You've reached the Official webpage of Dr. Bruce V. DiMattia
contact info: bd@brucedimattia.com
Note: everything on this page is of public record or public knowledge and/or has been released to the media via interview and/or to the Internet, on websites such as brucewillis.com, myspace.com, and others, prior to January, 2007, and/or is public record attainable from the Santa Monica Superior Court.
BRUCE WILLIS ADMITS WRONGLY AND
MISTAKENLY SUING BEST FRIEND DR. BRUCE DIMATTIA
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Hello, my name is Dr. Bruce V. DiMattia. I am a professor of psychology. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Delaware and received my Ph.D. in the behavioral neuroscience subfield of psychology from the University of Utah. I have taught psychology and mathematics at fourteen universities and colleges in Utah, California, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Delaware and I have published over a dozen research and theoretical papers in various scientific journals around the world. Moreover, I have educated thousands of minds, young and old, in a teaching career that spans over two and a half decades. |
CASE SYNOPSIS:
In late 2002, Bruce Willis offered me a lucrative job auctioning off millions of dollars of his unwanted personal belongings. At great personal expense and sacrifice, I uprooted my life and career in academia and moved 2000 miles across the country to perform this work for him. However, months later, Willis arbitrarily changed his mind and decided not to sell his stuff and unilaterally cancelled his agreement with me.
When I asked him to provide me with fair and reasonable compensation for uprooting my life, and to pay me what he legally owed me, not only did he refuse to pay me but in August 2006 he filed a lawsuit against me alleging preposterously that I was trying to extort money from him.
On January 30th, 2007, in the face of a threat by me to file a multi-digit defamation of character countersuit exposing the full and real truth, Willis dropped his frivolous lawsuit and released a public statement admitting that he had made a mistake in suing me, that he regretted doing so, and that all accusations he made against me were completely untrue.
Furthermore, to compensate me for wrongfully damaging my reputation with his utterly fabricated and blatantly false allegations, and to avoid my countersuit, Bruce Willis proffered a generous settlement, which I accepted.
In short, I am absolutely and completely innocent of the ridiculous charges made by Bruce Willis against me. For a more detailed account of the story, please read on.
FULL VERSION WITH DETAILS:
I have known the actor, Bruce Willis, since my teens and we were best friends for many years. In fact, he was the best man at my wedding and was Godfather to my three children. In early August, 2006, Bruce Willis filed a lawsuit against me in which he alleged that I was hired to organize his family photographs and that, "overcome by greed and jealousy", I decided to extort my best friend out of $100,000 and a car. It alleged that I unlawfully garnered and threatened to exploit his personal family photographs. It alleged that I took valuable personal property and refused to return it. It alleged that I refused to vacate his premises where he was letting me "live for free". And it alleged that I threatened to defame him in a "lie-filled" book that would embarrass him.
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It sure made for a great story, making a huge splash in the headlines, and it very effectively made me out to be a low-life wretch who crawled out from under some slimy rock and turned on his childhood best friend. However, none of the malicious and vile accusations in the lawsuit were true. Not a single one. The truth of the matter is very much different from that which was depicted in his misguided lawsuit.
In early August, 2006, just days after the lawsuit was filed, I was interviewed by Inside Edition and in that interview I categorically denied each and every allegation in the lawsuit and explained the truth of the situation. Furthermore, subsequently, I submitted a legal Answer in Santa Monica Superior Court in which I officially and formally denied each and every allegation (see "Dr. DiMattia's Legal Answer" below).
In my interview with Inside Edition, I described that this case was not at all about extortion or shakedown or blackmail or anything like that but rather that it was purely about me trying to collect what I believed was bona fide compensation from Willis originating from an employment agreement that I had had with him, which he cancelled unilaterally and for which he did not wish to compensate me. I explained that I should have been the one to sue him first but opted not to. The money that I openly admit I was seeking was a debt and nothing more, with him owing me a lot of money and not wanting to pay it.
