Cleese and Idle clash over cash

John Cleese and Eric Idle have become involved in a public spat over the money made by Monty Python musical Spamalot.

Idle has complained over how much he has had to pay his former collaborators in royalties for the stage show.

But Cleese hit back, dubbing him ‘Yoko Idle’ on Twitter – and saying the other Pythons have made a tiny proportion of the millions the stage show has taken.

He wrote: ‘I see Yoko Idle's been moaning (again), about the royalties he had to pay the other Python's for Spamalot. Apparently he paid me “millions”.

‘Actual rough figures last time we checked - Yoko Idle $13m, Michael Palin $1.1m, the others just under a million each.’

Cleese's comments come over Idle’s comments in the Daily Telegraph earlier this week – in which he revealed he dropped Cleese’s voiceover from the stage production to avoid paying him any more.

Idle said: I fired John Cleese - surgically removed him. It wasn’t mean. He's had millions of dollars from it. He charges people a fortune for using his voice. He's always been in financial crisis.

‘His ex-wife was married to him for 20 years. I wouldn't take £13 million to be married to him.’

Published: 15 Dec 2011