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Bret Michaels Sues Tony Awards, CBS for Head Injury

By Stephanie Rabiner, Esq. on March 31, 2011 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

CBS just can't get a break. First Charlie Sheen, and now Bret Michaels.

The Rock of Love star and Poison front man is suing the network, along with the Broadway-centered Tony Awards for unspecified damages.

The reason? Well, the suit claims that Bret Michaels' Tony Awards performance caused the subarachnoid hemorrhage that almost killed him.

Admittedly, the idea of a Bret Michaels' Tony Awards performance is a bit of an oxymoron, but it actually happened in June of 2009. It was even broadcasted.

During Michaels' performance, a piece of the moving set smacked him in the head, breaking his nose and cutting his lip. The suit claims that he had asked producers about stage instructions, but was never told about moving set pieces or where to stand, reports the Detroit Free Press.

Nearly a year after Bret Michaels' Tony Awards snafu, the singer underwent surgery for an emergency appendectomy, reports the paper. Two weeks later, he suffered the nearly-fatal hemorrhage.

The lawsuit is trying to pin Michaels' hemorrhage on his Tony Awards injury, according to Entertainment Weekly. It alleges that the type of hemorrhage he suffered from is commonly caused by head trauma.

If you're a bit baffled, don't worry, so is this blogger.

To recover against CBS and the Tony Awards, Bret Michaels is going to have to prove causation. In other words, he's going to have to show that the head trauma in June 2009 caused his injuries in April 2010.

Making that connection is going to be difficult for Michaels' attorney. Besides the fact that nearly a year had elapsed without issue, Michaels had just undergone surgery. It won't be easy to show that the surgery, or some intervening event, didn't cause the hemorrhage.

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