Beef of the Day: John Cleese, Eric Idle Wage War Over Spamalot Royalties

First came the real talk from Eric Idle revealing why he recently canned fellow Monty Python mate John Cleese from the touring production of Spamalot, the stage musical adapted from their 1974 comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "I fired John Cleese -- surgically removed him," Idle told the Telegraph. "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." A miffed Cleese took to Twitter to strike back at "Yoko Idle."

@JohnCleese
John Cleese 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"
Dec 14 via Twitter for iPhoneFavoriteRetweetReply

@JohnCleese
John Cleese ... actual rough figures last time we checked - Yoko Idle $13m, Michael Palin $1.1m, the others just under a million each...
Dec 14 via Twitter for iPhoneFavoriteRetweetReply

To add insult to injury, Idle had also brought up the subject of Cleese's marital problems in his chat with the Telegraph. "His ex wife was married to him for 20 years. I wouldn't take £13 million to be married to him. I don't feel guilty. I gave him a million dollars. Has he sent me a Christmas card? No, he's too busy on the road."

Ouch. Not cool, Yoko.

Spamalot debuted on Broadway in 2005 and has been touring since to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars; meanwhile, Cleese's one-man show An Evening with John Cleese continues to tour because, as he told Yahoo last month, "I have fallen on hard times... partly, because I am now on the far-side of romantic leading roles, but also because I've just been through a costly and acrimonious divorce..."

[@JohnCleese, Telegraph]