Our employment agreement involved me being in charge of auctioning off millions of dollars worth of his high-dollar personal belongings for which I was to receive a handsome sales commission (10 percent), among other considerations (including, somewhat importantly because there were accusations in the lawsuit pertaining to them, room and board and the use of a vehicle).
Furthermore, I explained that we had other disputes over intellectual property (movie ideas which we generated together) which, in the film business, could be worth millions.
Many many people were fully aware of the auctioning arrangement I had had with Bruce Willis. In fact, the whole world was made aware of the pending auctions - and that I would be in charge of them - because I, myself, notified the world about them officially and formally, with Bruce's authorization, on his very own webpage, brucewillis.com, to which I had been given extensive content control. As I described fully in the interview, the arrangement I had with him involved one and only one responsibility - auctioning - and nothing more. Specifically and importantly, our deal had absolutely nothing to do with organizing photographs or memorabilia (or anything else for all that matter), as was falsely and preposterously alleged in the lawsuit. I explained that I have plenty of evidence to prove the real and true specifics of my deal with him and that I would make it all public in court were we to end up there, which, at the time, I thought we might but, as will be seen, we did not.
The interviewer querried me as to the specifics behind the origin of our agreement and I explained that, in 2001, Bruce Willis and I rekindled a broken friendship after many years of semi-estrangement. In late 2001, after hearing some of my recorded music, Bruce invited me to play music in his band and I took him up on it and we did some engagements and we had a good time. Several months later, he told me that he was "top heavy" with possessions and that he wanted to pare down and get rid of many unwanted and unneeded things, including, importantly, eight very valuable, antique and classic vehicles (including a classic 1957 Corvette convertible, a 1962 Corvette, a 1967 Corvette Stingray, a 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400 Convertible, a 1968 Shelby Mustang Cobra GT500 convertible, a 1955 Chevy Bel Aire Nomad station wagon, a 1969 Dodge Charger coupe, and a Rolls Royce, expensive jewelry and watches, movie memorabilia and wardrobe, personal memorabilia, personal wardrobe, artwork, and many other very valuable items. He said he had "a warehouse and several homes" full of stuff he wanted to unload, all worth millions, according to him, and he offered me the job of being in charge of liquidating all this stuff because he knew I had extensive internet auctioning experience.
After careful consideration of his very lucrative offer, I accepted and uprooted myself from my happy life in Tennessee (where I had been teaching and playing and recording music for several years), at very great expense and sacrifice, giving up my employment at four different universities, giving up my seniority at those institutions, giving up my benefits, my medical and dental coverage, my retirement contributions, and even my very home, and I moved to Los Angeles in January 2003. I moved in with Bruce Willis at his home in the Hollywood hills and set about laying the groundwork for the auctioning, which took a few months and included the development of a database for the sales records and the photographing of all the stuff he wanted liquidated.
Unfortunately, however, the job never materialized and he never gave me the authorization to begin. In fact, for whatever reason, Bruce completely changed his mind about auctioning off his goods or, at least, about me being in charge of that task, despite the fact that I had spent a considerable amount of time, effort and energy transposing myself to LA and establishing the infrastructure necessary for the auctioning. I explained that I waited and waited for him to give me the go-ahead, querring him numerous times about it over a period of many months, but that he kept putting me off with a variety of excuses.
And so, as time rolled on, instead of auctioning off his stuff - and making a lot of money - I found myself being relegated to the performance of sundry mundane labor tasks such as walking the dog, framing artwork, trouble-shooting computers and running errands. If he went out of town on business ventures and I happened to be invited along, he had me do things like set up his computer system and/or his portable music system in his hotel suite. I even found myself tutoring his kids from time to time, which, I must admit, I really didn't mind at all because I loved them like my own and, after all, I am a teacher. But, this low-level menial work certainly wasn't making me the kind of money I thought I was going to be making when I accepted his offer. Not even close. And, while I did make a tiny bit of money playing music in his band, the $350 per gig (see example pay stubs below) was a far cry from the few hundred thousand I was supposed to be earning according to our agreement.
