Jeff Lewis Addresses New Lawsuit with Gage Edward: "This Is About Revenge"
"I think he's trying to damage me publicly," the Flipping Out designer said.
Jeff Lewis is speaking out on his latest lawsuit with his former partner of 10 years, Gage Edward.
The Flipping Out designer addressed reports that Gage is suing him over a $125,000 loan that he allegedly did not pay back during the March 24 episode of his Radio Andy show Jeff Lewis Live. "I had been actually trying to avoid speaking about it," Jeff said.
He then went into detail about the origins of this lawsuit, explaining that he and his ex were to work out a global settlement of their financial matters as they worked through their custody arrangement of 3-year-old daughter Monroe after Gage sued him for equal shared custody of their daughter as well as child support last month.
"In the RFO, which is the request for order, which he filed several weeks back, there was a mention of an alleged loan that Gage gave to me in 2016 when I had four major multimillion dollar homes under construction. I was strapped for cash, and he lent me money. So this was all supposed to be handled in the global settlement," Jeff said. "For some reason, Gage has decided to hire a third attorney and reach out. I received a letter last week that they were going to potentially file a lawsuit in attempts to recover [the] alleged loan."
Jeff said that the amount he was alleged to have owed Gage was initially $50,000 higher, but he was able to provide "cancelled checks to reduce that amount." However, he said he believes $125,000 is still not the correct amount. "One of the reasons why the money has not been paid back, and I acknowledge that it is a loan, it is not the same amount that he is saying it is, he also owes me a significant amount of money," Jeff claimed. "So there is a dispute here in what exactly who owes who, and that was all going to be worked out in the global settlement."
Jeff said that he agreed to go to arbitration with Gage "to avoid the extensive cost of going to a trial." However, Gage decided to file a separate lawsuit over the loan against Jeff instead.
"I don't really understand what he's doing. I think he's actually just trying to fight me for the sake of fighting. I think he's trying to damage me publicly," Jeff said. "I think this is a way of taking a swing at me, even though I've agreed that there is a loan, and I've agreed to arbitrate. It's kind of insane that we're now looking at a trial."
Jeff said that he now wonders whether or not "it's about money" for Gage. "He will do far better financially if he just stops being so nasty, stops being so vile and ugly," he shared. "I do think this is about revenge for him."
He said he would have been open to giving Gage pretty much everything he was asking for if they had gone to arbitration like they had originally planned. "If we really sat down and worked this out, I would've paid him the stupid, f--king number, which I don't even agree with, but I would've paid it, and I would've waived the huge amount of money he owes me. And I would've paid child support," Jeff claimed. "I would've done all these things, but now it's all off the table. It's all off the table because he's taken this to such an ugly place."
Jeff also called Gage "calculating and measured" for filing the lawsuit on March 23, a day before Jeff's birthday. "And by the way, I'm fully expecting to get served today, on my birthday," Jeff said.
Jeff claimed that "there were signs over the years of selfishness" on Gage's part during their decade-long relationship. However, he said he "focused on the good things."
Even though the former Flipping Out couple's post-split relationship has been filled with conflict, Jeff said that he still cared for Gage and hoped to stay connected to him. "I feel like the door was never quite totally closed for me, and now it's like slammed shut, locked," Jeff said. "Now I'm gonna stop talking to him. So unless there's an emergency, unless Monroe's ill, we're not gonna do check-ins every day anymore."
An hour-and-40-minute-long phone conversation with Gage last week gave Jeff a glimmer of hope that the two could "compromise with each other" and "move on." But now this most recent lawsuit has signaled otherwise to Jeff. "No, he is unwavered," Jeff said of Gage. "In his head, he's entitled to certain things. He is 150 percent convinced he is gonna get all these things. It's a crazy sense of entitlement, and I don't believe he'll be getting everything that he believes he's entitled to."
Jeff said that he feels the Gage he is dealing with in this contentious custody battle is not the partner he once knew. "If you look at his Instagram, some of those photos are a bit alarming for me because it's not someone that I recognize," Jeff said.
