How Kevin Bacon lost a fortune to an American fraudster
Kevin Bacon is considered by many to be the greatest actor to have never received an Academy Award nomination, although he has won a Golden Globe. Bacon has starred in a series of brilliant cinematic features, including JFK, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13 and the HBO TV film Taking Chance. However, the actor very nearly had all his success in the film industry come to nothing when he and his wife, Kyra Sedwick, lost a fortune in the notorious Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Bernie Madoff – then chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange.
In 2008, Madoff was arrested just a day after his sons Andrew and Mark informed the authorities that the asset management branch of his finance firm was a giant Ponzi scheme – the biggest in American history, valued at $64.8 billion. A few months later, in 2009, he pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies and was sentenced to 150 years in prison, although he died in 2021.
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent affair that attracts new investors while paying profits to early investors with funds from the new ones. The system works by convincing investors that their profits come from legitimate business affairs rather than from what the new investors provide.
Kevin Bacon was one of the investors stung by his unawareness of the reality of Madoff’s business. “There’s obvious life lessons there. You know, if something is too good to be true, it’s too good to be true,” he said (via The Independent), adding: “Certainly, you get angry and stuff, but I have to say that there were a lot of people who were much worse off than we were.”
However, despite losing a lot of his life savings, Bacon tried to assess what really matters in life. “When something like that happens, you know, you look at each other, then you go, ‘Well, that sucks. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work,’ you know?” he said. “We’ve made it this far. Our kids are healthy. We’re healthy. Let’s look at what we have that’s good.”
Some had suggested that the reason Bacon signed a deal to feature in his iconic EE mobile phone adverts was that he was broke and needed some cash. However, the actor admitted that “there’s no connection at all”. Still, the fact remains that Bacon was done over by Madoff and urges us all to be wary of similar schemes. “Let me also say, I think there’s a good cautionary tale there to be cognizant of what’s happening with your money,” he said.
