You know, as I thought about it, it seemed to me that he could have
made lemonade of it. He could have billed himself as 'whats-his-name
the mandolin player on Maggy May.' Probably a lot more memorable,
and a good conversation starter besides. And he would have got all
the perks that he claims to have missed out on.

I'd bet that the gambit here is to just get a settlement to get him
to shut up. Some attorney probably said, "I can get you five or
six figures on this, just to go away" and he looked at his bank
balance and said "Yeah, okay."