*The widow of late singer Teddy Pendergrass claims Tyrese Gibson is a “poor businessman” amid their legal battle over a biopic about the musician.
We reported earlier that Gibson is suing Joan Pendergrass, whom he accuses of refusing to extend the option for the rights to the late singer’s life story. In 2019, it was reported that Gibson would portray the R&B crooner in a biopic by Lee Daniels, Deadline reported.
Warner Bros. acquired the life rights of the late artist, who rose to fame in the early 1970s as the lead singer of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes before achieving success as a solo artist. A near-fatal car crash in 1982 left Pendergrass paralyzed from the chest down, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to perform for two decades until announcing his retirement in 2007. He also established the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance to help those with spinal cord injuries before he died in 2010.
Joan was set to executive produce the biopic with Little Marivn attached initially to pen the screenplay. Gibson’s Voltron production company was slated to oversee the production. As RadarOnline reports, he is now at war with Joan, who claims the “Fast and Furious” star is “incapable of getting a movie made.”
“Sadly things had to come to this….Another Philadelphia legend Lee Daniels is attached direct me as Teddy. This has been 13 years+ in the making this man embraced me when he was on this earth and shared to me “No one can play me in my biopic but you Tyrese I’m sure of it”…. -TP,” Gibson said previously in an Instagram post.
Gibson is suing Joan because she allegedly cut him out of the biopic after he invested 6-figures into the project, RadarOnline reports. He is seeking $1 million in damages.
Joan criticized Gibson’s lawsuit and his efficiency in recently filed documents.
Here’s more from Radar:
As we first reported, Joan denied all allegations of wrongdoing. She admitted a deal had been signed with Voltron in 2011 which gave the company the rights to Teddy’s life story.
However, she claimed that Tyrese signed away his rights to Teddy’s life story in a deal the actor signed with Warner Bros in 2019. She said the agreement Voltron made with Warner Bros assigned Teddy’s life rights to Warner Bros and cut Tyrese’s company out of the picture completely.
She claimed that in 2019 she had “reached the firm conviction that while [Tyrese] may be a talented actor and singer, he was a poor businessman and incapable of getting a movie made, and his association with the project was hindering — not helping — its chances of success.”
As Radar reports, Teddy’s widow is confident Gibson’s lawsuit “will be exposed for what it is — a meritless and vexatious abuse of the legal process.”
Joan wants the entire case to be dismissed.
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