Check for 2 gigs
Check for 3 gigs
Check for 16 gig tour
Weeks turned into months and then months turned into over a year and a half, and approaching two years and still the auctioning had not begun. I started to become quite dismayed and worried about it. I was spending large amounts from my savings and retirement on living expenses (it's very expensive in California) and on education expenses for my kids and not replenishing it with the anticipated income from the auctioning. The interviewer asked me why I didn't just pick up and leave and I responded that my friend kept giving me lots of indication that the auctioning would still happen. At one point, a little over a year or so into the ordeal, for instance, I told him I thought I should leave and he told me specifically that he didn't want me to leave, that he really wanted me to stay. Furthermore, as I said, I had uprooted myself at great expense and sacrifice and it would have been a huge financial setback for me, at that stage in my life, at my age, to leave California emptyhanded after having given up so much in order to take on the job, including sacrificing my entire financial livelihood. Also, it would have been a huge financial expense to relocate myself back East and to sustain myself during the time it would have taken to find work in academia, and, if you know anything about academic jobs, they are few and far between and it often takes months to get work in a new locality.
And so, I stayed, hoping that he would finally give me the go-ahead to begin the auctioning. But, as I said, he never did and I found myself doing more and more menial work or, as was the case on many days, doing absolutely nothing at all, a scenerio which may suit others just fine but not me, and those who know me understand this trait fully. I told the interviewer that even Bruce's kids didn't know what the heck I was doing there, living in their house, day after day, week after week, month after month, apparently doing nothing. One evening, for instance, at the dinner table, one of them asked me, "Brown (a nickname Bruce had given me), what exactly is it that you do?" and I really didn't know what to tell her. It was quite embarrassing for me. Ultimately, I found myself actively generating small helpful tasks just to keep myself busy and to justify my being there. "Isn't that crazy?", I asked the interviewer. There I was, being deprived of the lucrative job I was promised by my best friend, and I found myself feeling guilty for being there doing nothing, even though it was not my fault at all that I was in that predicament.
I explained to Inside Edition that, at one point, in 2004, something very significant happened which made me come to doubt completely whether the auctioning would ever begin for me. Earlier, in 2003, Bruce said he wanted to sell two of his cars and I made suggestions about how I thought that should take place. It was my firm belief that they should be sold over the Internet, on eBay, so as to hit millions of potential Bruce Willis fans and vintage car collectors worldwide, as opposed to selling the cars in a private exclusive auction house in Florida (I believe it was Christie's), which was suggested by another of Bruce's main employees, David Boyd. After all, that's why he hired me - because of my Internet auction experience.
Then, months later, I happened to have a conversation with Mr. Boyd who proceeded to tell me that he had recently returned from Florida where he had taken the two cars to sell in the auction house and that, together, the two cars fetched $360,000. I explained to the interviewer that I was shocked, purplexed, taken aback, and in complete disbelief. I felt that this was wrong, and that, number one, I should have been the one to go down there and, number two, I should have received at the very least a commission on the sales, in accordance with our agreement. So, not only was I not doing any auctioning, but it seemed auctioning was going on behind my back, and other people were doing it, thereby depriving me of the commissions I was supposed to receive. I explained that this act was an outright breech of our contractual agreement and that, by all rights, I should have taken the matter to court. As I said above, I should have been the one to sue first but I chose not to as I am completely adverse to the idea of best friends suing best friends. I honestly thought we could work it out civilly.
Incidentally, Willis eventually sold five of the other eight vehicles I was hired to sell at Bonhams and Butterfield auction house on October 25, 2008.
