Why did Clay Aiken decide to break away from the contract of 19 Entertainment?

Question

I've heard that Clay Aiken hired a lawyer (Jess L. Rosen) to free him from the binding contract with 19 Entertainment, the management company owned by American Idol creator Simon Fuller.

Can anybody give me additional information on this one? I mean, why did Clay even want to be freed from 19 Entertainment anyway? What part of their contract was so binding? And do you really need a lawyer just to tell a Record Label or a company that you don't want to work with them anymore?

Answer 1

Reasons for actions like this are rarely made public and even then the reason given may not be the real reason. It might be artistic differences in what they wanted him to perform, the might not have been supporting him enough (or at least he thought this was true) or he may not have had a falling out with someone at the company. You can't get out of a contract like this without a lawyer, you can bet the management company will have their attorneys there to enforce the contract so he'd be crazy not to bring his own. If the contract is up for renewal you can just not sign again but to get out of an existing bargain is more difficult.