Joan Rivers Sued By Former Manager Billy Sammeth

Loose-lipped and surgically-altered, Joan Rivers’ infamous “Take No Prisoners” approach to life is about to get the 76-year-old comedienne hauled into court.

It’s all courtesy of her new documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work, which opened in select theaters June 11. The documentary — which debuted to solid reviews at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan — offers an insightful look at one of the oldest, most daring comics of our age.

Insightful if you don’t happen to be Joan’s now-estranged manager of eight years. Billy Sammeth says Rivers stiffed him out of commissions and expenses worth $179,000 and made a fool of him in the documentary. In Manhattan on Wednesday, Sammeth slapped the motormouthed funny gal with a $2 million federal lawsuit claiming unpaid fees and public ridicule. Sammeth also believes he’s entitled to 10% of the $200,000 grand prize Joan took home as winner of Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice in 2009.

“It’s not true he was missing. The fact is that Joan needed to save money, so she cut Billy,” says Sammeth’s lawyer Susan Chana Lask. “She makes a big scene out of losing her ‘best friend.’ If he’s her best friend, why lie and cut him off at the knees? That’s the worst part. He’s emotionally distressed. He reenergized her career from 12 concerts a year back in 2002 to more than 40 concerts and ‘Celebrity Apprentice,’ and got her as far as the movie.”

Joan’s chalked the suit up as the bitter ramblings of an unemployed man.

“This is the claim of a former personal manager, who was properly terminated over one year ago. Billy Sammeth is now making claims for money to which he is not entitled, and I am confident that the judicial system will dispose of Mr. Sammeth’s lawsuit in the appropriate manner,” Rivers said in a statement.