MrBeast Winner Breaks Silence On $500,000 Prize, Going To Prison, & Hitting Rock Bottom

I build this maximum security prison. And if this cop and this criminal survive a hundred days together, I will give them half a million dollars. I went to prison when I was 21 and I never expected that would help me win a Mr. Beast video. My prison experience was just crazy. From all the different prisons I was in to all the incidents that happened to every little thing. Do you feel bad for what you did? It was ridiculous. I was 18 2 months after graduation and I had like $600,000 in my bank account. And then I hit rock bottom. >> How accurate was Mr. Beast's prison to real life prison? >> Physically it was very realistic. Like the guy had the actual prison toilet, but mentally it was different without having real prison guards pulling the strings. What do you mean by that? >> Like 90% of the prison violence is caused by guards creating this environment. The inmates run the prison and the guards let it happen. But I didn't realize how hard it was going to be. >> Is there anything in the video he didn't want the audience to know? So Ian, I really enjoyed your video with Mr. Beast, 100 days in prison for almost $500,000. It was a really interesting video. I'm happy to have you on. It's cool just to reach out like that and you're like, I'm down. I'll be right there. And then I think like 3 days later, if that you're here. >> Yeah. Thanks so much for inviting me. It was actually funny cuz I saw Mike Mak's video and then I watched Mad's video and that was being filmed while I was doing it and then I was like I want to go on this podcast and then mine came out and then you hit me up and here we are a couple days later in Vegas. Pretty cool. >> Well, you have a fascinating story. You made a ton of money. We're going to get into how you're spending it. What are you doing with it? But first, >> how did you hear about this show? When did you know you were going to do it? >> So, this past February, uh it was the beginning of February. I got reached out to by just a generic casting producer. Uh that was like one of those company production companies not affiliated with the Beast team at all. I've been reached out to producers like this probably like 20 or 30 times since starting on TikTok a couple years ago. And uh normally it's like dating shows, reality TV shows. I actually quit my job at Whole Foods after getting like 10,000 followers on Tik Tok because I thought I was getting casted in some new dating show. >> What were you doing on TikTok? um just talking about my prison experience being in prison um and just telling all those stories from my perspective and I didn't realize that co had exploded this whole role um this whole world of prison Tik Tockers and prison YouTubers where people are getting all these followers talking about their prison experience. Um >> do you think people are lying about those prison experiences? Like if they're getting all these views and money from telling the craziest stories, how often do you think they're just making them up? >> Yeah. Who would know, right? I think some So, I'll tell you from my experience. Um, so I'll have guests on my show where you'll hear that exact story being told by another guest, but just in a in a different way. And I and it's always the ones that really listen to the show. Like, they'll come in the studio and they're like, "Big fan of the show. I listen to all your episodes." And then you kind of know that they took that story from another person on the show. So if if that happens, then I think it's pretty safe to say that that probably happens in a general space watching other people's Tik Toks talking about prison. Um, but where I think I came into this prison Tik Tok world and prison YouTube world was I gained a following talking about it in a different way. Like I literally came out and said I paid for protection federal prison. No one was doing that before. Um, especially from my point of view. >> What do you mean by that? So, uh, I went to prison when I was 21 and, uh, I went to federal prison for three years. I got a three-year sentence and I literally paid someone to protect me while I was at the federal prison cuz these guys tried to extort me. Um, they everyone thought I was a defender, they call him a because of the way I looked. I was a white nerdy kid, looked like Harry Potter. They actually called me Mcloven in prison, so I got the Mcloven tattoo and then I have a portrait of him uh, on my leg. They actually were trying to get him as a guard in the beast video, uh, but it didn't work out as like a cameo. But, um, yeah, they called me Mcloven in prison. And just like in the Mr. Beast video, I'm able to my personality type is just able to adapt and and kind of like be funny and and be kind of calm in that. Like, I'm shy, but I'm not shy at the same time. So, I was able to just befriend people and I guess the way I looked and people thought I was like funny and and it just naturally clicked there. I was like their their little brother. The guards would call me Squints from the Sandlot. So, I was just everyone's like little little brother and they looked after me. >> What was your most viral prison story you talked about on TikTok? >> So, there was three major ones. That one I just told you. Um, that was the one that really kind of like exploded the platform where like World Star, No Jumper, all of those sites took it and ran with it. Um, the other one was in the chow hall, my first day at the prison chow hall. The I went to sit down. I got my tray of food, sat down at the table, and everyone at the table stops eating. I'm not really paying attention to it. I just got out of the detention center where the food was horrible. And I'm at this new facility, Fort Dix, a lowsecurity prison. Um, where there's like a buffet line and pudding and jell-o and all this great food, a salad bar. And I sit down at the white guy table. I just figured I had to be with my own race, like what you would see in prison movies. And I sit down there. Everyone stops eating. And uh, one of the white guys, big bald kind