The Broke and the Beautiful: T.O. Edition

This week on The Broke and the Beautiful, Terrell Owens opens up to famed talk-show host Dr. Phil, and the Phoenix Coyotes might be ending its period of NHL ownership. Also this week, Gary Busey has a new job.

Bankruptcy Beat is no stranger to fumbling football stars. We’ve tackled the likes of Charlie Batch, Mark Brunell, and, more recently, Warren Sapp and Deuce McAllister. Now, former NFL player Terrell Owens is crossing our line of scrimmage. According to the Toronto Sun, Owens appeared on “Dr. Phil” Tuesday and tearily opened up about his problems, including an impending bankruptcy case, the crash of his career and accusations of being a deadbeat dad. Fox Sports gives us a play-by-play of the segment.

“Anyone who knows me, they know I don’t live that extravagant life,” Owens noted. “Do I have nice things? Yes, but you’re not going to see me popping bottles in the club.”

It looks like the NHL is ever closer to its goal of selling off the Phoenix Coyotes, likely to a group led by former San Jose Sharks executive Greg Jamison. But the team—which reached the Western Conference finals for the first time since moving to Arizona in 1996—might not be making everyone happy. According to The Wall Street Journal, some of the costs are falling to the residents of Glendale, Ariz. The city has to pay Jobing.com Arena, where the team plays, debt payments of about $12.6 million a year and has been paying almost $25 million a year to the NHL as an arena-management fee.

If the deal with Jamison works out, the team would keep paying the arena-management fee, but only about $14.5 million a year. The Coyotes saga, which we last touched on in September, has been in play for three years. Former team owner Jerry Moyes placed the team into Chapter 11 in May 2009, and the NHL bought the team later that year.

Famed tenor Placido Domingo might not be singing words of praise for the San Antonio Opera, which filed for bankruptcy liquidation this week. Court documents show that the opera, which filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation this week with nearly $900,000 in debt, owes Domingo more than $50,000. Opera founder Mark Richter told the San Antonio Express-News that the majority of the fee for Domingo, who performed with the opera last June, had already been paid and that the $50,500 debt was “just a fraction” of the fee.

Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

Last month, actor and reality-TV star Gary Busey shared tax tips with Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night audience. This month, he graduated to a role in a new sitcom. According to Broadcasting & Cable, Busey is set to star in a “Mr. Box Office,” a show about a movie star (to be played by Bill Bellamy) who has to do community-service teaching at a high school in Los Angeles. TMZ said that Busey will reportedly be making $4,500 a week playing a “crazy person.”

Jon Scott Ashjian, a former Tea Party of Nevada candidate for the U.S. Senate, has filed for bankruptcy. According to Vegas Inc., Ashjian said he was forced into Chapter 7 liquidation because a lawyer didn’t properly represent him in lawsuits and other legal matters, something that caused judgments to be entered against him. In addition to filing his own bankruptcy petition along with wife Bonnie Lynn, one of his companies, W.I.T. BRO Inc., also filed for Chapter 7. Ashjian was defeated by Majority Leader Harry Reid in the 2010 Senate election.