent that the funds had essentially become lost in the midst of a dispute between the band’s label, parent label, and publishing company, with nobody exactly sure just who was meant to be paying the band.
While it was eventually revealed that the whole thing was a matter of miscommunication between stakeholders, for a while there it seemed as though Tame Impala were the latest victims of the unscrupulous business practices that can be a scourge on the music business.
Now it appears as though singer Sinead O’Connor could have a legitimate case of fraud on her hands. As Noisey reports, O’Connor recently took on a world tour that saw her trekking from Australia all the way to Germany.
However, according to a recent Facebook post, the tour was a nightmare. Taking to Facebook, O’Connor has accused Rita Zappador of Modus in Rebus Booking Agents of defrauding her for 18 months’ worth of performance wages.
In a Facebook missive, O’Connor accuses her former booking agent of keeping her Australian performance wages. “Completely illegally and completely sodding unchallenged by anyone who was representing me at the time,” she writes.
The singer has also produced an insurance document that, if legitimate, indicates the ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ hit-maker made only €500 for three performances in Germany back in May, while Rita and her company made ten times that apiece.
Worse yet, O’Connor claims she wasn’t even granted the anaemic wages her booking agent allotted her. It’s not clear what O’Connor’s normal performance fee is, but as Noisey points out, her services netted everyone involved about €16,000 a night.
“Observe below,” O’Connor begins. “What I got paid for three shows in Germany, FIVE HUNDRED EURO as compared to what everyone else got paid. The last two figures on this list amount to what the agent Rita Zappador and Modus In Rebus got, €11,700.00.”
“The €47,700.00 is the total of what my work generated. Pls note the document is page 9 of 7! This is the type of dodgy documents we are being provided with. This is the sodding insurance document,” she continues.
“In the end the agent didn’t even pay me the five hundred. So my work generated almost 48 thousand euro and I was to be paid 500 euro … Which I didn’t even get paid. Pls note bands do not arrange these things themselves. Ones business managers and agents do.”
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“One trusts one is not being lied to when one is seduced to go on tour by being assured of earnings. MASSIVE negligence cases to be brought by me against every member of my now ex management team.”
“Not only for the below but for several even more appalling and wreckless negligences, which have cost me hundreds of thousands of euro which I was illegally told was my obligation to pay, and it was NOT my legal obligation.”
“In short I have been ass raped by Rita Zappador and Modus in Rebus with the full (written, and totally behind my back, without my knowledge) support of Simon Napier Bell, Bjorn De Water and my now ex accountant. ALL of whom need to lawyer up, and get ready for the fraud squad.”