of jack dude tattoos, uh, kind of slams his hand on the table and is like, "Hey, you." And he says that a couple times and I'm looking at him. um at that point and I'm like, "Are you talking to me?" Like, "I don't know. I just got here. No one knows me." And I'm like looking behind me and whatnot. And he explains to me that I'm not allowed to sit there. It's for good uh good It's a good paperwork table. You have to have good paperwork. And I'm like, "What's paperwork?" And he explains that um paperwork shows that you you're not a offender. You're not a rat. You didn't snitch on anyone. And until you get your paperwork, you you're not allowed to sit at that table. And I was explaining to him that I'm there for fraud. Uh, and he looks at me, he's like, "Yeah, that's what they all say." And I'm like, "What do you mean what that's what they all say?" And he points to this table behind me and he says, "You belong over there at this table." And I look around, it's a bunch of old white guys with the same type of glasses I had on that are staring at me like fresh meat. And that was a defender table. So that was like my first experience realizing what I was going to be labeled at in a federal prison. Eventually I got my paperwork and everything got sorted out. Um, but that was like the reality of it. Most people that are there in federal prison for fraud are not 21 years old. They're like in their 30s or their 40s. I was definitely on the younger side and they the guys that are offenders will say that they're there for fraud as a cover story. >> So, what is like the the main difference in prison life between someone that's an es and someone that's there for something else? Like what is what does their existence in prison look like? So, I was at a the highest security prison I was at is a low, so I can only speak on that. And then I went to a camp after where there's no defenders. But at a low, basically basically if you're defender, um you're not allowed to be in your room. They're 12man bunks. Um you after wake up, you can't stay in your room throughout the day. You have to go wherever. Defenders would hang out in the library or you would see them actually playing Dungeons and Dragons with like fake wands out in the yard. >> So, they all hang out together. >> They all hang out together. um younger, older ones, they are the ones that have to clean your room. Um if there's a defender in your room, they're cleaning your room for no pay. Um they can't sit in the TV room. They don't have a chair um to sit in. They have to like go to the chow hall and sit at certain tables. These are all inmate rules. These aren't prison rules like that the staff create. Um but at Fort Dicks, a low security prison, it's a heavily defender compound cuz that's the only place these guys can go. at the higher security prisons, they'll get physically hurt. Um, but the prison does frown upon that. >> So, how did you get the call from Mr. Beast? >> So, in February, that casting agent slid into all my DMs on every platform. And in my mind, I'm like, I'm not this here goes another one. Like, I'm not going to even respond. And they don't use the term Mr. Beast. They just said, "We're casting um prison content creators." And I saw that. And then a bunch of other prison content creators, cuz we're all friends, just like I'm sure you guys are friends with other people in your space, are all like in group text saying, "Hey, did you just get this offer? Did you just get this like this casting agent? Reach out." All of these things. And so, um, I ended up taking the call. I'm not sure why I did it, but I did it at the time. It was just like a gut thing. And what I liked about this casting producer is they were ready to do the call right away. Normally with the casting producers, they'll schedule something for 2 or 3 days later. It's like an hour. It's like a whole big thing. I was free at the moment. I hopped on the call and I did a half hour talk and there was no like childhood stuff. It was all just tell me everything about prison. >> And I think what I what won her over was I had built an actual prison cell in my studio where we do skits um like funny reenactments and stuff. So I showed her I had the real prison toilet. I had everything. I should they asked about my tattoos. Um we just had this whole conversation. And I sent that in and I had assigned an NDA at the time and that's when I learned it was about Mr. Beast. They don't tell you it's prison related. They don't tell you how many people. They don't tell you how many days. And they don't tell you about the money. It was just it's a Mr. Beast video. >> So then when did you find out what it was that you were doing? >> 3 weeks later. Um that same casting agent follows up and says, "Hey, you made it to the next round. Can you meet with someone on the Beast team?" I got on a call with now her and the lead casting agent of the Beast team. The questions on that call were more like, "What would you do with the money? What would you do if you lost? What would you do if you stayed for a 100 days?" This is when I learned it was a 100 day video. And I said, "All right, let me get back to you tomorrow." Cuz they said I had 24 hours to give them a yes. And that wouldn't even guarantee me a spot. And so I text the casting agent right away and I said, "I'm in." And she said, "Are you sure? Like you could still take some time." And I said, "No, like everything works out. I could do this." Uh few days later I'm on the call with the psychologist. I had to do like a 500 question questionnaire before and then an hour call with the psychologist. Um, just getting a vibe, feeling everything like that. >> That seems like very very intense vetting. You went through like I don't even know how many calls you mentioned and like interviews and this and that and then the psych evaluation. What were they probing for? >> So, I think this one was super strict and intense because of the felon part. So they from their perspective they needed to cast the perfect criminal in a way like they needed to cast someone that wasn't going to be too >> like there wasn't