Vanessa Hudgens Sued by a Music Producer

Disney starlet Vanessa Hudgens got into legal trouble, again.

She’s being sued by a producer who claims she has been flaky with her royalty payments since their professional relationship ended.

On Monday (8/11), Johnny Vieira filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Vieira is demanding more than $5 million and punitive damages from the High School Musical star. The music producer accuses the 19-year-old singer/actress and her manager-father, Greg Hudgens, of breach of contract and fraud.

Back in 2005, Vieira and Hudgens agreed to share equally in her advances, royalties and merchandising revenues, in exchange for his career-launching services. Because the actress was a minor at the time, Vieira contends that a court approved the 2005 agreement.

But after she was cast in Disney’s TV movie sensation High School Musical and became a hit, Vieira says she dumped him. Even after she sent him a photograph with the inscribing, “Johnny, thank you for everything, without you, I would be nowhere. We will make it BIG…Vanessa Hudgens”. And at the bottom of the picture, she wrote, “*Sweet!*”

Vieira also said that Hudgens still owes him $2 million which he discovered “after an expensive audit”. According to the suit, they subsequently reached a settlement under which Hudgens agreed to pay Vieira a percentage of her earnings from her first three albums under her solo recording contract with Hollywood Records.

But after giving Vieira a share of her first album advance and a portion of merchandising revenues from the first quarter of 2007, “no other monies have been paid to Vieira and no other accounting has been provided”, as stated in the suit.

Hudgens’ record label, the Walt Disney Co.-owned Hollywood Records, also is named as a defendant in the suit. And there has been no comment from Hudgens’s camp. While a Disney spokesman said the company had not had a chance to review the lawsuit.

Hmm… good cooperation gone bad? it happened all the time. Well, hopefully everything could be settled nicely between the two sides.

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