Schreech is on Howard Stern right now!

[adamdixon]

Well i never seen him on comedy central presents, must not be all that great? What kind of acts does he do?

[The Animal]

Allow me to do the math here.

Before Diamond turned 18, his parents squandered all but 25% of his $2 million assets. That left Diamond with $500,000. Whether he deserved more or not is not the issue -- this was an 18-year old kid with half a million bucks in his bank account. Add to that the income he net with College Years, New Class, movie cameos, personal appearances, merchandise revenue, and his stand-up career. He should have more than enough money to make a decent living for himself, even if it's not the high-and-mighty life he might envision as a quasi-celebrity. If he doesn't, he's a grown man and should accept responsibility for his own financial situation.

Besides, the $250,000 mentioned on Defamer is just the foreclosure amount. With rising costs of real estate, you'd be lucky to find a good-sized house for that amount of money. Though the article is not clear, we're probably talking about a multi-million dollar home, rather than just an average neighborhood house in the land of suburbia.

Elliot5 is correct in assuming the bank would rather have Diamond make monthly payments on the house than repossess on account of foreclosure. This situation was more than likely caused by the failure of making payments than crying and whining about how "daddy spent my money".

[QueenKelly]

Animal, when I was typing my post, I was wondering when you were going to come and give us your opinion on this.
I'm not saying that he should be whiny and continue to blame his father. That is done. I think if the situation is as bad as Dustin says it is, he should get out. Owning a house is a luxury, not a necessity. All I'm saying is that as far as his finances go, it seems he wasn't taught anything about it.
I remember watching a show about former child stars, no sbtb characters were on this show, and they were talking about their finances. Malcolm Jamel-Warner said that as a teenager, his mother dragged him to a financial consultant to make sure he always knew how much money he had when he was doign The Cosby Show. He said his mother told him that if he were going to be making that kind of money, he was going to know what was going on with it.

I don't know what kind of lifestyle Dustin is trying to live financially. But I think he needs to sit down with someone and have them say, look, you can't afford the house unless you do it this way. If you don't want to do it this way, then just get out of the situation.
I think the t-shirts are just him joking around, I hope so, and I would't seek anymore help or advice by going on the Howard Stern show. Sorry to the Howard Stern fans on the forum.

[soiledzubaz]

adamdixon said:

Well i never seen him on comedy central presents, must not be all that great? What kind of acts does he do?

it's toilet humor - I hear he's degrading to women, talks dirty, does skits where Zack and Slater are gay, but Screech gets all the girls - as I've never seen his act, I'm just relaying what other's who have seen him have said. Definitely not an act for children though.

[Erika]

Everyone is making real interesting points here. I agree! He definitely should have learned a loooong time ago how to invest and save all of his money. He's made quite a lot of it. And because of that, a financial advisor should have been his number one priority if he didn't know how to handle it all. There are so many oppurtunities out there for help. And he had/has the financial stability to take advantage of it.

He was never "poor". I am actually starting to not feel so badly for him. lol This is just plain stupid and obnoxious...and very poor taste. (like someone else has said.) What's done is done. He should learn from his mistakes. And hitting rock bottom might teach him a thing or two. (Which I doubt he'll ever face because he has PLENTY of oppurtunites to make $$ without relying on the public for handouts.)

[elliot5]

Diamond is only 29 - it's not as though he's a middle-aged man with a big family and whose job was just permanently outsourced or has become obsolete. He's still young enough to go back to school and learn a new trade or do something to make more money than he does right now.

Why exactly does he need to live in a big house right now? If he only makes maybe $30,000-40,000 (a rough estimate) per year, then why is he living in a big house like that anyway? If I were him I'd probably be renting a smaller place and clearing up my credit. Also, he had to have seen this coming - I don't believe for one second that this was just sprung on him without any prior warning that he has to raise the $250,000 right away.

For him to go on the Howard Stern Show and practically beg for money is pretty sad. He just came off as being extremely bitter on the Stern Show and may have permanently damaged his chances of ever staging a meaningful comeback in Hollywood.

[g0screechracerg0]

babbabooey babbabooey babbaboey....