Willis muscle car auction video ad
1957 Corvette - $79,560
1967 Corvette Stingray - $150,000
1955 Chevy Bel Aire Nomad - $46,800
1969 Dodge Charger - $86,580
1968 Shelby Mustang GT500 - $161,000
The total fetched for these five cars was $523,940 and, when added to the $360,000 for the two cars sold in Florida and an estimated $100,000 for the 1968 Pontiac Firebird, the grand total for Willis' vehicles was nearly one million dollars. My commission would have been 10% of that total or about $100,000, precisely the amount I felt he owed me and which I asked him for and which he absolutely refused to pay, claiming instead that I was trying to shake him down. Of course, I would have earned much much more than this amount from the sale of the millions of dollars worth of other expensive items Bruce Willis hired me to sell.
I could not give the interviewer any explanation when she asked me what I thought might have changed Bruce's mind about me and the auctioning and/or why he would have choosen to send someone else to perform the duties that he had hired me to perform, and, although I told her I had my suspicions, I chose not to elaborate on them at that time, in that interview, as I felt it would not have been appropriate, especially if Bruce and I were to end up hashing out the matter in open court, which I did not fear and in which I had the utmost confidence I would prevail were it to go that far, but which I sincerely wanted to avoid for a zillion obvious reasons, not the least of which would have been the unsavoriness of the airing of our private disputes across the globe.
And so, after the discovery of the clandestine auctioning of his cars in Florida, and after months and months of being put off and put off by him, it seemed like the writing was on the proverbial wall for me. Nevertheless, I held onto a timy glimmer of hope that everything would work out as we rolled into 2005. In the Spring, however, he invited me to go to Canada with him for the shooting of 16 Blocks and the auctioning was delayed yet again.
I went with Bruce to the 16 Blocks movie set every day and I began casually videotaping behind the scenes with a small Sony hand-camera, more or less for my own personal enjoyment and to keep from being bored. Then Bruce and I tossed around the idea of me taping footage for an official "behind the scenes" or "making of" DVD. He bought a hi-definition Sony digital camera for me - or so I thought he had bought it for me - and I began filming regularly and doing light interviews with the cast and crew. He arranged for me to receive what amounted to about $5000 for four months work, with me being on the set nearly every shooting day. I ended up shooting well over 60 odd hours of footage. While the job and the wage were appreciated, the amount I received was a pittance compared to what I should have been making.
Eventually, by the end of Summer, 2005, I told Bruce that I did not wish to hang around any longer, being an ostensible part of his entourage, that my money and patience had run out and that I really wanted to get on with my life. I decided to leave and I asked him to provide me with a compensation package, including enough money to cover all of my sacrifices, all the expenses I incurred in moving out to LA, all of my considerable time invested, the loss of income, the loss of health benefits, the loss of retirement contributions, etc., etc. I came up with the figure $100,000, which was, in my very humble opinion, extremely fair and, in actuality, far below what I would have earned had he followed through with the auctioning. My commission on the first two cars sold in Florida alone, for instance, would have been about $20,000, and there were six other very expensive cars he still wanted to sell (which, as already mentioned, brought in about one million dollars), not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of other very valuable, very expensive Bruce Willis personal items he had told me he wanted to unload. He even said he would autograph everything, which would have, of course, increased the sale prices considerably. The compensation was even more justified because I would be leaving LA with no job, no income, no place to live, and my money reserves severely depleated, all because the auctioning job he enticed me to California to orchestrate never materialized because, as I said, he cancelled it.
I explained that his reaction to my ernest request for what I believed was fair, just and reasonable compensation for the reneged auctioning job was, at first, complete rejection - he didn't want to give me a single nickle - and then, subsequently, to file a lawsuit against me and accuse me of trying to "shake him down", most probably, I speculate, at the advice and urging of his pit bull attorney, Martin Singer, into whose hands he plopped the matter and who certainly lived up to his reputation as an "attack dog" (according to his own biography on his corporate website, on which he is referred to as "Martin D. 'Mad Dog' Singer" ). Like a good little attack dog, he went straight for my jugular in this matter.
