In the year 2000 the rock band The Offspring were getting ready to release their sixth
studio album Conspiracy of One. To celebrate the album, the band did something pretty
unorthodox that involved giving one lucky fan a massive amount of money.
But It would culminate in one of the most awkward and painful moments on MTV.
On September 15, 2000 MTV News would report that the band The Offspring was giving away
1 million dollars to a lucky fan. DIstributing music online was still fairly new, but The
Offspring seemed to be embracing the technology. The first single off the record would be released
two weeks later on September 29, 2000 a track called Original Prankster. The track was free to
download for fans the band’s website and by simply downloading the track you’d be entered in the
contest for a chance to win a million dollars. The idea was to give the money to their biggest fan,
but it didn’t turn out that way as you’ll see in a bit. The band made it clear it
wasn’t the record label’s company or a corporate tie-in the money was coming from the band members
own pockets with frontman Dexter Holland issuing a statement at the time that read
"This money came directly to us from our fans," "We feel it would be cool to redirect it back to
them. We are trying to launch our album with promotions that are fan supportive
rather than fan exploitative. We feel that giving them our music and letting them have
back some of their money is a great way to show how much they mean to us" he'd say.
The band was also making all the tracks off their latest album at the time Conspiracy of One
available to download for free , almost a month before it hit store shelves. The winner of the
contest would be announced on November 14, 2000 on the MTV’s show Total Requeest Live with Carson
Daily the same day their album was dropping. Some thought it was a risky move for the band,
but distributing their music online was nothing new with the group telling MTV that the single
pretty fly for a white guy from their previous record Americana was downloaded more than 22
million times online, but the album still ended up selling over 10 million copies worldwide.
Then literally 10 days after the announcement of the contest
the news would hit that the band wouldn’t be putting up their whole album for free to download
due to threat of legal action from their record label sony who disapproved of the idea. The band
still going to be giving away original prankster for free and went on with their planned contest.
It was estimated that 500,000 people entered the contest with 2 finalists being chosen who would
compete in a skill testing game about the band's history and music on the mtv program's total
request live. Here’s a clip of what happened and it was truly excruciating and awkward to watch.
And it's going to be given away to them it's the offspring's money. The first musical
instrument he ever played was the trumpet at age 10. um he graduated from pacifica high school.
again if you ring your buzzer you're locking in for an answer.
He has a cat named woody it's zero zero still. his birthday is february 4th.
He's the oldest member of the offpsinr.g ashley noodles that's your answer. So noodles
you won a million dollars. Ashley 14 years old just took home 1 million dollars.
The winner would be officially be a 14 year old girl named. Ashley Hitchcock.
But in reality there were two winners, the 14-year old had made a pact with another finalist named
Chrstinia Belmont who agreed that if either of them won they’d split the grand prize.
Hitchcock would tell the media that with her winnings she was planning on buying her dad
a new house, a new car as well as paying off any outstanding debts. Hitchcock would appear
in times square to receive her winnings in $100 denominations with The Offspring’s guitarist
Noodles telling the media at the time “She seems like a great kid. Hopefully she’ll be smart with
it. I think she will.“” According to Loudersound who interviewed Noodles a few years later
he would recall his disappointment with the outcome contest saying “. “I thought giving
away a million dollars would f that kid up! The winner was a 14-year-old girl from Atlanta. We
weren’t even her favourite band!”. “We were her second favourite band and Slipknot were
her favourite! And she’s gone! Nobody knows what’s actually happened to her. Maybe she’s
run away with Slipknot…” he'd say.
I found another interview with Dexter Holland and Noodles who talked a bit about what happened
with the winners when they were interviewed by Gary Ryans. and the exchange went as follows
Noodles: “ We kept in touch with her for a while and she came to a couple of shows.”
with Dexter adding : “Didn’t she lose all the money and lost her friends?!”
Noodles: “I think there might have been some rough patches and squabbles centred around the money,
unfortunately.” That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like
button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.