Money

David Arquette is secretly negotiating to buy Crazy Girls on Sunset Blvd -- one of the most famous strip joints in the country -- TMZ has learned.

Sources close to the negotiations tell us ... David and his partners have offered $1.6 million to buy the club. We're told the current owners want $1.7, so they're close.

David's plan ... no more $1 bills y'all. We're told he wants to create an upscale burlesque club with an old school Hollywood feel to attract big spenders.

David knows the biz ... he already owns a piece of two of Hollywood's hottest nightclubs, Hooray Henry's and Bootsy Bellows.

The one thing you probably won't see there ... Cox.

"Ray Donovan" star Pooch Hall says he was tricked into buying a badly damaged home -- claiming the sellers hid the problems with Mickey Mouse repairs.

Hall says in a new lawsuit ...he purchased the Sherman Oaks house in 2011 for $820K.

Hall claims almost immediately after moving in ... he discovered parts of the guest house were crumbling from water damage. He accuses the sellers of making "band-aid" repairs to the sheetrock ... and he believes it was to all premeditated to hide the problem.

Hall purchased the house in a foreclosure sale and says Goldman Sachs and Coldwell Banker and others were all in on the alleged fraud.

Hall claims it will cost at least $100K to repair the damage.

Sherri Shepherd claims estranged hubby pilfered around $20K from their joint bank account before he split ... and the money could end up as a key piece of evidence in their custody war.

Sources close to the couple tell us Sherri was in the dark until she looked at a recent bank statement and saw the money was gone.

The fired "View" host is disavowing the contract she and Lamar Sally signed with a surrogate on grounds Lamar defrauded Sherri -- that the only reason he wanted the baby was so he could divorce her and collect child support. We're told Sherri will use the $20K withdrawal as proof Lamar was purely money-motivated.

Sources tell us Lamar used the money for baby expenses ... including trips he took to Pennsylvania to be with the surrogate. He also claims Sherri knew full well he took the money out of their joint account.

Aunt Jemima's relatives say they got screwed out of her pancake money following her death in 1955 ... and now, they're looking for reparations to the tune of 3 BILLION DOLLARS!!

The great grandson of Anna Short Harrington -- who took over the Jemima character in 1937 -- filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo, the Quaker Oats Company and 2 other businesses on behalf of her heirs.

D.W. Hunter claims the companies conspired to deny Harrington was a Quaker Oats employee ... but continued to exploit her image for more than 60 years without paying up.

Harrington was selected for the role because of her pancake recipe -- which they recreated for the grocery store ... but her family believes racial exploitation was involved in the deal.

Teen actress Abigail Breslin earned more for shooting "Ender's Game" than most people make in an entire year ... and she did it in less than 2 weeks.

Breslin -- who turned 16 while shooting the flick with Harrison Ford in 2012 -- was paid $165K for 12 days of shooting ... according to her contract, which was recently approved by a judge.

If the movie did well ... she would have gotten way more in bonuses ... and a sequel would have scored her a $750K payday

Too bad for her ... the film fizzled.

A man some say is the Steve Jobs of the music industry is being sued by a woman who claims she moved half way around the world on his promise to take care of her for the rest of her life ... then screwed her over.

Ted Cohen -- a music industry icon who has worked with the likes of Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, Van Halen and Prince and has been a leader in the digital revolution of music -- allegedly had an affair with Deborah Sass, who at the time was living in London.

According to Sass' lawsuit -- the 2 met in London in 2006 while Cohen was married. Sass claims they fell in love and he told her if she moved to L.A. to be with him he would divorce his wife and take care of her (Sass) for the rest of her life.

Cohen was true to his word and filed for divorce. He also bought a house for Sass in Hollywood and even got her a Mercedes-Benz.

Sass claims Cohen had Sass run his company -- TAG Strategic, a digital entertainment consulting firm -- and she says she slaved away, working 70 hours a week and she didn't get a salary most of the time ... he simply said he was taking care of her.

You know how this ends. Sass says in 2012, Cohen's divorce still was not final and they argued bitterly, splitting up in December of that year.

She says she never got a real salary and he also is refusing to support her for the rest of her life.

She's suing for 50% of his income.

Sass tells TMZ .. "I am not looking for a handout, but for justice. I generated more than $1.4 million in revenues for TAG, and I have not been fairly compensated for my contributions."

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay should think about going vegan ... because he's in yet another legal war over his failed restaurant The Fat Cow.

Ramsay's landlord has just filed a lawsuit ... claiming the chef skipped out on his $52K a month long-term lease in The Grove shopping center in L.A. The landlord wants $6 MIL!

The "Hell's Kitchen" star closed The Fat Cow in March ... after a long battle with a Florida restaurant owner who claimed to have exclusive rights to the name "Fat Cow."

Ramsay's also being sued for $10 million by his business partner ... who's royally pissed that Ramsay folded like a cheap suit over the restaurant's name. In his countersuit, Ramsay says the real reason the restaurant tanked is because his partner was a financial dummy.

Such an easy solution -- Phat Cow.

Kenny Loggins and his Blue Sky Riders are ready and willing to play in some guy's living room ... IF his Kickstarter campaign hits the $30,000 mark.

Our photog spotted Kenny in NYC Tuesday ... he said not only has he heard about the campaign ... he's already Skyped with the guy -- a P.R. consultant in D.C. named Erick Sanchez.

