Rod Stewart to return $2 million advance

Rod Stewart was ordered last night to pay a Las Vegas casino $2 million for canceling a concert while he was recovering from surgery for throat cancer.

A jury decided unanimously that the rock star should not have kept an advance he was paid for the New Year's weekend show in December 2000 at the Rio Hotel Casino and should pay it back with interest, reports Telegraph.

According to The seven-member panel found that Stewart should not have kept an advance he was paid for the New Year’s weekend show that he said he was unable to perform at the Rio hotel-casino because of throat surgery several months earlier.

One of his lawyers, Kerry Garvis Wright, said outside U.S. District Court that the 60-year-old singer will appeal.

Steve Morris, a lawyer for the Las Vegas casino and parent company Harrah’s Entertainment, said he was “delighted and relieved” by the verdict.

Jury foreman Stevan Jorgensen, 56, said the case boiled down to a misunderstanding of the contract between the British rocker and the casino.

“We felt it was only fair,” he said, “that if Mr. Stewart didn’t perform the concert that he should give the money back,” informs MSNBC.