THE FALSE ACCUSATIONS:
The lawsuit was pretty vicious and, as I said above, it was full of sickening untruths. In fact, the only truth in the entire suit was the fact that I was hired by Bruce to work for him. Period. Everything else - every accusation and characterization - was false. Take note of the fact that there was absolutely no reference whatsoever to our auctioning agreement in the lawsuit.
Photographs
They made the silly claim, for instance, that I was "hired to organize Bruce's family photos". I asked the interviewer if she could see the absolute absurdity of this claim. I asked her to try to imagine what university professor in his or her right mind would completely abandon his or her life and career as a respected educator and researcher, and uproot his or her entire life and existance, and move halfway across the globe to Los Angeles for the soul purpose of organizing someone's photographs, even if that person did happen to be a rich and famous movie star? I suggested that none would, so ludicrous was the claim.
The lawsuit went on to assert that I withheld some of his photos and threatened to exploit them unless I received the so-called "shake down" money (and, of course, the new car that I am accused of demanding). Well, point blank - that is simply a fat lie and there is not one single shred of evidence to that effect. Yes, he had me organize some of his photos on his computer, and yes he had me scan some old theatrical photographs from his early career, and, yes, from time to time, he called upon me to burn some photos onto DVDs (all examples of the sort of mundane jobs he threw at me in lieu of auctioning). But, without a doubt - and I made this denial absolute, unequivocal, and in no uncertain terms - at no time did I ever threatened in any way, shape, or form, to do anything with them and that preposterous allegation, upon reading it in the lawsuit, made me absolutely sick to my stomach and I have a pretty strong stomach.
I explained that the real issue with "photographs" was very different from the pathetic depiction made in the lawsuit. During my 2.5 year stay with Bruce I, personally, snapped THOUSANDS of photos - some of him, some of him and me, some of the band, some of us with the band, some of his kids, some of us and his kids, some of him and his kids, some on movie sets, some on promo tours, etc. etc. I explained that these photos were legally mine - I owned the copyrights to all of them, as would ANY photographer because photography, after all, is no different from any other type of artistic endeavor and the photographer who snaps the photos owns all the rights to her work unless, of course, she agrees beforehand otherwise. Bruce and I never had any sort of agreement regarding photos either before or after my arrival in California and he never ever restricted me in any way - EVER - from snapping photos. Furthermore, I said that the world would see clear evidence of his willing participation in my photography, were we go to court, by his smiling face in my photos.
And so, the real dispute over "photographs" was not at all over those few which Bruce already owned outright and to which I had had limited access, and which I would never be able to sell - even if I were inclined to - because I did not own the copyrights to them. On the contrary, the real issue was over the many many photos which I had snapped myself while I was in his purview and to which he never objected, and which I owned (and am completely convinced that any judge or jury in the nation would agree I own were we to go to court over the matter). And, even if I had informed him that I was going to sell my photos for money - WHICH I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT DO AND THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT I DID - it would have been my absolute Constitutional right to do so.
Moreover, the appearance of a charge involving photographs was a perplexing shock to me because, the fact of the matter is, Bruce and I had never had, at any time, either before our disputes, when we were "best friends", or especially during our compensation disagreement negotiations, any discussion or argumentation whatsoever over photographs. Not one single word was ever uttered about photos that he owned, photos that I owned or any photos at all, for that matter. And then, suddenly, out of the clear blue left field, the lawsuit is filed and it contained these absolutely hideous and vile accusations regarding photographs. It was a complete and sheer misrepresentation of reality.
"Why would his side make such a false claim?", I was asked. My response was that it is my best guess that the move was probably nothing more than standard generic Hollywood legal operating procedure to make such base accusations against adversaries, and it was designed pretty obviously to make me look like a typical scumbag Hollywood blackmailer. Kudos to his legal team for sticking to the proverbial book. Unfortunately, they underestimated my full willingness to take the matter to court where the Willis team would have verified with their own complete lack of evidence that their accusation was wholly fabricated, completely groundless, and entirely unfounded. It was, in fact, an outright prevarication and I would have proven that fact in court had we gone there. I would have proven that the real issue was about MY PHOTOGRAPHS, not his.
