Monty Python’s Eric Idle Is 80 But Can’t Afford to Retire

Poor Eric Idle. And by “poor Eric Idle,” I mean literally poor — the former Monty Python star is once again lamenting his lack of riches, telling The Times U.K. that “these days everything in showbiz is on YouTube or Spotify so I do have to earn a living. I’d love to retire, but, alas, I can’t.”

He blames his old Python pals, specifically the fiscal mismanagement of the group’s earnings, but doesn’t want to get into it. “I’m not getting involved in a to and fro, for me it’s not very important,” he explained. “Sad to say I don’t really care because I’ve got a lot of other things to do in my life.”

None of that stopped Idle from getting involved in a to and from earlier this year on social media, complaining on Twitter that, “We own everything we ever made in Python and I never dreamt that at this age the income streams would tail off so disastrously. I guess if you put a Gilliam child in as your manager you should not be so surprised. One Gilliam is bad enough. Two can take out any company.”

John Cleese continues to take issue with this contention, recently returning from his self-imposed, eight-day Twitter exile to resume his beef with Idle over the group’s finances. It doesn’t sound like Idle is interested in making up anytime soon either. “I haven’t seen Michael (Palin) or Terry (Gilliam) in 10 years; I haven’t seen John in eight years. I think when people drift apart they are not on the same page and then they talk to the newspapers, which is always very dangerous,” Idle said while talking to a newspaper.

Maybe it’s Idle? By his own admission, things weren’t much better when he wrote his Spamalot musical. “This will sound eerily familiar but … there were big egos involved,” he explained. “Friendships were tested.” 

And the musical’s success didn’t solve his financial woes. There’s no cash on the way from a movie version of Spamalot. “Put down by the Pythons, I’m afraid,” he told Theatermania. “I thought they were behaved badly, and it was a pity that it didn’t get made.” 

That’s one reason why last year, in an incident that Idle refers to as “Downsize Abbey,” he was forced to sell his mansion in the Hollywood Hills for £5.4 million. A quick conversion puts that selling price at more than $7 million in U.S. currency — you’d think that would be enough to tide over the 80-year-old comic for a few years. But he says he has to tour (Idle is currently working his way through Australia and New Zealand) to make ends meet.

“The reality,” he says, “is nobody comes along and gives you money.”