[QueenKelly]

Well, we know that his parents squandered a massive amount of his earnings before he turned 18. For that, I do feel for him.
He's 29 years old now. He still has $500,000 right? He's not REMOTELY close to being broke. Although, if he keeps going the way he's going, he may very well lose that money as well.
As elliot said, the obvious decision here would be to rent, and clear your credit.
I don't know how well his Comedy acts do, but I wonder if he's as good as he thinks he is. We all know that there are people out there that believe they have a talent they don't have. American Idol auditions is the perfect example for that.

So, my advice to Dustin would be, is to rent, clear your credit. As for being a Stand-up Comic, if your act includes degrading women and involving cast members from your show in your act in crude ways, perhaps you're not as good as you think you are. And for crying out loud, STAY OFF THE HOWARD STERN SHOW!

[elliot5]

Queenkelly, the $500,000 was probably before taxes. I think he's already spent it. He mentioned on Stern that he only gets about $1000 per comedy gig, so he's probably been spending more than he makes for years now. Maybe he's only making $25k per year - if that is the case, why is he living in an expensive house??? How can he support himself and his wife and meet his mortgage obligations on that amount of money?

Also, he indicated that his parents took 75% of the money he made before he turned 18. But he never said what happened after he turned 18 when he apprently had control of his earnings. The $2 million earnings amount he gave was for all of his years on Saved By The Bell, up until he was 22 or 23 in 2000. So he probably actually had control of more than $500,000 of his earnings.

He said that when he was 18 he already had a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank. When asked what happened to that money, he changed the subject.

His parents may have taken a fair amount of his money, but the fact remains that he is extremely foolish with his money. He's been blowing through money since the show ended in 2000 and had yet to acquire a full-time job, and he expects us to bail him out so he doesn't have to work like the rest of us "average people"? I don't see that happening...

[soiledzubaz]

now if it was Lark needing help, I'd buy a shirt from her LOL

[QueenKelly]

All I'm going to say is that I wish him all the best. Thanks to Animal and elliot for the info. I am a fan of his, and I'm going to support him as a fan. Nothing else.

[Barb]

Ok, so from www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=435980

We learned that he was making about $5,300 a month. That's about $60,000 a year. And his only payments right now are for his home and his car. I don't feel bad for him. I don't make squat, but I pay my bills before I have fun with my money. Move into an apartment, clean up your credit...help yourself. Don't expect others to do the work for you. We have our own problems. I realize that he probably thinks he has to have the nice house, but he doesn't. You have to work for what you have, and he's putting no effort into managing his money. He's 29...most people don't get that nice house until they get credit or clean up their bad credit from when they were young and got credit card hungry LOL. That's just how it goes. If he doesn't learn now, he's just going to keep running into this problem, and it's going to get worse and worse.

[elliot5]

I wonder if he still makes $5k per month from royalties. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading somewhere that actors make more money from the first time a re-run is shown in syndication than they do each succesive time it is shown. If that is true, he may make a lot less than $5k per month from royalties.

It's too bad he doesn't get any residuals from the DVDs - the studio must have made a lot of money of the sale of DVDs.

[Erika]

You're right, Barb. Like I said...sometimes its best to hit rock bottom to eventually learn that life lesson. This is a very bold move he's making. I am somewhat surprised he did this. I think money troubles are quite embarrassing as it is. This is hurting his "career" and his chance to work again, even more so. Who really wants to hire someone like this. It's quite risky. (Int he entertainment business, I mean) I am his fan. Nothing more. He needs to grow up and live/work/play like an adult. Getting to this low point in his life might just teach him that.

[QueenKelly]

barb1686 said:

Ok, so from www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=435980

We learned that he was making about $5,300 a month. That's about $60,000 a year. And his only payments right now are for his home and his car. I don't feel bad for him. I don't make squat, but I pay my bills before I have fun with my money. Move into an apartment, clean up your credit...help yourself. Don't expect others to do the work for you. We have our own problems. I realize that he probably thinks he has to have the nice house, but he doesn't. You have to work for what you have, and he's putting no effort into managing his money. He's 29...most people don't get that nice house until they get credit or clean up their bad credit from when they were young and got credit card hungry LOL. That's just how it goes. If he doesn't learn now, he's just going to keep running into this problem, and it's going to get worse and worse.

Excatly Barb.