It pretty understood by all that Paul Jr. and Paul Sr. had their own set of personal issues.
Paul Sr. even mentioned once in an interview that these issues were due to their “conflicting sense of entitlement”. Like father and son, they say!
Hey, Big Spenders
But we’ve come to the core of all the financial issues that the entire OCC crew was going through- they were spending way too much.
They obviously had plenty of money running in when the show was on air but even when the money stream slowed down, they continued with their insane expenses.
Was It The Moolah?
Apparently, the OCC crew grew at an alarming rate with 100 workers all the way until the end of the show! Unfortunately, no one knew how to handle such a large bunch of new kids and some ended up getting underpaid.
In fact, Mikey was paid just $10 an hour while Paul Sr. was making a crazy $80,000 per year!
Mikey, The Middleman
Although it was particularly difficult, Mikey ended up becoming the peacemaker between his father and brother.
He even admitted in an interview that he felt guilty for not being able to successfully help his family reach an agreement and that he had “failed in his mission.”
Done With Fighting
As we’ve mentioned earlier, Mikey eventually reached his breaking point. Before the final season of American Chopper kicked off, Mikey decided to leave and let his father and brother deal with their own issues.
He had enough of the drama and ended up cutting ties with the show. We can only imagine the frustration he had to go through!