21 February 2012
VVN Music
As Bret Michaels completed a number with the cast of the show Rock of Ages at the 2009 Tony Awards, a set piece was lowered from the rafters, striking Bret in the head and sending him to the stage. Almost a year later, he found himself in the hospital with a life-threatening brain injury that almost took his life.
Experts have said that the injury and the brain hemorrhage were most likely related, although almost a year apart, and Michaels went on to try and reach an amicable settlement with the producers of the Tonys; however, no agreement could be made and a lawsuit was initiated against CBS and the Awards.
Now the defendants in that case are trying to divert the blame for the accident away from them in a third party complaint filed in U.S. district court against Rock of Ages Broadway LLC, the company that controls the Broadway production of Rock of Ages. The complaint tries to shift the blame from the producers of the awards show and CBS to the company for the theater production, saying that they are, in fact, responsible for Michaels' injury.
Alex Weingarten, managing partner of Weingarten Brown LLP who are the attorneys for Michaels, said "This is a desperate act. The producers of the Tony Awards and their co-defendants cannot credibly deny that they almost killed Bret while he was performing with the cast of Rock of Ages, so instead they are trying to point the finger elsewhere. CBS and the rest of the defendants are just grasping at straws. It was their negligence that injured Bret, and it was then their decision to try to profit from his injuries by joking about them and playing them for ratings. We did not drag Rock of Ages into this, and Bret has nothing but the utmost respect for them, their production and the performers who were on stage and in harm’s way with him that night."
Along with the injury, Michaels also contends that the awards show could have delayed and edited out the injury from the program when it was broadcast but, instead, not only included it in the show but saw it become one of the internet's ten most viewed videos at the time.