going to be too much negative feedback but was also a criminal. Um someone that wasn't going to reaffend again or had a high potential to reaffend. So a lot of the psychological questions are like your current mind state, your family, um business. Um they do a whole social media deep dive to see what your social media is like that that goes through that whole round. And then there was a lot of like uh like confined spaces questions like mental um decision-m questions like standard stuff you would see on a psyche val. Um but they were definitely I think this was more extreme than anything because of the felon aspect. I mean they needed to have someone with the felony that is going to I mean when they're casting they're keeping in mind can this person make it the whole 100 days because if you show up there think about how much money's on the line from the crew to the set to the prize winnings. And in our competition, if one person left, it's over. Would they have still posted it? >> Uh, I think that what from what I've heard from the beast team, like it has to be a certain amount of days. Um, like they have to have a workable video. I think if I left anywhere before like day 50, I don't think they would have had enough for a video. >> Makes me wonder because they're doing so many challenges. How many of them they just don't end up posting because someone walks out. >> Yeah, like I've heard rumors like of a couple that didn't get posted. I don't know the details of that, but I'm sure it happens and you just don't see the light of day of them ever. I mean, the casting, there's a lot of pressure on the casting. You're taking two random strangers, putting them in >> an environment like this, especially this when you have a cop and a criminal. And that was the other thing, like a lot of the prison community is like anti-cop or very outspoken. Like 90% of the prison violence is caused by guards um creating this environment, creating these prison politics that all of these rules that the inmates make. The inmates run the prison and the guards let it happen. That's That's so interesting. So, okay. Well, we we can get on board of the prison stuff later. >> I'm curious, how accurate was Mr. Beast prison to real life prison? >> So, physically, it was very realistic. Like, the guy had the actual prison toilet hooked up. Even in my studio, we didn't have a hooked up toilet. Like, he had the real deal. He had the real prison shower, prison bunks. He had the actual like 500 lb metal table like drilled in to the concrete. So realistic. I think mentally it was different because like in real prison you're not going 30 days without a book. That's why me and him would always bicker like on every check-in day um about how this is a fake prison. This isn't a real prison. Uh because there's more to do in a in an actual real prison. But again, this is a challenge and I understood his standpoint, but from a physical part, he made it very real. And they based it off of like their art team based it off of prison movies, prison shows. It was really cool. Even the doors, the tray slots, like they spared no expense to make this super legitimate. >> How accurately did they depict the drama that was going on between you and the cop? >> So, the drama wasn't real. Um, all the drama pieces, not that it was scripted. He doesn't script anything. We scripted it ourselves. So, the drama that you see in the video was real, but me and Lenny were doing it as a joke to punk him. So, so Jimmy didn't ask you guys, hey, like make this into a bigger deal, but you were just like you were like, hey, I'm bored in this pseudo prison. May as well bake some drama. So, the the first fake drama we had was on day 30 and we really wanted them to put it in because uh Mr. Beast's reaction was priceless. We devised this plan with the books as you guys saw in the video and I passed Lenny a note and I said, "Hey, let me take the books and I'll smuggle them out." We make the deal, go along with it, and Jimmy was filming another video and came back a couple hours later like you guys see in the video. Lenny winks at me while I'm sitting on the bed and that's when he says, "I want the Bible. Why do you think you could get the books?" We're arguing back and forth for like three hours. Like a real fight. Like the tension's in the room. They called the casting department and the team, the creative team saying, "Hey, I think one of them is going home." Like it was real. Jimmy walks in and I I say to him, I'm like, "Hey, I can't stand next to him. Like, I'm ready to go home if I don't get the library." Like the tension was there all the way to the last second where he's like, "Well, who's getting the books?" and I say me after a long pause. That was all real, not edited. And Jimmy like lets out a huge sigh of relief. Um because he thought it was real and we punked him over it. Um but that was like the first scripted drama on our part. No one ever told us to say anything. What they will say to do is just whatever you guys talk about, keep talking about it. Like I said, I talked about wanting a haircut like every day cuz they need a way to introduce it into the the video. But they'll never say stir up drama or do this or do that. It's all real. Wouldn't they know though if you're devising a plan because it's all recorded? Like how much of this can they not get on camera? Like I'd imagine passing a note. There's someone watching you pass a note. >> They saw us pass a note but they didn't I wrote it in the bathroom. There was no uh notes like no cameras in the bathroom or showers or in the back so they didn't see what I wrote. Um and they didn't know what the plan was and then he winked at me and they didn't see it or whatever that you ask anyone on their team they would have thought one of us is going home on day 30. And also by that point I was complaining heavily because I wanted to quit like probably 10 or 15 times in the first 10 days. >> Why? >> So for me I went to real prison and that prison experience gave me a good break from all the disaster that was going on in my world. Um all the stress everything. I was