Chris and Taya Kyle Lied About Donating All the Proceeds from 'American Sniper' to Charity
Chris Kyle talked with a reporter from the
Texan News Service,
a student run paper at Tarleton State University, on January 28, 2013,
five days before he was murdered. Click the link and go to the 7-minute
mark to hear Kyle evading the question about how many books he's sold
and repeating his claim that all the money he's gotten from the book has
been
given to the families of veterans.
Kent Studebaker,
Taya Kyle's father, confirmed Kyle had received a $100,000 advance
for “American Sniper” (written in 2011-2012) and an additional $700,000
sometime after that, but wouldn't elaborate on the total paid out to him
in royalties before his death.
Just days before Kyle was killed on February 2, 2013, he donated about $56,000 to the families of slain SEALs,
Ryan Job and
Marc Lee, as well as to a charity supporting veterans. At a
memorial service for Kyle in Dallas, footage of which is shown at the end
of "American Sniper," Lee's mother and president of the nonprofit
America’s Mighty Warriors — whom Kyle describes in the book as “almost a
surrogate mother to the other members of our platoon”— recalled the
moment she learned of Kyle’s largesse. “I was speechless, overwhelmed
and in tears,” Lee told the audience of 7,000 mourners. “Chris didn’t
publish that book for an income or to be famous. He hated the spotlight.
Chris did that for his teammates.”
Jesse Ventura won his lawsuit
against the Kyle estate in July 2014 for $1.845 million
after the former Minnesota governor successfully argued he was defamed
by a passage in "American Sniper." Taya Kyle has said that she will struggle to pay the $1.345 million of
that verdict for which Kyle's estate is responsible. Forged.com, a clothing company that sells
officially licensed "American Sniper" merchandise,
raised more than $1 million in donations in a week to cover part of what the Kyle estate owes Ventura. Forged.com is continuing to give a portion of sales on the
site to the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation, which Taya oversees. She also
has received other donations intended to help her pay the part of
the Ventura judgment that HarperCollins’ insurance does
not cover. Shortly after Kyle’s funeral in February 2013, hedge fund
manager J. Kyle Bass, who helped Kyle co-found Craft International,
visited
Taya and
promised to give her ownership of the home bought by Bass, through his
company, that the family had been living in rent-free; and Chris'
partners at Craft
raised $300,000 for the Kyle family after his death. [
Source]
In 2010, it was Bass, along with other investors, who provided Chris Kyle
funds to live on, and he eventually raised a total of about $2.6 million to
form what became Craft International. Shortly after Chris' death, Taya filed a lawsuit against Chris' co-founders
at Craft, accusing them of mishandling company funds. In her legal
filings, she detailed the promise Bass made of giving her the home and
noted that he did not follow through. But other sources
claim Bass conditioned his gift of the home on Taya giving proceeds from
the book and movie to the families of two friends and fallen SEAL
members, Job and Lee. The suit was settled out of court in
late 2014, and Bass agreed to let her continue to live in the home until
October 30, after
which she can buy the house for $314,612 or pay rent to remain. [
Source]
So whatever happened to the repeated claim that the
proceeds from "American Sniper" would go/had gone to charity, benefiting the families of his
fallen friends?
Consider what Kyle’s publisher
wrote
after his tragic passing: "He dedicated his life in recent years to supporting
veterans and donated the proceeds of "American Sniper" to the families of his fallen friends."
An article in the
Blaze definitively
proclaimed: "A perfect reflection of his character, Kyle gave
all proceeds from his best-selling book "American Sniper" to the families of soldiers killed in combat."
Or this line from a
Human Events article: "For "American Sniper," Kyle donated the profits from that book to charity."
An article in
D magazine quoted Kyle as
saying he decided not to take a dime from "American Sniper": "As it became a best-seller, he gave two-thirds [of the proceeds] to the families of fallen teammates and the rest to a charity that helped wounded veterans. It was something he and Taya discussed a
lot."
In
The New Yorker, it was
reported that "Kyle split the earnings with DeFelice and McEwen [his ghost writers] and donated his profits to the families of fallen soldiers."
Kyle perpetuated this idea, telling the same proceeds-went-to-charity tale to the
Texas News Service and even adding that he regularly received tearful calls and
letters of thanks.
And now for the kicker: It isn’t true. Out of the staggering $3 million that "American
Sniper" collected in royalties for Kyle (as of June 30, 2013), only $52,000 actually went to the families of fallen servicemen. (Rather than 100 percent of the proceeds, as the public was led to believe, try 2 percent!) While Kyle’s widow
claimed, in her testimony, that they never intended to profit from the book, and "wanted" to donate the money to other veterans, she said they were weren’t able
to because of — get this! — "gift-tax laws that prevented them from donating more than $13,000 each to two families last year."
