Holly ordered to pay €212,000 to sacked manager

Soap star turned chart-topping pop singer Holly Valance was ordered today to pay €212,000 to the manager she dumped after he helped launch her career in Australia.

Scott Michaelson last month won a Sydney court battle in which he claimed former Neighbours star Valance unfairly fired him 15 months before the end of his three year contract.

The case was peppered with barbed comments between Valance and Michaelson. But Australian media focused on Valance’s clothes, including an eye-catching pair of red stilettos she wore at one of the hearings.

Last month, Judge Clifford Einstein said Valance had shown a calculated disregard for her

manager’s rights as well as a “cynical pursuit of benefit".

On Thursday he ordered Valance to pay €212,000 to Michaelson for loss of earnings and management commission he would have made during the term of their contract. She was also ordered to pay his legal costs and interest.

Michaelson, himself a former Neighbours actor, argued that when Valance was only 15, he gave her her big break into acting and singing, securing her a record contract.

“I hope that I have been able to represent in some way, the many managers who have been in a similar position to me, but have not had the means to proceed in court,” Michaelson’s lawyer read from a statement on his behalf.

Valance’s lawyers refused to comment and did not say if she planned to appeal.

Valance topped the charts with her raunchy single Kiss Kiss.