overweight. I was miserable. I was in a massive amount of debt. Failed businesses. All my friends abandoned me. It was a really bad spot. So th those three years in real prison was a great break and a and a reset and I got to plan what I was going to do in the future. I get out, I rebuild my life, I work at Whole Foods, and then I'm able to create a successful business and have a really good life. Then you go leave that all on the line and you go into this environment where you have no phone, you have no internet, no family, no friends, no communication. You give up your life and you don't know how your baby's doing on the outside. and the baby being my podcast and what I was able to build. Literally trusting someone else with that. And I always compare it to would Jimmy be able to go off the map for 100 days and not know his analytics. I mean, how many times do you guys look at your analytics in a day and respond to comments? Like I was doing all of that. I was a oneman team before my friend came into the picture. Um, I was doing all the posts, all the editing, everything. So, I was literally trusting my whole life. And this is a great topic to talk about later, too, is that I would never have risked my whole platform for a Mr. Beast video because you can't depend on just that money or just that exposure to blow you up. Um, and I think that's where a lot of contestants might go wrong after a Mr. Beast video if they don't have their own lane or their own content. So, I had all those things in mind. So, for me, I was miserable being away from all that. I'm a worker by trait and like to be physically hands-on. So to be in an environment where you have nothing going on cuz you can only talk to someone I mean we talked probably the first 4 days or whatever about our whole lives but after that how much is there really to get to know each other on that level. So we did things like we made a chess board engraved it into the table and we used like vitamins and gummies and stuff that we had as pieces. Um and then we made like the basketball hoop and a pull-up bar with my bed. But that's all we had to do. And we lived through like getting the three meals a day and going to the wrecky yard once a day and splitting up the time that way. But a lot of it was nothing, you know, it was just sitting there. So to me, that was the hardest part. Now, let's talk about something that every growing business runs into. Eventually, you hit a point where you need help. You just can't do everything yourself. And that is where our sponsor Upwork is there to help. Companies at every stage turn to Upwork to get more done and find more flexibility in the way they staff key projects and initiatives. They do this by accessing a global marketplace filled with top talent in IT, web development, AI, design, admin support, marketing, and more. Posting a job on Upwork is incredibly easy with zero cost to join. You can register, browse freelancer profiles, and get help drafting a job post or even book a consultation. From there, you can connect with freelancers that understand you and understand your business, and you can easily hire them to take your business to the next level. Trust me, guys, I've actually used Upwork quite a few different times, and it's an absolutely phenomenal resource if you're looking for any sort of freelancer work in any field. I highly recommend it. Upwork just makes the entire process easier, simpler, and more affordable with industry low fees. So, post your job today and hire tomorrow with Upwork. All you got to do is head to upwork.com, upwk.com, or you can just click the link down below in the description. Once again, if you guys are looking for freelancer work of any kind, I highly recommend it. I've used it. I've had great success with it. Upwork.com or the link down below in the description. Thank you so much to Upwork for sponsoring this episode. So, there was no drama between you and the cop whatsoever in actuality. Like, all of the drama was just you and him plotting to make things fun, to make things entertaining. Was there ever a part where you guys were feuding a little bit? So, the snoring was definitely like the first real drama, I guess you could call a real drama, but >> that could be annoying. >> Yeah, it was more me solo drama because it was um it was at night. Uh he was asleep. He was a heavy sleeper at night. I went to bed early and I was up like all night listening to these snores and I'm like flipping out on the camera in the middle of the night. Like I was pissed about that cuz I wanted to sleep. So, there was that. And then at day 50, I was pissed not necessarily at him. Um, but I was just angry that one I was thrown in solitary um during the visit. >> So that was real. >> That was all real. Yeah. I So this is when I really realized how legit Mr. Beast is and anyone could say whatever they want about him, but this like I think solidifies it. When that happened on day 50 where only one of us could pick the visit. In my mind, I'm thinking, okay, he's this is going to happen. They'll focus on Lenny and then they're going to let me say hi to my family or something. They flew them out there all the way from Connecticut. Like, I'll have time with them to see them. And he got his edit for the video. Everything's good. They put me in solitary. I'm thinking, "Okay, they're going to open the door any second. They got the shots. Everything's good." None of that happens. I'm literally at solitary for like 5 hours waiting. They put my family back in a car and sent them all the way back to Connecticut. I didn't talk to them. How did your family feel about that? >> My dad's pissed to this day. So, something that didn't make the video was that on day 80 cuz every check-in I would say, "Jimmy, this is a real prison. Where's my phone call?" And we would go back and forth and he would always string me along. And on day 80, he finally gave me a FaceTime like right before that rock challenge. So, that was the first time I got to talk to my family. We were able to send letters cuz we bought commissary, but we couldn't receive letters back. So, they