In 2020, Congress handed a invoice known as the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, and Donald Trump signed it into regulation. The large grant was supposed to subsidize musicians and venues who had been affected by COVID-related shutdowns, but it surely additionally made funds accessible to a couple extraordinarily profitable musicians. Right this moment, Enterprise Insider has printed an exposé concerning the ways in which already-successful musicians like Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, and Alice In Chains abused these grants, utilizing them to rake in thousands and thousands after which spending that cash in lavish methods.
In accordance with Enterprise Insider, Lil Wayne acquired a taxpayer-funded $8.9 million grant, and he “spent greater than $1.3 million from the grant on private-jet flights and over $460,000 on garments and equipment, a lot of them from high-end manufacturers like Gucci and Balenciaga.” Wayne additionally reportedly used $175,000 of that cash on “a music competition selling his marijuana model, GKUA” and in addition used the grant for “flights and luxurious resort rooms for ladies whose connection to Lil Wayne’s touring operation was unclear, together with a waitress at a Hooters-type restaurant and a porn actress.”
The article additional accuses Lil Wayne of taking $88,000 in taxpayer cash for a live performance in Coachella, California that he no-showed. When Enterprise Insider reached him by way of textual content, Wayne responded with “a sexually express overture to a reporter and didn’t reply to questions.”
In accordance with Enterprise Insider shoppers of the managing agency NKSFB acquired no less than $207 million in grant cash, and the agency itself took in $7 million. They left behind a paper path of how they spent that cash, and the Enterprise Insider piece goes over the methods during which they spent it. Chris Brown’s touring firm, for one, apparently acquired $10 million, and Brown himself acquired $5.1 million. He additionally acquired $80,000 to throw himself a party. Marshmello reportedly acquired almost $10 million, greater than another single musician.
The article particulars the ways in which musicians like Steve Aoki, Rae Sremmurd, and Shinedown had been paid grant cash. It claims that members of Alice In Chains had been paid $3.4 million, and it provides this infuriating element: “Scott Dachroeden, a guitar tech and tour photographer who had labored with the band for years, acquired a most cancers analysis in late 2022. The band, which information present didn’t spend grant cash on advantages like medical health insurance, circulated a GoFundMe web page on Twitter.” Dachroeden has since handed away, and sources inform Enterprise Insider that the band didn’t do a lot to assist him financially.
Within the grand scheme of COVID-related grant-money abuses, these funds to large stars appear to be fairly small potatoes, however the full report continues to be sufficient to get you spitting-nails mad. You may learn the Enterprise Insider piece right here.
