Calvin Harris Accuses Financial Advisor Of Stealing $22.5 Million For Real Estate “Boondoggle”

More money, more problems, as they say. Calvin Harris, the Scottish producer who was the world’s highest-paid DJ for most of the 2010s, has accused his financial advisor of stealing $22.5 million from him to fund a “boondoggle” Hollywood real estate development.

Harris formally made the accusation via an arbitration demand, so he’s trying to settle it outside of court rather than file a full lawsuit. In that demand, Harris — real name Adam Wiles — says that his financial advisor of the past 13 years, Thomas St. John, coerced Harris into investing in a development called CMNTY Culture Campus. The project was initially announced as a 460,000 square foot artist-centric space that would include recording studios, offices, and lounges. Harris’ lawyers allege that St. John began developing the project around 2020, and once they ran low on cash a couple of years later, turned to Harris as an emergency fund.

St. John allegedly didn’t give Harris details about the project, instead just handing over documents for him to sign. Harris says he made a $10 million loan to the project and a $12.5 million equity investment, and that shortly thereafter, St. John caused CMNTY Culture to distribute $11.7 million to an entity that St. John controls.

“To this day, Claimants do not know where Claimants’ investment has gone or what it has been used for,” Harris’ attorneys wrote [via Variety]. “In any event, Respondents had no intention of Mr. Wiles actually receiving back the full value of his investment, through distributions or otherwise… [The investment] has been, at best, a complete boondoggle, and, at worst, a complete fraud.”

Last year, however, the CMNTY Culture Campus shifted their plan in favor of a predominantly residential development. St. John’s attorney told Variety that Harris “actively pursued this development opportunity,” but was “unhappy with the pace of the project” and chose to make the arbitration demand to “assert his discontent.”

Harris’ attorneys, meanwhile, say that his outstanding $10 million loan was supposed to be paid back by Jan. 31, 2025, and that St. John stopped being Harris’ financial advisor in April.

In more Harris news, earlier this month he shared the single “Ocean” with Jessie Reyez, a song he first teased as a collaboration with Miley Cyrus that fell through.