Sanchez has raised a little more than $11,000 so far. So if he gets $19k more ... "Footloose" will be coming to his living room.

Counting Crows just got sued for cutting off payment to their former managers who've been pulling salaries for doing nothing for the past 13 years -- and what's really weird is ... the band agreed to that deal.

According to court docs filed last week ... Martin Kirkup & Steven Jensen of Direct Management Group repped the band from 1992 until 2001 when the Crows decided to drop them. Only problem -- DMG says it has an ironclad contract guaranteeing they continue to get paid a percentage of the band's gross earnings ... FOREVER.

The Crows got tired of that deal and stopped paying DMG in November 2013, and according to the suit ... the band is demanding a new agreement to lower payments to their ex-managers.

'Round here ... that doesn't fly with DMG. The firm is suing for the last 8 months of back pay, and wants the court to back 'em up on the whole we get paid forever thing.

CNN is being sued by 2 EMTs who claim one of the network's reporters bit them in a drunken rage.

Arwa Damon -- the Beirut-based senior international correspondent for CNN -- was in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad back in July. According to the lawsuit -- obtained by TMZ -- she became "seriously intoxicated" and became unruly and violent.

Authorities arrived and according to the suit ... EMTs Tracy Lamar and Charles Simons were trying to help Damon when the correspondent bit both on their left arms. Simons also claims his knees and elbows were injured. Lamar says she was also bruised.

The suit claims while the EMTs were providing assistance ... Damon played the famous card, saying she was a "major reporter for CNN."

The suit claims CNN knew Damon had a history of becoming drunk and abusive, and had a penchant for violence, even when sober.

Lamar and Simons are each suing CNN and Damon for $1 million.

We contacted CNN ... so far now word back.

"The O.C." star Mischa Barton could lose her massive Beverly Hills mansion in foreclosure ... if she doesn't cough up $100K in back mortgage payments QUICK.

Barton just got slapped with a default notice -- obtained by TMZ -- informing her she's skipped more than 100 grand in payments ... triggering the foreclosure process.

The crib is awesome -- 7 bedrooms and 11 baths all on 1.2 acres. She bought it for $6.4M in 2005 -- when "The O.C." was a big deal, and took out a loan for $4.2 million.

The show went off the air in 2007 -- and Mischa's been trying to unload the house since 2010 ... when she listed it for 8.695M, but no one bought it. She re-listed in 2011, and again ... no takers.

Her last ditch effort was attempting to lease it for $35K/month last year ... but that move appears to be way too little too late.

Mischa's been acting in some small stuff lately, playing Ms. Monica in the TV movie, "Gutsy Frog." She also did an appearance at an Atlantic City club.

Columbus Short was flush with cash before he got canned from "Scandal" -- banking nearly $65K an episode -- but was a cheapskate when it came to buying jewelry for his wife ... according to his wife.

His soon-to-be-ex, Tanee Short filed new docs in their nasty divorce ... in which she says Columbus earned more than $2.3 million over the last 3.5 years ... the biggest chunk of that from "Scandal" -- which paid him $64,900 per show.

She also claims he raked in an average of 10 grand a pop for nightclub appearances.

Tanee says she's unemployed and lists very limited assets -- some gym equipment and a couple of pieces of jewelry ... a watch and the wedding ring Columbus gave her, worth $3,500.

Linda Hogan's ex-BF Charlie Hill claims she made him do a bunch of grunt work for free -- and we uncovered photos of him breaking a sweat aboard her yacht ... during their happier days.

TMZ broke the story ... Hill is suing Hogan for $1.5 mil, claiming she never gave him a dime for all the labor he put in during their 4-year relationship.

In these 2010 pics ... Charlie's relegated to hauling in a hose on her yacht -- aptly named Alimoney (bet Hulk Hogan must love that).

The Love Boat this ain't.

Lil Wayne made a deal to get high for $55,000 a month ... but the jet company that accommodated him claims when it came time to pay the rapper flew the coop.

A jet company has sued Wayne and Young Money Entertainment for a million bucks ... claiming in new docs ... it leased them a G-1159B Gulfstream jet for $55K a month plus maintenance and landing fees.

The jet company says it's especially galling ... because it even customized the jet to accommodate Wayne's "unique lifestyle preferences" -- satellite phones, a custom bed, and medical equipment.

Young Money made payments for a year ... then suddenly stopped.

The lawsuit schools Wayne on the cost of living an opulent lifestyle, saying, "He appears to enjoy the finer things in life: expensive cars, a mansion in La Gorce Country Club on Miami Beach, and private aircraft travel ... naturally the enjoyment of such luxuries is not free."

Rapper Future and his baby mama have reached a new custody deal ... which includes a schedule for Martin Luther King Day.

Future must now pay $2,800 a month in child support for his 11-year-old son -- that's up $1,200 from what he was previously paying. But it won't really cramp his style ... because according to court docs he earns $50K every month.

The new deal -- the result of Future's increased earnings -- lays out a plan for who gets the kid on big holidays, including Thanksgiving, XMAS, the child's birthday and MLK Day.

And there's this ... baby mama Jessica Smith agreed to move to a nicer neighborhood near Atlanta so the child could attend a better school.