Demand For A Car
There also was an allegation in the lawsuit that I demanded, in addition to the "shakedown" money, a brand new car. Well, in line with all the other frivolous claims, that claim was also complete and utter nonsense and I explained the truth of the matter as follows:
On my birthday in January 2005, Bruce had told me that he was going to buy me a car - a "late model" car to be exact - for my birthday. A nice gesture, I explained. However, weeks and months went by and, by the Fall of that year, he still hadn't followed through with his automotive gift. I explained that, in one of my emails to Bruce during my attempts to get him to compensate me, I had mentioned many things in addition to the failed auctioning job about which I felt great dissappointment, including, specifically, this reneged birthday car and, in fact, subsequently, at a later stage in our negotiations, Bruce made an offer that consisted of a small amount of money (relenting from his initial offer of zero dollars) as well as a car (one of his used, gas-guzzling SUVs from his fleet, to be exact).
Naturally, I explained, I was quite disappointed that my best friend would be offering, as part of my compensation package, an item that he had promised as a birthday present just a few months before and then, later, I was doubly shocked to see that HIS offer of an automobile had somehow gotten twisted around and had wound up in his lawsuit as something that I had demanded as part of my purported "shake down", which is about as far from the truth as an amoeba's brain is from a human's or even a rat's, all three of which I happen to know a lot about. There is no evidence that I demanded a car, ever, from my good friend, Bruce Willis. And so, the long and short of the car situation is that it was nothing more than what appeared to be a contorted and purposeful twist of the facts designed to embarrass, denigrate and defame.
LIe-filled Book
The interviewer went on to ask me about the accusation that I had written "a lie-filled book about Bruce that would embarrass him" and that I threatened to expose this lie-filled embarassing book to the world and I told her that that claim was equally preposterous and that the only thing lie-filled is his lawsuit. She asked me why I thought Bruce would make such a horrible and damaging accusation and the only thing I could come up with at the time was "paranoia", which is what I told her. I explained that, if I were indeed inclined to write a book about Bruce Willis that, first of all, it would be my absolute U.S. Constitutional right to do so -- so there would have been absolutely no legal violation there -- and, second, it wouldn't need to be "lie-filled", as there were tons and tons of things I experienced with him, spanning nearly 40 years of what now seems to have been "pseudo-bestfriendship", that are very much real. This "lie-filled book" claim was the centerpoint of their lawsuit and it was simply not true. If the motivating force behind my public quartering was parania, as I speculated, the reader is left to speculate about what was behind the paranoia.
Freeloading
As for the claim in the lawsuit that I refused to vacate Bruce's premises where I was being "allowed to live for free", I explained that, first of all, I was not living there "for free" but, rather, room and board was part of my deal with him. Second, I explained that the particular house in which I lived was practically condemned months before at the lawsuit and their preposterous claim that I refused to vacate. The property had suffered a terrible landslide following several weeks of rain in December and January of 2004-05, which undermined the foundation of the dwelling itself and which threatened to send the entire structure down the canyon. One whole wing was absolutely and dangerously unlivable.
And so, the claim in the lawsuit that I refused to vacate was nothing more than a piteous attempt to make me look like some sort of derelict, homeless, ragamuffin squatter to whom he had generously and out of the goodness of his heart, given refuge, and that is simply and utterly not the case. I was NOT vagrant nor homeless when he made his job offer to me in 2002 (I had a beautiful place in Nashville on the Cumberland River and I had plenty of work at several universities)
My beautiful riverfront view and pool
NO CRIMINAL CHARGES FILED
I should like to point out here that all of the above things that Willis and his pack of lawyers accused me of doing are illegal. And yet, no attempt was ever made to contact the authorities to have me prosecuted criminally for committing those crimes. In fact, I was never contacted, interviewed, detained nor arrested for any of the hideous crimes of which I stood accused, which seems rather odd to me and makes me wonder why not. I can only guess that it might have something to do with a complete lack of evidence.
