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Sharon Osbourne says she paid her own father $1.5 million to buy back Ozzy's contract.. then didn't speak to him for almost 20 years.. and in the end she was the one paying for his nurses. When Black Sabbath fired Ozzy, his contract belonged to Don Arden, the band's manager and Sharon's father. Sharon took Ozzy. Her father kept the band. How the money moved, in her words: every gig was paid in cash, and she carried the bag back to her father. "Everything was cash, cash, cash," she says. She still had trucking, the road crew and the band to pay. The court record: Year one: she managed Ozzy, her father managed Sabbath. About a year later: Sabbath gave an ultimatum. "It's him or us." Don Arden stayed on as Ozzy's co-manager, and still held the contract. Then they ran. An agent lent them money and hid them in a hotel in South Carolina. She says men from New York sat in the dressing room with gun handles showing in their boots, pushing Ozzy to sign over his publishing. $1.5 million: what she says it cost to set Ozzy free from her father. 3 years: how long she says the threatening calls followed her and her young kids. 20 years: how long the split lasted. The case for Sharon: Ozzy had a wife and kids, and she says she "just couldn't allow" her father to do that to him. The case for Don: he held the contract, and walking away with his client meant paying for it. Then the twist. Arden lost it all. The big houses, the cars, the staff. He got Alzheimer's. Sharon wanted to "let him burn." Ozzy insisted she do the right thing. She brought her father from England to LA and set him up with nurses. Asked if he ever said sorry, she answers: "No. Never." In the video below, Sharon Osbourne recalls the call she got from a friend in the industry: "Your father needs you. He's got nothing. He can't pay his rent." After the $1.5 million and the guns in the dressing room, did she owe her father his rent?

Salt-N-Pepa sold more than 15 million records.. waited more than 35 years for copyright law to hand their masters back.. and when they asked for them, their music disappeared from Spotify and Apple Music. Push It, Shoop, Whatta Man. Decades of hits, and the duo does not own the recordings. "Fans are like, where's the music?" says Cheryl James, known as Salt. Salt-N-Pepa are Cheryl James and Sandra Denton. Universal Music Group controls their masters. Under copyright law, she says, recordings revert to the artists after 35 years. The court record: 1986: Hot, Cool & Vicious, the debut album one fan now tells her she plays "every single day." More than 35 years later: the duo files the paperwork to take the recordings back. "We did all the right things," she says. 2025: Salt-N-Pepa sue Universal to get their masters. Universal's answer: a stipulation it says stops the rights from reverting. Then the catalog comes off streaming. The case for Salt-N-Pepa: the law sets a clock, the clock ran out, the paperwork was filed. "It's only fair that we get it back." The case for Universal: the label points to the terms of the deal and says the reversion does not apply to these records. Salt says the fight is bigger than one duo: "We're also fighting for other women, other artists." Then the twist. The man behind their early records was Herbie, the producer for the Idol Makers. Salt was his girlfriend, learning in the studio next to him. She wrote and produced Expression herself. It went platinum. She says she still felt she couldn't call herself a producer. Now her solo album, Salty and Lit, is coming out independently. In the video below, asked about the dispute with UMG, Salt says: "They're just stalling, using it as an excuse not to give us back our music." Should a decades-old contract outweigh a law written to give artists their work back?

Rumours sold more than 40 million copies.. in 2018 Fleetwood Mac fired the man who wrote Go Your Own Way.. right before a world tour.. and he went to court saying it cost him at least $12 million. He had been in the band for 43 years. Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975, alongside Stevie Nicks. Two years later came Rumours, the album that made all of them rich. By 2018 the five of them were preparing to go back on the road together. They went without him. "This was not something that was was really my doing or my choice," he says. The court record: January 2018: the band played together at a tribute event in New York. April 2018: Fleetwood Mac announced the tour without Buckingham. Two other guitarists were brought in to replace him. October 2018: he sued his bandmates in Los Angeles. His claim: breach of fiduciary duty and breach of an oral agreement, with damages put at no less than $12 million in lost tour earnings. December 2018: the case was settled. The terms were never made public. The case for Lindsey: he had helped build the band's catalog for four decades, and he says the decision to remove him came from inside the group. The case for the band: they say the tour plans and the working relationship could no longer hold together, and the members chose to continue without him. Then the twist. In public, he barely talked about the money at all. Standing on a stage months after the split, he did not mention a dollar figure. He talked about what he called "factions within the band that had lost their perspective." If you have ever been pushed out of something you spent your life building, you know the paycheck is rarely the part that stays with you. In the video below, Lindsey Buckingham says the firing "harmed the 43-year legacy that we had worked so hard to build." After 43 years, should a band be able to tour without one of the people who wrote its biggest songs?

