Verdict a sour note
Jacko estate wants Jones ruling overturned
A Los Angeles jury awarded Michael Jackson’s estate to pay Quincy Jones $9.4 million last week — but the legendary music producer better not spend it.
Howard Weitzman, who represented Jacko’s heirs during the three-week trial, told On the Money he has plenty of “posttrial options to overturn the verdict.”
He also plans to pursue them, up to and including an appeal.
“We probably wouldn’t challenge an award up to $2.5 million,” Weitzman said.
Jones received the award for songs he produced for Jackson decades ago that were used in a movie and two Cirque du Soleil shows after the pop star’s death.
What seems to rankle Weitzman most is Jones portraying the legal win as a victory for artists’ rights.
“The jury’s verdict was wrong,” he said. “The real artist is Michael Jackson, and it is his money,” he told our Richard Morgan.
The faded ’90s mall favorite, Limited Too, is clawing its way back into brick and mortar by camping outside of the department stores from which it had hoped to be selling its glittery tween duds by now.
Limited Too will be hawking backpacks and other tween back-to-school stuff from a mobile truck next week that’ll be parked outside of Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and other Manhattan department stores.
Once a 600-store chain, Limited Too was bought in 2015 by licensing firm Bluestar Alliance, which had plans to open 200 stores and strike deals with Macy’s, et al. Then the retail apocalypse hit — and Amazon became its best friend.
“We are adapting to the retail climate and trying to take the brand forward,” Bluestar marketing director Mo Hedaya told our Lisa Fickenscher.
Our Siliconn Valley spies are all atwitter overr Snap and the more than 1 billionn shares that may be flooding the market in the next two weeks afterfter the 180-day initial public offeringng lockup expires.
CEO Evan Spiegelgel and newlywedwed wife actress Miranda Kerr
(pictured)tured) may want to do some estate planning with the 200,000000 shares he has coming due in the wake of Snap’s $3.4 billion IPO in March for $177 a share.
The recent direction of the social mediadia stock would have anyny finan-financial planner suggest-uggesting diversity inin the portfolio.
Snap is noww trad-trading at $13.69, aa far cry from its $29.44 all-timeme high price rightght after the offer-ring.
Ad tryout
Just as pro football camps open up to conditionon the players for the upcoming season,ason, advertisers are also drafting their pitch persons.
Our spies say former NY Jets quarterback and current WFAN radio host Boomeroomer Esiason has been on manyny MadisonMadison Avenue top-pick lists.s.
The sports broadcaster just signed with Johnsonvilleohnsonville to help promote the company’s indoor electric appliaappliance — the Sizzling Sausage Grill. JohnsonvilJohnsonville has worked with Esiasonson and has been a sponsor of his Cystic FibrosisFibro foundation in the past. A line from the upcoming ad has the sportscastersportsca explaining how he “used to pass pigskins but now passes pucks,” grillingrilling burgers indoors. There’s more than just the stock market that’s soaring ththis hot July. Buyers in the HamptonsH are taking some of their equity in stocks and plunking down more for homes along the South Fork resort towns. The median sasale price for a single-family Hamptons house has reached a record $1.07 million, up 7.5 percentpe from a year ago, accordingcording to a reportrep late last week by appraiserpraiser Miller SamuelSa and brokerage Douglaslas Elliman Real Estate. And the higherhigh end seems to be flourishingishing as well,well with 48 homes priced at $5 million or higher being sold in the three months leading up to the summer season — ththe most for any quarter since the end of 2015. But that ddoesn’t mean the sky’s the limit. Buyers ststill demanded a deal, however,ever, with 86 percent of houses and condos boubought in the quarter selling for less thantha what the seller sought, said JonathanJonat Miller, president of Miller SaSamuel. The average discountcount wawas 12 percent from the last asking pprice. “Even when the numbers make sense, bbuyers will still say, ‘I don’t want to pay full ask,’ ” Raymond Lord, a local Douglas ElElliman broker, told BBloomberg. “They always wwant to negotiate.”