Jeremy Piven Faces Legal Trouble After His Mercury Poisoning

Last month we reported that the producers of the Broadway play Speed-the-Plow filed a grievance against Jeremy with Actors' Equity for abruptly quitting due to a diagnosis of mercury poisoning after eating too much sushi.

Well, tomorrow a hearing is set to take place at Equity headquarters in Manhattan and Piven is expected to be there to defend himself.

Jeremy will appear before a committee of five actors and five producers and is expected to bring the results of a blood test showing his mercury levels, reports the New York Post.

He's also likely to detail how his illness prevented him from completing the show, which left the producers scrambling for replacements and caused a drop in ticket sales.

The producers are expected to allege that before Jeremy claimed to be ill, he was angling to leave the show. They also have a record of where Jeremy's driver took him after performances, sources tell the New York Post. It has been alleged that he was out partying in Manhattan clubs when he was said to have been deathly ill.

If the grievance committee rules against the actor, who has won several Emmys and Golden Globes for his work on Entourage, it can force him to settle financially with the producers. If he refuses to abide by the committee's decision, he can be expelled from the union — and the producers can sue him in civil court.

Shortly after Jeremy up and left the play, he told Diane Sawyer that the allegations that he was partying too hard weren't true. "The last thing I ever thought about doing was not completing this run," he said. "I've never not completed anything in my life. They pulled me out of this thing, and that's the truth."
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