Mike Love says his name was left off 35 Beach Boys songs.. he sued his own cousin, Brian Wilson.. and in 1994 a jury agreed, with damages reported at around $13 million. The man on the other side was family. So was the man who sold the songs. Mike co-founded the Beach Boys with his cousins, the Wilson brothers. Their father, Murray Wilson, sold the band's song catalog. Whose name was in the credits decided who got paid for those songs. The court record: 1960: middle-class kids growing up a few miles from the beach in Southern California. Late November 1963: Mike and Brian wrote a sad, haunting song together. The next morning came the news from Dallas. 1966: Brian spent several months building Good Vibrations across four or five L.A. studios with The Wrecking Crew. Mike's job was the lyrics. He put it off until the drive to the session. "I dictated a poem while I was driving in our XKE to the studio," he says. Good Vibrations was one of the songs he later fought over. 1994: a jury found Mike was a co-writer. $13 million: the award, according to press reports. The case for Mike: the words were his, and for decades the credit and the royalties that come with it were not. The case for Brian: by Mike's own account, the record took Brian months of tracks, tempos and experiments. Mike wrote his part during one car ride. Then the twist. Mike says family parties in his house always came back to singing, even with relatives who were feuding. "You could have somebody who didn't pay somebody back," he says. "But music was the bond that brought everybody together." That harmony, he says, "had nothing to do with music or fame or fortune." If you have ever made something with family and never put it on paper, you already know how this one ends up in court. In the video below, Mike Love says: "I dictated to my then-wife, Suzanne, who was pregnant with our daughter, Haley, and I said, take this down. I love the colorful clothes she wears." Do the words written on one drive to the studio earn a writer's share of the song?

The Backstreet Boys were selling millions of albums.. by 1998 they said about $300,000 had reached the whole group.. and Brian Littrell became the first to sue the man who built them. That man, Lou Pearlman, later ran a Ponzi scheme that left $300 million in debt. He put the group together in Orlando in 1993, and he kept ownership of the name. Brian could see the gap between the stage and the office. "This guy is sitting in his office, and he's getting checks," he says. The court record: 1998: Brian filed what he calls an open-ended lawsuit, because he could not do it by himself. Then he went to the other four members, and they teamed up with him. Pearlman threatened a cease and desist. He owned the name, the equipment and the touring. When the lawsuit was announced, he shut their tour down for a while. The band settled out of court and, in Brian's words, "got everything that we needed to move on." 2008: Pearlman pleaded guilty to conspiracy and money laundering and was sentenced to 25 years. His sentence required restitution. The case for Brian: five singers doing show after show while their bank accounts stayed empty. The case for Pearlman: he started the group, and the contracts gave him the name, the gear and the tour. Then the twist. The first pushback did not come from Pearlman. It came from inside the band. "You're going to break up the band. We can't do this right now. We're on top of the world," Brian remembers them saying. Today they run their own label, after fulfilling their contract with JAG Records. Pearlman does not get any of their songwriting royalties. "Now we know where every dollar is being spent," Brian says. If you have ever let someone else hold the checkbook because things were going well, this is how long it can take to notice. In the video below, Brian Littrell says: "our bank accounts are nothing and and our managers and especially him uh his bank accounts are growing" Was suing the man who owned their name worth risking the band at its peak?

Bat Out of Hell sold 44 million copies, Meat Loaf says.. six years after its 1977 release he filed for bankruptcy.. buried under dozens of lawsuits from former partners. The album still sits among the best-selling records of all time, and he says "nobody will ever catch it now." The songs came from one man, Jim Steinman. They were the same age and had the same dream, and that one record paid both of them for decades. The press version: the two of them spent years suing each other. "Jim and I have never sued each other, really," he says. "It's always been record companies or managers or lawyers." The court record: 1977: Bat Out of Hell comes out. He says "everybody hated it." 10 months: how long it took to break, with CBS president Walter Yetnikoff, John Belushi and Gilda Radner pushing it. 9 months: how long Belushi and Radner pressured Lorne Michaels to book him. 1978: Saturday Night Live, the next to last show of the season. The album broke after that night. Number 37: where Paradise by the Dashboard Light got to before Casey Kasem wrote, he says, "We've got to get this trash out of the Top 40." 1983: bankruptcy, with former partners lining up in court. Bat Out of Hell III: Steinman was supposed to produce. Managers and lawyers fought, and told the two men not to talk to each other. The case for Meat Loaf: the money fights belonged to the people around the music, not the two men who made it. The case for the managers and lawyers: their job was to protect each man's share of one of the biggest catalogs in rock. Then the twist. About five years ago, he asked Steinman's manager for a new record and was told "he can't do it with you." So he emailed Jim directly. Jim wrote back: "Oh, I'm up for that." Six months of trading songs. Four months of recording. Nobody knew. When the manager found out, he says Jim simply told him to go away. If someone else is negotiating your money, they may also be deciding who you get to talk to. In the video below, Meat Loaf says: "I can't say this or I'll get sued. Trust me." Was the war between Meat Loaf and Steinman ever really theirs, or did it belong to the people billing them?

