Hey, Millionaire!
The modern world pretty much worships celebrities.
When we look up to people that way, it's hard to believe that they could ever do anything
wrong.
And I'm not talking about big scandals.
Celebrities are just people like the rest of us, and that means that, sometimes, they
make mistakes.
And those mistakes can cost them a lot of cash.
Sure, they look like they're handling their fame and fortune well.
But if a clever scammer comes along, there's a chance they can steal loads of cash from
your favorite celeb.
Want to know which celebrities have been scammed?
Then keep watching!
16.
Robert De Niro Robert De Niro has enough on-screen gangster
personas that most of us wouldn't dare mess with him.
But shady art dealer Lawrence Salander wasn't concerned.
De Niro's father was a painter, and Salander had got his hands on a collection of 12 of
his paintings.
He then went behind De Niro's back and sold them without permission.
De Niro lost $1 million as a result.
And he's not the only person that Salander cheated.
The son of the late artist Stuart Davis gave Salander 96 of his father's paintings for
safekeeping, and he's lost 90 of the paintings as a result.
But it's not just artists he was conning.
Tennis star John McEnroe lost $2 million when Salander convinced him to invest in a Gorky
painting that wasn't even part of Salander's collection!
Luckily, De Niro has since been able to track down 5 of his late father's paintings, while
7 are still missing.
Salander is serving out his prison sentence now, which might last 18 years.
But he's declared bankruptcy, so he probably won't be paying the $120 million that the
courts ordered him to pay to all the people he stole from.
15.
Al Pacino, Sylvester Stallone, Uma Thurman, and more...
In 2010, New York financial advisor Kenneth Starr was finally arrested.
He'd been stealing huge stacks of cash from a whole collection of celebrities.
It was so much cash, in fact, that he was able to buy a condo in Manhattan that featured
a 1,500-square-foot garden and an indoor swimming pool.
His theft had grown his bank balance to the tune of $30 million!
That's the kind of cash you can earn if you're bold enough to steal from Rambo, the guy in
The Godfather, and The Bride from Kill Bill.
But Al Pacino and Uma Thurman weren't his only victims.
He also managed to steal from Wesley Snipes, Neil Simon, Martin Scorsese, and David Blaine.
Okay, now I understand how he got his hands on so much cash.
He was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months in jail.
14.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Stiller, Courtney Cox, and more...
That's right, there's almost nobody in Hollywood who hasn't been scammed by a financial advisor.
Stockbroker Dana Giacchetto was doing his shady business back in the 90s.
His method was an ordinary investment scam, but it sure worked well for him.
When he was finally caught, he'd stolen about $10 million from a handful of A-listers, including
Leonardo Dicaprio, Ben Stiller, and Courtney Cox at the time when Friends was still running
and she had money to burn.
Giacchetto was released from prison in 2003, but you don't need to worry about him getting
his hands on anyone else's money because he passed away in 2016.
13.
Sidney Poitier and Andy Warhol If you think this kind of celebrity scamming
is new, you're wrong.
Back in 1987, Charles Agee Atkins was caught and convicted of scamming several high-profile
celebrities, including the renowned actor Sidney Poitier and superstar pop artist Andy
Warhol.
The scam was a simple fake tax shelter scheme.
Atkins was putting his celebrity clients' cash into these "tax shelters" and telling
them he'd lost their money.
But he was really just putting it all into his own bank account.
In the end, he had stolen an unbelievable $1 billion!
It was, at the time, the largest tax fraud in American history.
Can you click subscribe before another celeb loses all their cash to a scammer?
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Keep watching, there are loads more A-listers to come!
12.
Jack Nicholson, Barbara Streisand, and KISS You wouldn't think that Jack Nicholson, Barbara
Streisand, the producers of 'Jurassic Park,' and members of the band KISS would have much
in common.
But there is one thing that connects them all - a man named Todd Michael Volpe.
Volpe was an art dealer who was well known in Hollywood, and that meant he handled a
lot of art investments from famous people.
But what they didn't know is that the investments they were making weren't going anywhere except
Volpe's wallet.
There were all kinds of shady things going on, and eventually, Volpe had racked up $1.9
million in stolen money.
