Nicolas Cage blames assistant for late charges of rented DVDs
“The Family Man” star Nicolas Cage is known to have been late in paying over $6 million tax bill to the Internal Revenue Service — and now, it was reported that the actor owes his local video shop $224.48 in late fees for his DVD rentals.
According to reports, the DVD rental store took to Facebook to reach out to Nicolas Cage, after which the “Ghostrider” actor called on Sunday morning to apologize and blamed the mix up on his assistant.
Cage had failed to return the Judy Garland musical drama “A Star is Born,” and “The King of Comedy,” starring Jerry Lewis and Robert De Niro, to the Old Bank DVD store in Downtown Los Angeles. He rented them back in April, and four months after they were due to be returned, the DVD rental store made a humorous appeal on Facebook in an effort to recover their losses.
“If anyone happens to run into Nicolas Cage wandering the neighborhood, please kindly remind him he’s had [our DVD's] for a few months,” the Old Bank DVD store wrote on the social networking page.
“Old Bank DVD is not responsible if he gets mad, bursts into flames and beats you up though.”
After the post on Facebook caught the attention of the actor, Nicolas Cage called the store in person and the owner told meida outlet TMZ that the actor “was cool and didn’t take any offense to the store calling him out on Facebook.”
Old Bank DVD store chose to be forgiving to the Hollywood star, charging him just $20 in late fees per movie.
The DVD store posted an update on its Facebook page, writing, “As a token of our appreciation for all the fine work Mr. Cage has done in film, with any rental this weekend, our customers may also pick one Nicolas Cage movie for free.”
“And that’s like half our store, I mean seriously, that’s one hard working actor 
. Welcome back anytime Nic,” the statement added.
Back in 2009, Nicolas Cage was infamously chased by the IRS for over $6 million in unpaid income tax, after court records revealed that the Internal Revenue Service filed legal docs stating that the actor owed them $6,257,000.
Cage, who was racking up to $40 million per movie in 2009, has just settled a tax beef the year before when he paid thousands in back taxes and interest. The actor, best known for his role in “Con Air,” refused to comment on the tax issue at the time.
His over $6 million in unpaid taxes stemmed from 2007 when he made four films, including “National Treasure” and “Ghost Rider.”
Nicolas Cage later went on to sell various homes and a very expensive comic book for over $2 million to help pay his tax debt. The actor has been labelled as one of the craziest, huge spenders in Hollywood.
He has also been accused of splurging millions on property and blowing his fortune on fast cars, jewellery, castles, yachts and a collection of shrunken heads and dinosaur skulls.
His troubles, however, did not end in terms of finances. Last year, Nicolas Cage had a run-in with the law after a heated, drunken argument with his wife, Alice Kim in New Orleans. But charges, including battery, were later dropped.
After April 16, Nicolas Cage was arrested for allegedly grabbing his wife and disturbing the peace. But the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office decided a while later not to press charges anymore against the actor, as investigators had insufficient evidence to move forward with the battery case.