‘LO$ER’ LENNY
Dykstra suing, says doc producers owe him
Nails says he got screwed.
Lenny Dykstra, the ex-Met whose post-baseball life has been marred by financial trouble and arrests, plans to sue Monday the documentary producers he claims stiffed him out of money from a planned Amazon series.
The deal for the series tentatively titled “Nails” fell apart in October 2017, but the producers with DLP Media Group still earned a $400,000 kill fee, Dykstra says.
Dykstra's lawyer Matthew Blit says his client deserves at least $200,000 — half of the kill fee.
The documentary was to include footage from Dykstra's childhood, his storied baseball career as a three-time All-Star and 1986 World Series champ, and the present day.
The fallen 55-year-old center fielder says he got nothing out of the deal — and his planned suit in Manhattan Supreme Court alleges that the show's producers deliberately kept him in the dark.
“Instead of coming to me like a professional and telling me that the deal fell through, they hid it from me at first. And then greed took control of them,” Dykstra said.
“They figured because I don't speak so well these days because of my teeth, that I am an idiot. They thought they could lie to me and I would never uncover the truth. Well, they were wrong!”
Dykstra says he turned down offers for reality shows while the Amazon series was in the works, adding to potential damages in the case.
“Despite the fact that defendants knew the deal was dead they continued to string Lenny along preventing him from doing other projects, also causing damage,” said Blit, who has previously sued big shot celebs like Mariah Carey, Sean (Diddy) Combs and James Franco.
The suit names DLP Media Group, which has produced numerous sports-related shows; the company's owner, Michael Hughes, and other employees. Evan Dick, an unscripted TV and sports broadcasting agent with Creative Artists Agency, is also named.
An attorney for the defendants, Cameron Stracher, called Dykstra's allegations “completely meritless.”
“Mr. Dykstra was paid a very generous fee by DLP for the rights to pitch a series about his life,” he said. “The series was never picked up, and Mr. Dykstra kept his money and signed a release. DLP is confident that his grab for more money will quickly be rejected by the courts.”
Dykstra last made headlines in June for allegedly faking having a gun and telling an Uber driver “take me to Staten Island or I'll blow your f-----g head off!" Dykstra claimed that the driver had kidnapped him.
It was only the latest humiliating headline for Dykstra, who in 2008 listed his net worth at $58 million. In 2011, he was unable to post $500,000 bail on federal bankruptcy fraud and obstruction-of-justice charges.
He's since published an autobiography, “House of Nails: A Memoir of Life on the Edge.”
Blit said that Dykstra's feud with the producers of the docuseries shouldn't be misinterpreted as another problem of the major leaguer's own creation.
“People are quick to judge Lenny Dykstra before they get all of the actual facts,” Blit said.