Nicholson was probably hit the hardest when his $600,000 art investment vanished into
thin air - well, into Volpe's bank account anyway.
Volpe was eventually caught and served 28 months in prison.
But, when he got out, he wrote an autobiography about his scam, which is earning him money
now, so you can decide for yourself if he was punished enough.
11.
Steven Spielberg, Kevin Bacon, John Malkovich, and others...
You've probably heard of Bernie Madoff before.
He was the mastermind behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in American history.
He executed this classic scam so well that he got away with more money than you'd ever
imagine.
By the time he was arrested, he'd stolen an unbelievable $50 billion!
No, that's not a joke.
With a crime of that scale, you can bet a couple of celebrities got caught up in Madoff's
fake investments.
The list of celebs that lost money to Madoff is pretty long: Steven Spielberg, Kevin Bacon,
John Malkovich, baseball legend Sandy Koufax, and Zsa Zsa Gabor all sadly fell for Madoff's
tricks.
Madoff was finally sentenced for his crimes in 2009, and the US Department of Justice
has been trying to pay some funds back to his victims since 2017.
Madoff was sentenced to 150 years, but he died in prison in 2021.
10.
Billy Joel The biggest mistake Billy Joel ever made was
marrying Elizabeth Weber - and not just because the marriage ended badly.
During the marriage, Billy became close friends with Weber's brother and decided to let him
become his manager.
But even though Billy Joel loved Frank Weber so much that he'd asked him to be godfather
to his daughter, Weber didn't share those feelings.
All he wanted was a way to steal loads of Billy's cash.
It took some time, but Billy eventually worked out what was happening.
He sued Weber for stealing $30 million!
That's a lot of cash.
But Weber filed for bankruptcy and likely never paid a cent to Billy.
9.
Anne Hathaway It's bad enough to find out your financial
advisor is scamming you - it's worse if the scammer is also your boyfriend.
Rafaello Follieri is an Italian man who came to America to make his fortune - by scamming
anyone he could.
He was pretty creative about it - he was posing as an official from the Vatican, who was selling
Italian property owned by the Roman Catholic Church to investors.
Of course, that was all a total lie, but he got away with it.
Well, he got away with $2.4 million of other people's money.
One of the people he successfully scammed was The Princess Diaries actress Anne Hathaway,
who was his girlfriend at the time!
As if he couldn't get any more slimy.
He spent 4 and a half years in an American prison when he was caught and was then deported
back to Italy.
But watch out because he's apparently back in the financial game.
Anne Hathaway is okay now - she's married with two kids, but luckily not to Follieri.
What would you do if your love interest turned out to be a scammer?
Let us know in the comments!
If you have a good answer, you might just have a script for Anne Hathaway's next big
movie on your hands.
Keep watching to find out who took our number 1 spot!
8.
Alanis Morissette Scammers come in all shapes and sizes.
The Canadian singer of 'Ironic,' Alanis Morissette, fell victim to a scammer in disguise.
In this case, the scammer was disguised as her business manager.
In a way, it's pretty clever - the last person you expect to scam you out of millions is
your business manager.
His name was Jonathan Shwartz, and he got away with it for a long time.
But in 2017, he found himself in court.
He admitted he'd been transferring Morissett's money straight into his own account.
And it wasn't just a little cash to pay for coffee either.
He's stolen a whopping $4.8 million from Morissette and another $2 million from other celebs.
But at least he was punished for his crimes - he was sentenced to 6 years in jail.
7.
Sting As the frontman of British band The Police,
Sting has gathered a huge fortune over the years - his net worth is estimated at around
$300 million!
I don't know how much of that came from his appearance in Zoolander 2.
But with that kind of money, it's not surprising he became a target for scammers.
In this case, it was his financial advisor, Keith Moore.
In 1995, it was discovered that Moore had been pretending to put huge amounts of Sting's
money into fake investments.
If you're wondering what Sting thought he was investing in, there was an Indian restaurant
chain in Australia and some kind of eco-friendly gearbox.
But it didn't make a difference because none of these things existed.
Instead, financial advisor Moore was putting the cash into his bank account.
By the time he was caught, he'd taken 6 million British pounds, or about $7.2 million.
He was sentenced to 6 years in jail.
6.
Liv Tyler Of course, celebs pay a lot of money to look
so good.