had a whole stack of letters for us when we got out. But on day 80, you know, I FaceTime my dad for like 5 minutes when Lenny was deciding on the rock. Um, and that was the first time I got to talk to him. My dad like is yelling at Mr. Beast like in the background, I'm still mad at you. Uh, cuz my dad doesn't, he's almost 80. He doesn't really understand how this all works that it's content, you know? But I had told them before I left, listen, I'm not paying for you guys. Like, if there's a if there's a visit and they offer money, I'm not doing it. I want to keep the money um to see you guys cuz I saw in other videos you could pay for a visit. Um, but that that's what essentially happened. I realized how real it is. nothing's scripted or or you you're being recorded 24/7. >> So, those were the only things that you really feuded about was the solitary confinement and then the snoring. >> Yeah, we got we fought about The Rock, though, too. So, Lenny made that decision on his own cuz I was so happy about the phone call and focused on that. Um, I left it to Lenny to make the decision on the rock. He inspected the rock. He's like, "Bro, we got this. This is easy." That first hour, we're just swinging it cuz we didn't have the proper tool yet. We didn't have the chisel yet. We ended up finding what we needed in the book and then they gave us a chisel um because they knew that you needed the chisel for it. But I was pissed at him. I was getting beat up like splinters and blisters and we were both getting hurt and uh the rock was not budging. So explain the offering that they made to you with the rock. >> Okay. So with the rock on day 80, they came in and they said, "Hey, do you guys want to make money? This is the first challenge in 80 days where we have the opportunity to make money." They say, "If you want to do this challenge, they don't tell us what it is yet. You have to pay 50 grand to enter." So, we pay the 50 grand. We go outside and we see the rock. We heard noises outside all day, like them moving everything around, but we didn't know what it was. We see the rock. They took our 50 grand. Then he explains that if you break the rock and get the key, you'll get your 50 grand back plus another 50 grand. So, 100 grand total. And so, Lenny decides to do that, take the rock deal. And I was going to support him. And I thought we would be able to do it. Um, but I didn't realize how hard it was going to be. That rock was hard. It was a granite rock that they literally drilled it at the top. Put a cement uh block in it with a key and then flipped it over. So that's at the bottom. That's why you see in the video we're trying to pry it with the chest press to flip it over to get to it and it wasn't working. >> How did there just happen to be a book that you found in the library? >> So I think that it might have been planted like they had that planned from day one cuz they have all the challenges planned. like they they know what their plan is, but also there was a lot of random books in there. Like they they did a really good job. That was like a real prison library. They had every book you can possibly imagine in that library. >> How it didn't look like they had that many books. >> There's a lot of books. >> And so there just happened to be a book about like rocks and how they work and how you can open them. >> How did you find that? >> It was a masonry book. And so by by that point, by day 80, I knew every book in that library cuz I was going in there for an hour a day. I was tearing books out. out. I was ripping them apart. I was skimming through it. And I was reading a book a day, too. I was literally reading a book a day. I read the whole um Lord of the Rings series. >> Wait, how are you reading a book a day if you only had an hour? >> I smuggled them out. Remember in the video? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I smuggle I started smuggling the books out on day one. Actually, the first night we got the challenge when Jimmy turned around, I was able to get the Bible out for Lenny. Did you not worry at all that you smuggling books could somehow jeopardize the challenge or did you believe that Jimmy would not cancel the challenge or anything for you smuggling books? So, I was definitely scared about it. Like there was more things we could have done in the video that I could have got away with from a content perspective, but then like me who has been to prison is like I don't want to get in trouble for this. Like I don't want to break the rules or break the game. They would always say it's your sandbox. Do whatever, but don't break the game. So, I didn't know if that classified as breaking the game. For example, when we turned down the kitchen, they had to dump all that stuff out of the kitchen to like to to remove all the stuff that they filled in there. And it was like sitting in the wrecky yard one day. They had it in a cart and I was going to steal it all. And I was like, I don't want to get in trouble. And I later found out that they would have used it as content. Like, I wouldn't have got in trouble for it. So, their definition of breaking the game is like if we're smashing windows or prying something apart. But the books, they let me roll with it. They didn't yell at me at that. I mean that happened on day 30 and we didn't see Jimmy day 40 that the boys came for um commissary and then we got scolded for the books on day 50 but he let it rock and they said afterwards that they wanted a reason to use solitary. >> So how often were you interacting with people other than the cop? >> Uh it's very rarely. I mean on day one when you're filming the intro everyone's around. Jimmy's around. Then he comes in 2 days later that's all real. Then every 10 days he comes in um to film with you. That's all real. But then you have the production team that was dressed as cop or as guards as correctional officers. So when they would deliver the food, these are the guys that are making notes while they're watching your camera uh the cameras cuz someone has to physically watch the set, take notes if something happens, change your mics, and then they