*Kevin Adell, owner of the Detroit-based religious broadcaster The Word Network, is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The filing came days after a federal jury ordered him to pay Bishop George Bloomer, a Black pastor, $62.2 million for racial discrimination.
Bloomer is now among Adell’s creditors. Deadline Detroit, citing The Detroit News, reports that the top 20 creditors listed in the filing have claims totaling more than $101.8 million. Adell has also been fighting the IRS.
Jurors found that Adell discriminated against Bloomer because of his race, harassed him, and retaliated against him for complaining, Metro Times reports.
Adell disputed parts of Bloomer’s account. His attorneys argued that the pastor voluntarily left the network and that race played no role in his departure. However, in June 2025, U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds found that Bloomer had presented “direct evidence of discrimination based on race,” allowing the case to proceed to a jury.
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Among the most striking allegations was a September 2019 phone call. Bloomer testified that Adell described himself as the pastor’s pimp and demanded money. When Bloomer said he was leaving the network, Adell asked whether he planned to join a competitor. He then offered to drive Bloomer’s “black ass” there in his Rolls-Royce.
The exchange followed a message in which Bloomer warned that some preachers viewed the network as a plantation. During testimony, Adell acknowledged that the comparison angered him and that he probably responded by reducing Bloomer’s airtime. He referred to cutting that airtime as “the whip.”
The dispute began with an online meme depicting Adell in white fur beside a limousine, towering over four Black ministers drawn much smaller. Bloomer, one of the ministers pictured, told Adell the image was racist. Adell sent it to Bloomer’s phone anyway and mocked him with comparisons to Tattoo, the diminutive character from “Fantasy Island.”
Adell later sent additional messages, including a photo of a white man whose face was covered in black ink. Bloomer had already compared the original meme to blackface. When asked to stop, Adell replied, “So sensitive” and “WTF,” according to court records.
The meme also drew public criticism. Detroit’s National Association of Black Journalists chapter condemned it, while boycott organizers urged clergy and viewers to abandon the network. Adell apologized that November. Bloomer filed his lawsuit in October 2022, also seeking money he said he was owed from product sales.
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