Sarah Hyland faces lawsuit from ex-manager who says Modern Family actress stiffed him on earnings
Sarah Hyland has been sued by her former manager Richard Königsberg, who says she owes him money after letting him go after working together for 15 years last April.
Königsberg said he was essential in helping Hyland, 33, land the role of Haley Dunphy on the ABC series Modern Family from 2009-2020. TMZ reported after review of court documents.
Königsberg told the court he feels the New York resident let him go in “an attempt to avoid paying his 10 percent commission” on multiple projects he helped her join.
Königsberg said he and the actress — who also appeared in the 2022 comedy My Fake Boyfriend and the Peacock series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin — had a long-standing agreement in which he took 10 percent of what she earned .
Royalties from Modern Family were part of that equation, Königsberg told the court, and Hyland paid them until she let him go earlier this year and told him she would no longer pay 10 percent of royalties.
Sarah Hyland, 33, has been sued by her former manager Richard Königsberg, who says she owes him money after letting him go after 15 years last April. Pictured last year in New York
Königsberg said he was essential in helping Hyland, 33, land the role of Haley Dunphy on the ABC series Modern Family from 2009-2020.
Hyland agreed to pay Königsberg 10 percent of her earnings for her work in an off-Broadway rendition of Little Shop of Horrors, in which she played the role of Audrey, which actress Ellen Greene played in the 1986 film.
Königsberg asked the court to issue a declaration barring Hyland from paying the 10 percent of the money she agreed to from the work he helped her acquire.
Last month, Hyland celebrated her second wedding anniversary with wife Wells Adams, 40, who found fame on ABC’s The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise.
Adams and Hyland exchanged vows at Sunstone Winery, near Santa Barbara, California, in August 2022, with her Modern Family co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson officiating the wedding.
Several of Hyland’s other costars from the hit ABC series were among the 150 guests in attendance, including Sofía Vergara Vergara, Ariel Winter and Nolan Gould.
Adams and Hyland initially started dating in October 2017, a few months after she parted ways with Shadowhunters actor Dominic Sherwood after more than two years together.
She opened a show in May Live with Kelly and Mark about how Adams encouraged her to embrace the stage role in Little Shop of Horrors.
“I don’t do the Ellen Greene accent from the movie… and my husband asked me on the phone, ‘Hey, how do you do that? Like, do it for me!'” Hyland said. “So I gave him a taste of the accent over the phone.”
Hyland and wife Wells Adams, 40, who celebrated their two-year wedding anniversary last month, were pictured last April at a golf event in Toluca Lake, California
Hyland is currently working on an off-Broadway interpretation of Little Shop of Horrors
She plays the role of Audrey, which actress Ellen Greene played in the 1986 film
Hyland appeared in New York’s Times Square on September 19 to promote the show
She noted that Adams responded with “the wildest reaction” [she] could have imagined it” and told her that playing the role would be “very sexual for” him.
‘He said, “It’s like my wife is playing Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny and it’s really hot.”
Adams on June 7 went to Instagram with what he called an “appreciation post” for his “extremely talented wife” amid her latest foray onto the stage, saying her “portrayal of Audrey in @littleshopnyc is perfection.”
He said that “the acting, the singing, the dancing, the comedy, the pain, everything is amazing.”
He praised her co-star Andrew Barth Feldman as “incredibly flawless as Seymour,” adding, “Together they are stunning.”
He ended by saying, “Run, don’t walk to see #littleshopofhorrors in NYC!”