While he was a child star, Gary Coleman was managed by his parents, who also handled his financial and business affairs. This led to complications in 1989 when Coleman abruptly fired most of his team, including his publicist, agent, business manager, lawyer, and his parents. At that point, he entrusted the management of his career and the accompanying monetary aspects to friend Dion Mial, described as a Michael Jackson impersonator who was currently between jobs.
Coleman’s mother was so alarmed, she sued, seeking to place Coleman in a conservatorship that would allow her to take the reins of his fortune, then estimated at more than $6 million. Coleman fired back, launching a lawsuit of his own that accused his parents and former manager of systematically ripping him off for years; they countersued, alleging breach of contract and defamation. The legal battle wound its way through the courts for four years until, as Variety reported in 1993, the jury ruled in Coleman’s favor, determining that the three had overpaid themselves during a five-year period, when Coleman was a minor. They were ordered to pay Coleman $1,280,522 in restitution.
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Those four years in court reverberated throughout the rest of Coleman’s life, causing a rift with his parents that never really healed. “When Gary turned 18 years old, you know how you do a horse? We were put out to pasture,” the actor’s father lamented to CNN.