THE RESOLUTION
We haggled for months, the pitbull and I, from August 2006 to January 2007, with me representing myself legally throughout. I prepared and presented a countersuit (a.k.a. cross-complaint), as a matter of courtesy, prior to filing it (a tactic frequently undertaken in the legal world so as to avoid very ugly and painful and extremely costly court battles, which this one surely would have been). Ultimately, the Mad Dog, forced to consider the actual facts, and faced with the very significant threat of a severe countersuit, calmed down and we were able to reach a fair resolution to our disputes, including the complete dropping of the lawsuit and the unequivocal clearing of my previously unblemished good name. The attack dog admitted openly that BW was, indeed, indebted to me. Needless to say, that was a happy day for me for it meant that I was instantly exonerated from the horrid charges he had orchestrated against me. Plus, to compensate me for wrongfully damaging my reputation with his misguided and inappropriate lawsuit, and to avoid the filing of my countersuit, Bruce Willis proffered a generous settlement to me, which I accepted and which included fair dispensation of the potentially very lucrative intellectual property which Bruce Willis and I had generated and worked on together. The resolution of this property was a major issue because, as I had explained to Inside Edition, at one point in our negotiations/discussions, prior to the filing of the defamatory lawsuit, I had been asked to release my stake in that property, which I didn't feel like doing as I am loath to giving up my ideas for free, especially when those ideas could be worth a fortune.
On January 30th, 2007, Bruce Willis withdrew his lawsuit against me with prejudice (see "Lawsuit Dismissed" below) and released to the Associated Press and Reuters international news agencies, through his publicist, Paul Bloch, of Rogers and Cowan, a statement exonerating me of all charges alleged in his ridiculous lawsuit.
Following is the full text of that statement released by Willis:
| "Bruce Willis and Bruce DiMattia have announced that they have reached a settlement and their dispute has been amicably resolved. Prior to the filing of the lawsuit, there were disputes concerning the agreement between Mr. Willis and Dr. DiMattia. The filing of the lawsuit by Bruce Willis against Bruce DiMattia was based on a regrettable misunderstanding and was based on misinformation. The lawsuit has been dismissed. Bruce Willis wishes Bruce DiMattia the best of luck in the future and Bruce DiMattia wishes him the same." |
In short, in releasing this statement, Willis now acknowledges that:
1) There was a business agreement between the two of us, and
2) That we had a dispute over that agreement, and
3) That the dispute - and NOT shakedown - led to the filing of the lawsuit and
4) That he was misinformed and misunderstood things and that the filing of the lawsuit was based upon those misunderstandings and that misinformation and that he now regrets doing it, which is why he completely withdrew the lawsuit.
I certainly agree that it is regrettable. It was a painful mistake for that lawsuit to have been filed, to be sure. It was repleat with untruths and, as I suggested to Inside Edition, I should have been the one to file a lawsuit first as I believed with all my heart that I was being wronged. I chose not to because it was my best friend I was in a dispute with. But, everybody makes regrettable mistakes, including famous actors and their pitbull lawyers, and I hereby want the world to know that I don't hold any grudges against my old friend, former best man at my wedding, and Godfather to my children. On the contrary, I hereby encourage everyone, including my close personal friends, family members, countless colleagues and professional associates, and the thousands of students who have crossed my podium, to forget about this mistake, like I am doing. I don't want any fans of mine or his to let this regrettable fiasco influence their opinion of him or other rich, famous and powerful Hollywood actors who hire expensive pit bull lawyers who attack at a snap. Sometimes regrettable things happen in life, sometimes folks get the wrong information and/or misinterpret things and act inappropriately and take legal action when it is ill-advised and unjustified. But, as reasoned adults, we must have the maturity to let such mistakes go and to let by-gones be by-gones. Am I happy I was wrongly sued by my best friend and had to spend over a year of my life coping with a debt dispute and a regrettable lawsuit in which my very good and honorable name was horribly defamed and besmirched across the globe? No, of course not - I firmly and fully believe that I was absolutely morally - and legally - right to seek the compensation which I sought, which, by the way, the pit bull ultimately agreed was owed to me, and that that compensation was more than fair when one takes into consideration all that I had sacrificed in order to make the move to California to do a job that I never outwardly sought but which was offered to me by my friend. But, I am satisfied, for the most part, with the way things worked out (as I said, I accepted his generous settlement offer) and he is to be commended for having the courage to admit the mistake and for taking the necessary action to correct it, including the public proclaimation of the mistake and the clearing of my name. I bear my old friend and harmonica buddy no malice and wish him and his entire family, whom I still love, all the best, especially his mother and father.