Debbie Reynolds married a man worth $21 million.. handed him every paycheck she earned for 13 years.. and says that when it ended, both fortunes were gone. She was already one of the biggest stars at MGM, the girl from Singin' in the Rain. How it disappeared, in her words: he was a "gamblerholic," losing "hundreds of thousands every day." Her first husband, Eddie Fisher, had left her for Elizabeth Taylor. She says she was 25, with two small children. The court record: 1959: her marriage to Eddie Fisher ends. She says he "really didn't support the children." 1960: she marries Harry Karl, 22 years older. The first seven years, she says, were "fabulous." Then the gambling, every single day. $400,000 to $500,000: the least she says she made in any year of that marriage. All of it went to him to manage. He hired a business manager to look after things. "And they had a good time," she says. 1973: the divorce, after 13 years. 1997: her Las Vegas hotel, the Debbie Reynolds Hotel & Casino, files for bankruptcy. 2011: her Hollywood collection goes to auction. Marilyn Monroe's white dress from The Seven Year Itch alone sells for $4.6 million. The case for Debbie: she trusted her husband with the money because, as she was raised, "the husband takes care of the wife." The case for Harry: he is not here to answer, and even she says he adored her and loved her children. Her own mother approved: "It's everything a mother dreams about." Then the twist. When Eddie walked out, she refused his money. "I was too proud. I said, who needs him?" The next husband got every dollar she made. If you have ever let someone you love "take care of" your money without checking, you already know how this one ends. In the video below, Debbie Reynolds says: "I don't know how you lose 7 million of mine, 21 million of his." Did his gambling cost her the fortune, or did her trust?

Dennis Rodman earned more than $25 million in NBA salary.. won 5 championships.. and in 2012 his lawyer told a court he was broke. By then he owed more than $800,000 in unpaid support to his ex-wife, Michelle Moyer. Years earlier, he says, he had walked away from a $20 million offer. In the 1990s he was the most famous rebounder on earth, with dyed hair, tattoos and a title ring almost every June. In 1994, while he played for San Antonio, he was dating Madonna. "Everyone knows our dating Madonna," he says. The record: 1989 and 1990: back to back titles with the Detroit Pistons. 1993 to 1995: two seasons with the Spurs, next to David Robinson. "We didn't see eye to eye," he says of Robinson. The problem was off the court. 1996, 1997, 1998: three straight titles with the Chicago Bulls. $25 million plus: his total salary across the career, before endorsements. 2012: his lawyer told the court the money was gone. $800,000 plus: what Michelle Moyer said she was still owed. The case for Michelle: support for a family is not optional, and a man who earned $25 million should have kept enough to pay it. The case for Dennis: the salary was spent, the playing days were over, and his side said there was nothing left to collect. Then the twist. On The Breakfast Club, he claimed Madonna offered him $20 million to have a baby with her. She later denied it. He still won't take it back. He calls it "a mutual agreement and a contract." If you have ever turned down money because the terms felt wrong, you know that choice can look very different years later. In the video below, asked if he still stands by the $20 million story, Dennis Rodman says: "It didn't happen. So I can say, hey, I lost, but I didn't." Was he really broke, or did he just stop paying?

Home Alone made $476 million.. its child star became the highest-paid child actor in history.. and at home he still slept on the couch. Then his parents went to war in court, with a fortune of about $17 million on the line. "I had no say," Macaulay Culkin says. "I've done 14 films. I've never read one of the scripts." His father, Kit, was a failed actor who pushed all seven of his children into acting. Before Macaulay turned 10, he was the breadwinner for the whole family. The court record: Over $8 million a film: what he was earning at his peak. 14 films: he says he only learned what each one was about at the premiere. Age 15: he called 911 from the family's Upper West Side apartment and reported that his father was assaulting him. Police said Kit Culkin admitted striking his son. 1995: his parents split, and the custody fight played out in the headlines. His mother won custody of all seven children. The case for Macaulay: he earned the money and got none of the comfort. "He wanted me to know and my brother to know that he was in charge," he says. The case for Kit: he told police it was over missed school and a messy room. His son expects nothing less: "Whatever I say about him, he's going to try to contradict everything I say." Then the twist. He removed his parents' names from the guardianship of his fortune. And the most famous kid on earth simply quit. "I'm retired," he said. He was 14. If you have ever paid the bills for the people who controlled you, you already understand why he walked away. In the video below, Macaulay Culkin says: "I was making, forget about how much money I was making, but I was sleeping on the couch." Should a child who supports the whole family have the right to take his money out of his parents' hands?