If you’ve ever lost “most” of your money in a Ponzi scheme, you’ve automatically won Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
The actor has made millions throughout his long acting career, but he and wife Kyra Sedgwick were scammed by Bernie Madoff’s infamous Ponzi scheme that cost investors $50 billion. Madoff’s investment scheme, of course, impacted lots of investors, not to mention nearly bankrupted the New York Mets. And it also impacted Bacon, who said in a new interview that he lost “most” of his money when things went belly-up.
Bacon had disclosed the losses previously, saying in a 2017 interview with The Guardian that the losses were “a bad day” but he and his family “got through it together.” But appearing on the SmartLess podcast hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, Bacon went into greater detail, admitting the severity of the losses and the “life lessons” that come from believing something that’s simply too good to be true.
“There’s obvious life lessons there. You know, if something is too good to be true, it’s too good to be true,” Bacon said on the SmartLess podcast, according to The Wrap. “And 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?”
Despite the setback, Bacon seems to have a good perspective on the losses and how it could have been much worse. Bacon and Sedgwick have continued to act and rebuild their life, and he said there are plenty of Madoff’s victims who were in much worse shape when the scheme came crashing down.
The actor went on to express gratitude for his family, wife and career. “We’ve made it this far. Our kids are healthy. We’re healthy. We can still both work and 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,” Bacon continued.
“Old people, people whose retirement funds were completely decimated. So there’s always gonna be somebody that’s gonna have it a lot worse than you,” he added. “Whatever the cliches … Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Bacon said.
Bacon did say that he managed to get “a portion of some money back” from the ordeal, but it’s another reminder to be careful who to trust with your hard-earned dollars if you can manage to invest some of it.
[via The Wrap]