Candace Bushnell
STREIT MAN: Clifford Streit (inset left), the inspiration for Stanford Blatch on “Sex and the City,” is demanding royalties from series creator Candace Bushnell (inset right) the model for Carrie Bradshaw. (Pacific Coast News)
Playing now in Manhattan federal court: “Debts and the City.’’
Here’s an episode of “Sex and the City’’ you won’t see on reruns — Carrie Bradshaw being hauled into court by Stanford Blatch, her best gay pal, for reneging on a $150,000 settlement.
But in real life that is just what’s going on as “Sex and the City” creator Candace Bushnell, the inspiration for Carrie, is accused of bailing on a deal with her former manager, Clifford Streit.
Streit is said to be the model for the flamboyant Blatch, who famously described Carrie as “fashion roadkill’’ in a scene showing model Heidi Klum stepping over her on a runway.
Now Streit, whose alter-ego was played by Willie Garson, says he’s become TV-royalty roadkill — and he’s feeling less than fabulous about it.
Streit claims that Bushnell, whose character was played by Sarah Jessica Parker, is trying to weasel out of the 2006 agreement in which she agreed to pay him 7.5 percent of anything she earns from the TV series and the two “Sex and the City” movies.
The movies and TV shows have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars, Streit claims.
But he claims that since 2006, Bushnell has only paid him $230,739.28 — and last cut him a check in 2009, before “Sex and the City 2” was released.
Though the second movie was a critical bomb, Streit says it grossed $295 million at the box office — and he also figures the first movie and the TV shows still haul in heaps of cash.
His lawsuit demands a 7.5 percent cut of whatever Bushnell has earned, a sum he figures is no less than $150,000.
Bushnell’s lawyer, Victor Bushell, hadn’t seen the lawsuit yet — but dismissed it out of hand.
“I can 100 percent say there is no basis for any claim and the action is completely and entirely frivolous,” Bushell said.
“She doesn’t owe him any money. It’s a garbage lawsuit.”
Streit’s lawyer, Neal Brickman, declined comment.
Streit was Bushnell’s friend and manager for four years until she fired him in 1999, the year after “Sex and the City” debuted on HBO.
In a federal lawsuit filed in 2005, he claimed she owed him 10 percent of her earnings from the show. Bushnell settled with Streit by agreeing to 7.5 percent.
When Streit first sued Bushnell in 2005, he was bitter about how she had come to treat him.
“I got Candace the deal at HBO, and when the syndication money got very big she didn’t want to pay me,” Streit said.
Last month, The CW network ordered pilots for a “Sex and the City” prequel called “The Carrie Diaries.” Bushnell is the project’s executive producer.