Tami Roman Speaks on Ex-Manager’s Lawsuit, “He doesn’t even have two legs to stand on.”

Late last week, rumors hit that reality star, Tami Roman, of Basketball Wives Miami, was being sued by her former manager, Jerry Silverhardt. Jerry alleges that he is responsible for Tami actually getting her role on the show and that he was fired this past February. He also alleges that their agreement (which was an oral agreement) was that Tami was to pay him 10% of all of her checks from Basketball Wives. He claims that she paid him for season two, but refuses to pay him further. What’s more is that Jerry says that Tami is still responsible for paying him the 10% moving forward, for seasons 3 through 6. Fast forward to the present day and Tami spoke with NYC radio personality Egypt Sherrod to provide her version of the story.

On who Jerry is and if he was actually her manager:

It’s true. He had been my manager for about maybe 8 years. Yes, we had a long relationship and it had always been an amicable up until this moment. Our particular situation was you know I pay people based on what you do and that had always been our understanding and our agreement. ( They had a verbal agreement) You know if you send me out on an audition and I book that job I’m going to pay your commission. If I go out and I solicit my own work –I’ve been an actress for about 12, 13 years now- and I have these relationships already. If I initiate employment for myself, you’re not going to get commission on that because you weren’t involved in it. So that had always been our understanding and that had always worked for the past 8 years. With “Basketball Wives,” they approached me when they did their first season. They contacted him and you know I just wasn’t really ready to go on a show, talk about Kenny. You know I had moved so past that. In addition to, I really didn’t want to go back to the reality genre. So between the year that they had their first season and the second season which is when I actually came onto the show, my family fell on a hardship I actually introduced that on the show. You know my daughters and I had been on food stamps and we had been on you know medical assistance through the state of New Jersey. And so I was looking for something you know income wise. I was working a 9-5 job in corporate America. And when I watched the first season of Basketball Wives I felt like my story wasn’t on there. You know yo I’m sitting here like in the dark. My lights are out. You know that’s not my moment. I’m not champagne brunching and mani’s and pedi’s everyday and I felt that I had a valuable story to tell…to show my particular situation and what me and my daughter’s were going through so I contacted VH1, Jeff Old is the President of VH1, and said I wanted to be on the show. From that moment on, Jerry you know placed another call on my behalf to Shed Media, which is the production company for our show and I started having communication and dialogue with the executive producer, telling them my story. They liked my story- I was on Season 2. Now for the payment that I received for Season 2, Jerry Silverhardt was compensated. And that’s what he’s not admitting to. When it came to-we didn’t even know we were going to get a Season 3-so we did the reunion and we got the announcement we were going to do a Season 3. As I wasn’t happy with my contract for Season 2, I didn’t feel that he did the best job for me in that moment considering everything I was going through and you know what the value of my storyline that I brought to Season 2, I terminated him before we started negotiating contract for Season 3.

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On if they had a legitimate agreement and what the actual agreement entailed:

We’ve never had a written contract. It’s always been a verbal understanding and that’s why I’m so hurt by this because this is a person who over the length of our business relationship you know we became friends outside of this. I would hear stories of him telling me that other clients he had would not pay him. He represents directors. And over the years I’ve seen clients leave him. This is a person where you know, people don’t know this about me, but I’ve been working in the industry like I said for 12, 13 years. I literally book a TV show every year as a series regular. Now what people don’t understand about the industry is we do pilots. Then the pilots go through a testing phase and if they don’t test well they don’t get picked up and they never make it to air. But I’ve basically been supporting myself for these 12 years doing pilots. I make a lot of money doing pilots. This is a person who wouldn’t even come to my pilot tapings. This is a person who put other clients in front of me and I never once said I don’t want you to be my manager, you’re not doing a proper job for me. I basically operated on the friendship of it all and being loyal to someone who stepped in and decided to manage me when other people would not. So I’m loyal to a fault. Even when I knew he wasn’t the proper person to be representing me to take my career to the next level which is why I was out there hustling myself. I did a lot of movies with a gentleman named Russ Parr. I worked a lot with Kevin Hart. I worked a lot with Mo’nique and another director, Leslie Small. All were work that I generated myself that Jerry was never compensated on because he was never involved and again that was our agreement. You render a service I don’t have a problem paying you. And so you know he’s told me stories about people not paying him, people leaving him high & dry. He’s never once sued anybody else but here he’s had a full understanding and then just decides to arbitrarily sue me because he feels I’m doing well on “Basketball Wives,” which is a situation he did not initiate and was terminated before contracts progressed.

On if part of his claim is true, since he negotiated one season for her:

There is no merit to his claim and let me just tell you how much of a slander campaign this is against me. This has been going on for a year now. We’ve been with our attorneys and my attorney asked him to present something that says he’d entitled because we presented the papers terminating him. He didn’t rebut the termination. At that time if he wanted to say well you know you’re gonna owe me future money, we would have negotiated that or handled that at that point. You know I would have let that be known then, you’re not getting anything past this moment because you’re not involved and I only pay when services are rendered on my behalf. He never said anything, so once my lawyer got involved with him and said present some paperwork, let us see what you have that says you’re entitled to future wages but he was unable to. So his next mode of trying to bring some light to the situation a year later is him going to TMZ to try to slander my name and my character. But to answer your question he doesn’t even have two legs to stand on. This attack on me is baseless. It’s ridiculous. He even makes himself look even more inept by saying we had an oral agreement. That in and of itself, you shouldn’t even say. That makes you look like the joke that you really have been over the past 8 years.

Based on Jerry’s claims and Tami’s side of the story, do you feel that she still owes him money? Or is Tami’s point valid?

Peep the full interview here.