would feed us. So they would get the keys and they would come down the correctional officer outfit. So you got to talk to them there, too. And then they had like the god mic hanging above where we would like we gave them all names all the guards. So we would call them like LT or shot caller. We'd come up with names and sometimes they would banter back. But for the 90% of the time you're alone. Um throughout the process though Jimmy would come through on tours like you brought the Makea-Wish Foundation through. All the streamers that leaked clips from the video came through um at different various points. He did a lot of tours. >> That's really interesting. >> Yeah. so people would get to see it and we didn't think any of that stuff was coming out. Um, but I guess they want them to leak it. >> What about like the the video cameras and the audio equipment? Like how I I feel like you know for us like we have to swap the batteries. We got to do all of that. I imagine if you're recording 24/7 for 100 days, there's going to be a lot of production issues. Were there any like leaks there that you saw? >> No. So they have like a full-time production team that's on it. And remember he had three sets going on at the same time. time. He had the plane, he had the gym, we would literally yell across the match. Um, he would Yeah, we would in his video at the 21 minute mark, you see us yelling, "Hey yo," across the field to him. >> Wow. >> So, you see that in in his video and then he came to us on day 80, day 90, and day 100. Uh, because he had gone out by that point. Um, so there's that. And then we saw them like setting up the whole crane for him to do the hanging challenge like when they lifted him up and whatnot. Um, but they would have production guys come in, change out cameras, change wires. They're always like doing stuff cuz they built this whole prison in 2 months. So, there were some like tweaks that they had to work on, but other than that, everything's, you know, very legit. We had our vlog cameras, we had our microphones, and and that was it. >> How much do you think it cost to make that video? >> I'd say with like talent, production, the prison, everything, probably like 3 million bucks. That's what I think. makes sense because he if he's running at a loss on a lot of these videos, he probably loses a little bit on this video but makes it back with feastables or just brand recognition. >> And over time, like what do the estimates on those apps say? Like that video is at 80 million views right now and it's made like 400 or 500k in revenue. I don't know how that all works cuz I don't have numbers like that. But overall, you know, I'm sure longterm he'll make that money back on the video and it's all about cash flow and and getting the revenue in and more views and you know, and he's got festivals and he's got everything else too and merch and >> sponsorships. >> Is there anything in the video he didn't want the audience to know? >> They don't do any like they take such good care of you. Even when we were in solitary, they made sure we had the AC units in there. Like you see in the video me laying on the floor, the AC units there. Um, they installed AC right away when they realized there was no AC in the building and they had to get AC put in. Uh, cuz it was in winter when we started, but then the springtime happened. They're so good about care. Like, they're not going to let you get physically hurt or anything like that. They want to make sure you're good. They're checking in on you all the time. They between casting or they had a doctor come every 30 days um to weigh us, make sure we're good food-wise and everything like that. So, they're so professional in that regard. Makes me think, speaking of getting hurt, Jimmy should do a Survivor episode of creators. Get 20 creators together on an island and literally recreate Survivor. >> That would be great >> for a million dollars. >> He should have all the his old contestants kind of like what Bar stool is doing now with like the bar stool thing or whatever, the beach thing. But he just put out a post saying he wanted to do a Hunger Games um version like a obviously no one dying, but there was like a trending post talking about the Hunger Games. >> I don't know. I think Survivor is making a comeback. Yeah. >> So, I think a lot of people would prefer Survivor. >> I think it would be good. I mean, he's got so many >> drama between people. >> Yeah. He's got so many different angles he could he could do about it, >> but have them get hurt. It's like >> I don't know about physically, but I would love it as a viewer, but I think that it controversy for creators. You just know what you're getting into. If you understand you're going to an island and you're going to have to eat bugs and coconuts, you know what you're getting into. And if you get hurt, that's part of the challenge. >> If you're listening to this, Jimmy, I would win. I would win. put me in any challenge, I'll win. >> I'm curious, what was your first impression of Jimmy? >> So, I I didn't really know what to expect um with him. I was definitely very intimidated by him and and nervous about him on day one. Um I didn't know how he would be. I just I I watched his diary of a CEO interview with him um before the night before I went in. And when I met him, he's like a just a really nice good dude. Like he'll make jokes like a normal person. He'll he played chess with me. He we played basketball with him. He cares so much especially about the people in his videos. Like he some of like his directors would come and say, "Hey, Jimmy wanted to make sure like you're genuinely okay because I was always complaining about the phone call or things like that." And I'm like, "Yeah, just it's like it's content, you know? I get it." So he's just he cares a lot and he's just a really nice dude, but he's extremely busy. So when you're there for 2400 hours, we probably maybe spent all together two hours with him out of all that time. um you know, he's flying for different videos. He's recorded all these videos while we were there. And it's really cool to see the