The Inevitable FTX Class-Action Lawsuit Has Been Filed, with Tom Brady, Gisele, Larry David, Shaq and Steph Curry as Defendants
The utter collapse of cryptocurrency firm FTX is rapidly becoming the wildest story of the year, if not the decade. Unless you've got a better choice than a $15 billion company vanishing like a fart in the wind overnight. It's founder and CEO unable to explain what happened to all his investors' money, any more than I can explain him living in the Bahamas as part of a 10-person polyamorous orgy cult that made regular use of amphetamines and included a company executive who answers to the name Fake Charity Nerd Girl:
All while funneling millions of dollars to certain politicians including the President of the United States and having puff pieces done about how generous he was with his money by media outlets of his choosing.
But I'm not here to dive into those details. Everyone of them would require a separate blog all their own. And the whole story is shaping up to be a bestselling book like The Big Short or Wolf of Wall Street. And I am not qualified to write it.
Instead here's something I can wrap my feeble, bourbon soaked brain around. The star-studded list of FTX "brand ambassadors" getting sued for their involvement:
Source - Celebrity promoters of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX — including Larry David, Tom Brady, Giselle Bündchen, Shaquille O’Neal and Stephen Curry — have been named in a class-action lawsuit accusing FTX and its “brand ambassadors” of deceptively encouraging consumers to invest in the company.
In a complaint filed Nov. 15 in Florida federal district court, Edwin Garrison, an Oklahoma resident who says he purchased a yield-bearing account from FTX, seeks to represent a class of “thousands, if not millions, of consumers nationwide” who were allegedly defrauded by the company. The lawsuit alleges FTX and ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried used the celebrity endorsers to target “unsophisticated investors” in a “Ponzi scheme” to keep the crypto exchange afloat. …
The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages, alleging the FTX collapse resulted in consumers collectively losing more than $11 billion.
Get a load of the names on this suit. I can't claim to be up on my class-action lawsuit history. But I'm guessing the last legal document that had that many A-Listers appearing on it was the Declaration of Independence. Nor can I pretend I know whether it has any merit at all. The thing about lawsuits is they're cheap to file and there's a low standard of proof in order to include somebody in it. Basically you just want to cast the widest net you can and always include the deepest pockets you possible can. So if some 90-year-old runs you over in a Walmart parking lot, you definitely name Walmart as a defendant, because they're more able (and often willing) to pay more than old Blindy McLeadfoot in his 1988 Lincoln Town Car.
Still, at the risk of sounding provincial, the ones named in this suit I truly feel for are Tom Brady and Gisele. I mean, how much more can they suffer in a single year? It's almost like the universe made it so they didn't have to suffer the same 2020 the rest of us did, so it's making up for it by giving them a miserable 2022 instead. They were living their best life - moving to Tampa, winning a Super Bowl, Brady the only living creature on the field not wearing a mask - while the rest of us were sheltering in place, living off contactless food delivery and Tiger King. And now that bill is coming due. The piper is getting paid for all those dances.
Even if the suit is successful, Larry David will make more in Seinfeld royalties in the time it takes to read the verdict than it'll cost him. Shaq and Steph Curry not only have that guaranteed NBA money, they lead the world in endorsement deals. I might be wrong, but I'm worried that the Brady-Bundchen's tied a lot of their wealth up in this ridiculous Ponzi scheme. And he'll have to keep playing football until he's 55 and she'll have to become the world's oldest supermodel, just to keep the lights on in all their mansions.
But finances aside, this suit is coming on the heels his career ending and then not ending. Of him getting his coach fired. Then getting caught trying to swing a deal to play in Miami while under contract in New England. Of her leaving him and him leaving the Bucs, both without explanation. And above all else, their marriage falling apart. The last thing they need is to be sued for defrauding "thousands if not millions of consumers."
At least Larry David can use the "It said NOT to be like me" defense:
Sad. Very, very sad.