A video circulating the Interwebs shows 90 Day Fiancé star Sarper Güven looking shocked as he was served legal documents while on stage last week at a California comedy club— and now The Ashley has all the details about the lawsuit filed against the Turkish reality star!
The Ashley can confirm that Sarper was, indeed, sued last week following cancellations of several of his upcoming standup comedy shows. The lawsuit was filed on July 22 in Los Angeles by Hypomania Productions and its CEO Lisa Sundstedt. In the complaint— which has been exclusively obtained by The Ashley— Lisa states that she is seeking $100,000 in damages (plus interest on those damages and attorney’s fees), and is accusing Sarper of breach of contract, fraud, defamation and more!
A Proof of Service Summons, also obtained by The Ashley, confirms that the envelope Sarper was handed while on stage was, indeed, notification that he is being sued. It confirms that Sarper was served (by the man in the video) at 9:40 p.m. on July 24 at the Grand Comedy Club in Escondido, California.
(Instagram user @MerryPants posted a video of Sarper being served last Thursday. On the second slide in the post below you can clearly see a man approach Sarper, hand him an envelope and seemingly say, “You’ve been served.”)
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In the complaint, Lisa details why she’s accusing the “90 Day Fiance” star of each offense.
For breach of contract, Lisa states that she and her company, Hypomania, had a written contract with Sarper that was signed in April. The contract– which was submitted as evidence to the court and has been viewed by The Ashley— states that Sarper “wishes to expand his entertainment career in the area of stand-up comedy, and other comedy-related performances” and hired Lisa “a professional and experienced comedy performer, comedy writer and comedy teacher and manager of comedy performers” to help him.
The contract stated that Lisa would be Sarper’s head writer for six months, and would have the exclusive right to produce Sarper’s first comedy show in Hollywood, which was to be called “Sarper & The Pretty Funny Women.” (“The Pretty Funny Women” is the title of Lisa’s own long-running comedy show.)
Sarper and Lisa agreed to equally split the door profits from the first three shows and then negotiate from there.
In the complaint, Lisa claims that on or around July 21, Sarper failed to perform as required, and instead performed in public on his own, which Lisa states was in violation of their agreement. She also claims that Sarper cancelled the scheduled performance they had arranged and then colluded with the venue management to “circumvent the agreement.” She also stated that Sarper made disparaging statements about her without cause.
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Lisa is not happy that she and her company were allegedly conned out of the money that Sarper’s performance(s) were due to bring, as well as the money she says she spent working to bring Sarper’s dream of being a stand-up comedian to fruition.
“Hypomania has been deprived of the revenue from the scheduled performance and has invested thousands of dollars in time and out of pocket costs in an amount to be proven at trial,” the complaint reads. “Plaintiff Sundstedt has suffered damage to her reputation and damage to her brand as a result of Defendant’s conduct.”
For the second accusation, Lisa states that Sarper is indebted to her and her company for the amount she put into Sarper’s career, which she claims is $27,500.
For the third cause of action, Lisa accuses Sarper of fraud, writing that the Turkish reality star agreed to let her provide him writing and promotional services, as well as professional advice, which Sarper agreed to take. She also states that they agreed to let her have “certain exclusivity to performance rights.”
Lisa stated that she believes Sarper “had no intention to honor the agreement and immediately took the benefits of Plaintiff’s services, efforts and out of pocket expenses that Plaintiff’s paid on Defendant’s behalf…”
She claims that this constitutes as fraud because Sarper knew he wasn’t going to follow their agreement and just wanted to squeeze all of the effort and knowledge he could out of her and her company.
“Defendant, at the time of entering into the agreement, intended to gain information and knowledge of the industry from Plaintiffs, and agreed to certain performance exclusivity rights in exchange, with no intention of honoring his agreement or allowing Plaintiffs to recoup the time, energy and out of pocket to be expended…” the complaint reads.
Lisa added that she spent “many hours in conference calls” with Sarper, wrote an “entire performance of original material for the benefit of” Sarper, and spent money on promoting and marketing the comedy show.
Because of all this, Lisa is asking for at least $50,000 in damages here, with the actual amount to be decided at trial.
Finally, Lisa accuses Sarper of committing “Intentional Tort,” stating that he bad-mouthed her and her company in multiple ways.
She states that on July 18, Sarper “did communicate verbally and in written form, disparaging and defamatory remarks to third parties impugning Plaintiff’s honesty, integrity and ability. In doing so, Defendant’s damaged Plaintiff’s reputation and good standing in the industry and further damaged Plaintiff’s existing business relationships.”
While it was not specifically stated in the complaint where Sarper allegedly bad-mouthed Lisa/Hypomania, he did make a few posts to Instagram Stories before the July 19 comedy show informing fans that he was cancelling, while also implying that someone’s dishonesty was the reason for him doing so.
“Every day I’m still learning in this country not to trust people,” Sarper wrote after apologizing to fans for cancelling.
He then stated that his cancelling had nothing to do with venues, one of which was the Grand Comedy Club.
“I would like to perform in the future in both,” Sarper wrote.
Sarper’s wife Shekinah also posted to Instagram Stories, defending Sarper while also bad-mouthing someone whom she blamed the cancellation on.
(Neither Shekinah nor Sarper ever actually mentioned Lisa by name here, though.)
“He was really excited to show you his set [on] the 19th,” Shekinah wrote. “Unfortunately there are some evil, jealous snakes in this town looking to prey [on] anyone they can.”
Sarper has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit; however, a case management conference has already been set for November 20.
The Ashley will continue to update this story. Stay tuned…
RELATED STORY: Former “90 Day Fiancé” Star Varya Malina Arrested for Felony Theft as Fiancé Geoffrey Paschel Serves 18-Year Prison Sentence
(Photos: TLC; Instagram)
4 Responses
I’m more surprised people would pay money to see him than I am by anything else.
He’s a comedian? What does he do, stand on stage jutting out his Robbie Rotten chin while ppl laugh at his face? Coz I can see how that would be funny. Although anything would be better than listening to him talk.
Honestly, the biggest joke is he thinks he’s funny.