videos he worked on like while we were in there and what he would tell us about. Um but he's just a good dude. You got to respect the hustle and I appreciate the opportunity it gave me. >> What was it like going without your phone, >> dude? At first it was hard cuz I was always on my phone. Then it's so peaceful. Um when when are you ever going to get a chance in life to go 100 days without a phone or any piece of electronic? when we got access to the computer and the library, it only had Wikipedia on it. It had no games, nothing, just Wikipedia. So, that was like the first electronic thing. But, it it's refreshing, but it's also hard at the same time. But, it's also nice to not have to owe anyone an answer. I think it would have been harder if I had like a wife or kids or anything at home at the time. I think that was definitely harder for Lenny. >> How was it going on your phone for the first time after 100 days of not having it? So, I got on my phone like right away just to look at all of my data and stats and stuff. And there's like this clip of me freaking out because I had finally passed like a 100,000 followers on Instagram and I was so curious about how my YouTube was doing and everything and uh I was just like consumed by that data and looking at it. So, it was nice and we ended up all going out with the beast team that night and I got drunk for the first time in like a 100 days. We're at the bar. I'm like >> first time in a 100 days. Night before the challenge. You're getting drunk. I didn't drink the night before the challenge. It was like 105 days. But anyways, um I go back to the hotel room. It's like 3:00 a.m. and I'm trying to fall asleep and I couldn't fall asleep. So, I just stayed up all night, worked, and then, you know, uh got the tour of like his studio the next day and then flew home that night. Um but it was good to be back on the phone, connect with people, be back on social media, see what I missed. They would mess with us. Jimmy would be like, "Hey, did you see that aliens are real now? They just confirmed it." And then when you'd ask him about it, he walks away and never comes back. So, there would be stuff like that. He would have streamers like give us like random stuff, random information that was like fake or whatever. Um, he he has fun with you. He would come by at like 11:00 at night some nights or what was cool to see is that whole um what was it? That challenge um the viral post about the thug life stuff with the pictures um where he was like holding up cash. >> Yeah, he was do he did that at the prison. He did that while that was all going on and stuff. So that was cool to see. Now, really quick, I just want to say that when I was in real estate, one of the hardest things for me to do was to stay organized. It felt like I was constantly juggling spreadsheets, email chains, client outreach. I spent more time tracking deals than I did actually closing them. That's why I wish I had today's sponsor back then, and that would be Pipe Drive. They are the number one CRM for small to medium-sized businesses. It's built to make things simple and is especially perfect for real estate. My favorite part is the visual sales pipeline. You can see exactly where every deal is, what stage it's in, and what needs to happen next. You can also keep detailed notes on every property and client so nothing gets lost. And since Pipe Drive integrates directly with your email and calendar, you can schedule showings, automate follow-ups, and make sure nothing ever slips through the cracks. And that's why sales teams and real estate agents are closing an average of three times more deals per month. It's not just organizing your sales, it's supercharging them. So join the more than 100,000 companies using Pipe Drive and sign up today. You can even try it right now for free for 30 days by going to piperive.com. There's no credit card and no payment needed. >> Once again, that is pipedive.com. And you can get started in minutes, not hours, not weeks, not years, not decades, not centuries, but minutes. Huge thank you again to Piperive for sponsoring this episode. And now, let's get back to the podcast. And how was it living with a complete stranger for 100 days? To me, it was fine because I did that before for 3 years. You know, think about all the random people I had to live with and adapt to and be in cells with. I did 6 months in real solitary at one point. Um, so that was easy for me. It was it was fine to do that. >> Well, you said 6 months in real solitary. >> Yeah. So, that was the other reason why I didn't like the Mr. B solitary cuz it's half the size of real solitary. It's it's bigger in real prison. >> Why were you in solitary? >> So, the first time I was in solitary was because I got caught on a contraband phone. We all had contraband cell phones in prison. like they were like LG smartphones and our room got raided and they got into the phone and there was a video of me getting choked out of us rustling like we were just messing around. Um, and one of the guys in the room was like choking, like squealing on the floor. And they raid the room, they see the video, they call me the lieutenant's office, they put the whole room under investigation. They put me in the solitary for that, like under protective custody, I guess, in a way. And they asked if I wanted to leave there. And I'm like, "Yeah, everyone's trying to extort me here and give me a hard time." And I was in New Jersey. I wanted to be at the Danbury Federal Prison, uh, which is my hometown where I'm from, what Orange is a New Black is based on. >> Yeah. >> So, I sat in the shoe there for like 6 weeks. They finally shipped me to Danberry. But on the way to Danberry, so New Jersey to Danberry is about an hour and a half drive, right? You know how long it took me to get by prison transport bus from New Jersey to Danberry? About a month and a half. >> Wow. >> So when I left Fort Dicks, they brought me to Philly. Well, first they brought me to Brooklyn. Spent a night in Brooklyn. Then I went to Philly. I was in solitary there for 6 weeks cuz if you travel from the shoe, whatever