Sting is facing a bizarre lawsuit from a chef who claims he’s owed royalties after helping him write two of The Police’s biggest hits.

Roy Smith has filed a complaint with police in Reno, Nevada, and is seeking royalties from ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Message In A Bottle’.

The 48-year-old claims he helped write the songs because, wait for it…. he once told Sting about a former girlfriend who was called Roxanne and was a prostitute, and he also told him about how he once wrote a message to his mum and put it in a bottle.

Smith claims he spun Sting the yarns when they met in a Reno Restaurant in the Seventies, and claims the singer tried to ring him a few years later – but the message never got passed on by his mother, who thought it was the real police who were after her son.

Despite supposedly passing a polygraph test over his claims, Sting’s lawyers have unsurprisingly dismissed the claims, with police redirecting Smith to the civil courts.

(by C Taylor)