As for pitbulls...
Well, pitbulls maul people. It's what they do. They can't be faulted for that. They just have to be disciplined every now and then when they attack and attempt to disfigure a person for no good reason.
And so, with the dropping of the lawsuit and Willis's release of the aforementioned public statement, I consider my previously un-besmirched name and reputation cleared and exonerated of the erroneous, unfounded and hideous charges made against them. The charges were hideous, to be sure. But, once again, none were true. Not a single one.
Lastly, and by the way, there's one other thing I disclosed to Inside Edition in my interview. I told them that, if I were, indeed, actually inclined to risk the total decimation of my previously un-besmirched good name and reputation as a dignified university professor - who has worked twenty-five long hard years building a staunch reputation of integrity and respect - and if I were indeed inclined to risk the total embarrassment and humiliation that would surely befall me as well as my three absolutely wonderful children and everyone else in my family tree whom I love very much, by shaking down a person who is responsible for well over eight and a half billion dollars worth of ticket sales worldwide and whose net worth is somewhere in the neighborhood of upwards of nine figures, with the first figure being above a five, I can assure you, I would not have done so for the mere sum of $100,000 (oh yes, and a car) purported in the lawsuit. No sir.
I would have gone for AT LEAST $110,000...
No -- I think I said $120,000... and a BOAT...
a Catamaran...
a twenty-footer...
no, check that, a twenty-four-footer...
with an inboard toilet in case I get sick to my stomach and need to vomit.
I wanted to make it absolutely clear to the interviewer - and to the world - that I have absolute minimum standards for the risk of complete and utter ruination of my good family name and respected reputation.
Sincerely,
Dr. Bruce V. DiMattia
Professor of Psychology
bd@brucedimattia.com
P.S. No one has apologized to me for the shameful insult to my personage. The decision maker(s) must not be able to understand the degree, depth, and extent of the hurt caused by their trigger-happy action. I suppose no one can really understand that but me. I suppose one has to have been on the receiving end of such an unjust public flogging to fully grasp how it might affect a dignified person, such as myself. Who knows? Maybe one day.
P.S. Apparently, Dr. DiMattia is not the only one with whom Mr. Willis has breached a contract. He was sued in early 2009 in Los Angeles by Foresight Unlimited, Signature Entertainment Group and Three Stories Productions for breachihg his film contract with those entities. Not sure how it panned out or if he has been found guilty of that charge. I suppose he should be assumed innocent until proven guilty, which is what his side and the media (I was duly lambasted by them, as if I simply must be guilty for why else would such a great guy as Bruce Willis sue his best friend?) should have done in my case, but, alas, didn't.
This is the document which I filed in Santa Monica Superior Court to
proclaim my absolute denial of all accusations in the lawsuit
(incidentally, "Plaintiff in Pro Per", for those who don't know,
means that I represented myself throughout all negotiations with Mad Dog).
LAWSUIT DISMISSED
This is the document filed by Martin D. Singer in Santa Monica
Superior Court to drop the lawsuit against me.
