{"id":151443,"date":"2022-12-08T04:36:06","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T04:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/fixer-upper-stars-chip-and-joanna-gaines-sued-by-agent-david-vigliano-over-book-deal\/"},"modified":"2022-12-08T04:36:06","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T04:36:06","slug":"fixer-upper-stars-chip-and-joanna-gaines-sued-by-agent-david-vigliano-over-book-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/fixer-upper-stars-chip-and-joanna-gaines-sued-by-agent-david-vigliano-over-book-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixer Upper Stars Chip and Joanna Gaines Sued by Agent David Vigliano Over Book Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Design and lifestyle gurus Chip and Joanna Gaines have, over the past decade, built a business empire worth nearly $1 billion, by some estimates.<\/p>\n
The Waco, Texas-based couple were described in a variety<\/em> profile last month as having \u201cunrived reach and influence\u201d in the \u201chome, hearth, food and family\u201d sectors, which includes \u201ccurating\u201d the Magnolia Network, a 24\/7 cable channel they co-own with Warner Brothers Discovery.<\/p>\n
Chip, 48, grew up in Dallas, where his mom worked for a company that published books for the late televangelist Billy Graham.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact that man has had on my life is immeasurable,\u201d Chip said of Graham in a 2015 interview.<\/p>\n
Joanna, 44, is also deeply spiritual, telling Oprah Winfrey last year that she often hears what she believes to be the literal voice of God.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m very realistic,\u201d she said. \u201cI need to hear it. I’m literal. And so that’s how He shows up for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
But a venerable New York City literary agent who has represented not only the Gaineses in book deals, but Pope John Paul II as well, claims they’ve acted far from piously in their business dealings with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Joanna and Chip Gaines brand themselves as moral Christians who purportedly operate in an ethical manner insofar as they treated [me]nothing could be further from the truth,\u201d David Vigliano says in a lawsuit filed Wednesday and obtained by The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n
In the suit, which was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Vigliano, who has worked with authors from David Mamet to Kurt Cobain to Suzanne Somers, claims the Gaineses \u201coutrageous and arrogant breach of a publishing agreement\u201d in 2017 cheated him out of millions.<\/p>\n
Vigliano, in the simplest of terms, was \u201cscrewed\u201d by Chip and Joanna, according to his lawyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is, we don’t have access to what the sales of the books were, so we don’t know exactly what is owed to us,\u201d Vigliano’s attorney, Larry Hutcher, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. \u201cWe need an accounting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gaineses, who did not respond to a request for comment via their present literary agent, Byrd Leavell of the United Talent Agency (UTA), will be served with copies of the case in the coming days, Hutcher said.<\/p>\n
UTA is also named as a defendant in the suit. Agency executives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit describes Chip and Joanna as \u201cinternationally known reality television stars who gained vast fame and recognition for their show Fixer Upper<\/em> on the HGTV network, which aired from 2013-2018.\u201d And although they have both become successes in their own right, Joanna has been the main draw in recent years, teaming up with Target and Anthropologie, for example\u2014but not with Chip\u2014to create bedding and home decor lines, according to the suit.<\/p>\n