But Liv Tyler had to pay a lot more than she should've.
She was a client of Hollywood beauty consultant Maria Gabriela Perez, who had several other
high-profile clients at the time - like Melanie Griffith and Jennifer Aniston.
Oh, and Anne Hathaway, who seems to have a knack for attracting scammers.
All these celebs were paying Perez with their credit cards, but they had no idea that she
was taking those cards on shopping sprees!
The second she got their card info, she started spending their cash.
And she wasn't just making small purchases - overall, she spent a whopping $280,000 of
her client's money without their permission!
And most of that cash belonged to Liv Tyler.
She lost $214,000 between the two American Express cards that Perez had on record.
In the end, Perez was arrested, but she was only sentenced to house arrest and probation
for her crimes.
You've got to feel sorry for Hathaway!
Guess her net worth after all the scams and tell us in the comments!
Keep watching to find out who's in number 1!
5.
Tiger Woods It's hard to feel bad for Tiger Woods, but
this is one crime that wasn't committed by him.
He was the victim of a complex identity theft scam back in 1998.
A man named Anthony Lemar Taylor somehow got himself a driver's license using Tiger Woods'
name and social security number.
We don't know how he did it, but he sure knew how to use it to his advantage.
The fake license allowed him to bill purchases to the real Tiger Woods, and that's exactly
what he did.
Imagine getting bills for a car and a 70-inch TV that you never bought!
Taylor kept billing purchases to Woods until 1999, but he was eventually caught after spending
$17,000 of Tiger Woods' money.
In 2001, he was sentenced to 200 years in prison!
That sounds like a really steep punishment, especially since the last scammer we mentioned
only got probation for stealing a lot more cash.
But that's how California's 3-strike law works.
It sure wasn't worth the risk.
4.
The Backstreet Boys Here's some music history for you: The Backstreet
Boys, 'N Sync, O-Town, and pretty much all other bands like them were managed by Art
Garfunkel's cousin back in the 90s.
He wasn't just their manager, though - he was also slowly stealing all their money in
a giant Ponzi scheme.
His name was Lou Pearlman, and he was really good at siphoning off all the profits these
bands were making.
In the end, he made off with about $300 million that rightfully belonged to the bands.
Finally, all the groups he was managing got together to sue him for misrepresentation
and fraud.
He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
But he never made it out - he died in his cell in 2016.
3.
Kiefer Sutherland Star of '24' and 'The Lost Boys,' Kiefer Sutherland
was scammed in a pretty unique way.
One day, he decided he wanted to get involved in cattle sales.
There's no word on why he would want that, but he did.
So, he invested $869,000 in the cattle industry with a man named Michael Wayne Carr.
It's true that Carr was involved with cattle, but he sure wasn't interested in investing
that money.
Instead, it went straight into his bank account.
Sutherland wasn't the only person he successfully scammed.
In 2011, the courts ordered him to pay back $1.6 million to all his victims.
2.
Dane Cook If you think Anne Hathaway being scammed by
her boyfriend was bad, Dane Cook had it even worse.
He was scammed by his own brother!
Technically, they're half-brothers, but it's still pretty terrible.
Cook's half-brother and sister-in-law were working as his managers at the time, but they
were only helping him out so they could steal cash from him.
Over time, they managed to steal an unbelievable $12 million from Cook's income!
Luckily, in 2010, they were arrested and pleaded guilty to all the charges.
They had to do jail time, but they were also ordered to pay the money back, which feels
like real justice to me.
And finally, the celeb who took our number 1 spot is...
1.
LeAnn Rimes Maybe Cook's brother stealing from him wasn't
extreme enough for you.
Don't worry, we can go one worse.
LeAnn Rimes had $7 million of her hard-earned cash stolen by her own dad!
This was back in 1998 when her song 'Blue' sold 6 million copies.
It should've been a great year for her, but she was sitting in court suing her father.
Her dad was co-manager for Rimes at the time, but she obviously had no clue he was skimming
money off her earnings.
$7 million is a lot of money to steal from your daughter.
It seems she didn't take it personally, though - in 2002, the lawsuit was settled, and she
was dancing with her father at her wedding.
I'm not sure I'd be that forgiving if he was my dad.