Naked Cowboy Has High Visibility Assets

Times Square’s singing Naked Cowboy may have just corralled Mars to take down a competing M&M knockoff, but who knew he’d be so vocal about his $5,000 IRA?

The scantily clad crooner filed a $6 million lawsuit against Mars Inc—the maker of M&Ms—for ripping off his gig—having an M&M, on a Times Square billboard, imitating his boots, hat, underwear, and guitar routine. In an apparent response, the ad disappeared on Friday. While the suit will continue this cowboy continues to keep one eye on his guitar and the other on where’s his money—and, if he wins this suit, his potential windfall—goes.

"Basically, I invest in high visibility assets. High visibility—the way I do everything in life.” Then he got more specific: “I have a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch (ML). I have $5,000 in my IRA, along with a cash management account. I buy real estate. I'm investing in the 17th floor of one of my friend's hotels in Panama City Beach and bought a yacht for celebrity tours."

And where did that $6 million figure come about in the first place? “It was difficult number to come up with,” says the Cowboy’s lawyer, Scott Rothman, who traveled from Conshohocken, PA to rep him. “There are two counts, one for trademark infringement, asking for $2 million on that, and $2 million on right of publicity. It’s questionable whether you can recover simultaneously on those two counts. And then we’re asking for $2 million in punitive damages. So one way to look at it is really 2 plus 2, or aggregate the 2 counts and that’s how the media got 6.