A invoice generally known as the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant was accredited by Congress in 2020 and signed into legislation by Donald Trump. The fund was designed to assist artists and venues that have been being compelled to shut as a result of to COVID-19. Nevertheless it ended offering funding to a couple very fashionable performers as properly.
In keeping with an exposé by Enterprise Insider, huge artists resembling Chris Brown, Alice In Chains, and Lil Wayne, misused these funds by incomes hundreds of thousands of {dollars} after which lavishly spending it.
Lil Wayne received a taxpayer-funded $8.9 million grant from the above fund, 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.” The A-list rapper additionally reportedly used $175k of that cash on “a music competition selling his marijuana model, GKUA” and in addition used the grant for “flights and luxurious lodge 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.”
Lil Wayne can be accused of taking $88,000 in taxpayer cash for a live performance in Coachella, California that he by no means confirmed up for. When Enterprise Insider reached him through textual content, Wayne responded with “a sexually specific overture to a reporter and didn’t reply to questions.”
Purchasers of the managing enterprise NKSFB obtained no less than $207 million in grant funds, whereas the agency itself took $7 million out of that, in response to Enterprise Insider. The article particulars the expenditures they made utilizing the paper path they left behind. For instance, it seems that Chris Brown obtained $5.1 million and his touring agency obtained $10 million. As well as, he obtained $80,000 to rejoice his birthday in a lavish manner. In keeping with experiences, Marshmello obtained more cash than every other musician—practically $10 million.
The article particulars the ways in which musicians like Steve Aoki, Rae Sremmurd, and Shinedown have been paid grant cash as properly. It claims that members of Alice In Chains have been paid $3.4 million and there’s a element that can absolutely disturb some folks: “Scott Dachroeden, a guitar tech and tour photographer who had labored with the band for years, obtained a most cancers prognosis in late 2022. The band, which data 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 informed Enterprise Insider that the band didn’t do a lot to assist him financially.