facility you're in in transit, you have to go to the shoe. I sat there for six weeks. >> What do you mean like the shoe >> solitary? It's called the shoe. The special housing unit or the box or >> So what what is it like in there? >> So it's like half the size of this room in width. Uh and double bunk bed, prison toilet, a desk, and that's it. You get one shower, three showers a week, every other day. Uh three meals a day, no commissary. You're on kind of restriction. Wreckyard five days a week for an hour. So that's kind of like where Jimmy got that theme from. That's more like solitary. Um when they come in to get you, both you and your cellmate have to handcuff yourself behind your back um in the slot and then they come in, they get you and they move you out. So that's solitary. People could be there if they check in. That's called like checking in for protective custody. Um or if you get caught with a phone or under investigation, anything like that, you're in solitary. So I finally make it to Danbury and that's 5 minutes from where my parents lived. And I get on the yard and now I know about paperwork and how to maneuver and I knew people there and people knew me and they knew that I didn't snitch or I wasn't a defender. And I'm on the yard for like 15 hours. Didn't even meet my bunkmate yet. And the lieutenants call me to the lieutenant's office and say, "Are you Ian Bick?" I said, "Yes." They said, "Turn around, put your hands behind your back." And they handcuff me. And they bring me the solitary there. This solitary looks like Alcatraz, like with the three tiers and the the actual bars on it, like you would think um is what a prison looks like. I later found out that I had dated a guard's cousin and he reported a conflict of interest um saying that because he worked there, you know, that could lead to a conflict of interest exposure. Like if I tried to get contraband from him or anything, it could put him in a compromising position. So I was in the shoe there for 3 or 4 months waiting to get transferred and then they finally brought me to a camp but it was in Oxford, Wisconsin. and they put me on Conair, shipped me all the way out to Oxford, Wisconsin, and um then I spent my last year in a prison camp. >> Now, when it comes to the challenge itself, did you have any strategy that you discussed with uh Lenny? Um so on day one we kind of talked about not spending any money and then we good thing is like we by day nine we talked amongstel ourselves of hey let's not let's actually spend a little bit of money to get through this to help us because then on day 10 we got offered the $50,000 offer $25,000 each to spend the money for the wreckyard. So, our strategy was overall don't spend a lot of money, but then we realize you kind of have to in these videos and they reward you for that by giving you options to make money like we saw with the rock. Um, and that's why I spent money on commissary, too. What was the money best spent? >> Definitely the wrecky yard. I mean, being able to get fresh air um for those 100 days was great and it helped split out the time. Uh, having that hour, we picked our wreck time at 5:00 p. Uh, so it was dinner was at 8. So meals were at 8:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m., and uh 8:00 p.m. So doing it at 5:00 p.m. kind of broke up the day. >> Um, and then uh what why we didn't take the kitchen was because we didn't want to give up the wreckyard after just 10 days of having it. >> So that's why we turned it down on day 20. >> And honestly, how much did you trust him out of 10? >> I trusted him 100%. Like I could tell he was a good just a good guy. It was very religious. And I think throughout the whole thing, if anyone didn't trust anyone, it's him not trusting me just based on my past and that I'm branded as a criminal in it and everything like that. But I trusted him fully. You could tell he was just a good person. You ever just like meet that person and you just know they're like a good dude? That was him. Just a really solid guy. Were there any topics you were afraid to talk about that were just on camera because you're constantly recorded? Like sometimes Jack and I will be, you know, riffing back and forth and >> some taboo topics. >> Yeah, maybe there's some some jokes every now and then that we make where it's like, you know, there's no cameras around. So maybe you forget about like we're being recorded. >> So we like at 10 p.m. when like we we took our mics off to go to bed, we would always talk about like relationships or just whatever like random stuff. But the one thing I never talked to him about was that at one point I had an Only Fans when I was first getting started in podcasting because he was like super against only like we were it came up in conversation about like Only Fans and like it was despicable and like all of these things. So um when I first started when I quit my job I had no money. I wasn't making money on the podcast or whatnot. So I was literally driving Uber doing Door Dash and I had Only Fans and like it was 90% men that subscribed to me. Um, and I made like 10 grand in a month. >> In one month? >> Yeah, bro. I was telling feed pics, other pics. Serious? Yeah, dude. It was crazy. I still get guys to this day DM me and be like, "Hey, do you still have the Only Fans?" >> So, you just put a link up and you made 10 grand in a month. >> Yeah, about a month and a half. But, yeah. >> Is there a dollar amount where you would consider doing that again? >> I think now I would probably make serious money doing my a huge following now. It's way bigger. That was like when I first started in the early days. >> Are you worried about that stuff being recirculated? >> No. I mean, who cares, you know? Like, if it comes out, it comes out. What are you going to do? You know, it's it's not the end of the world. Why don't you do it, Graham? Graham, you know what Graham does? He loves doing this. He's like, "Hey, you should do this. You should do this." And Graham would like, "Me? No, I wouldn't have to do that, but you should do it." >> He's a business guy, though. He's looking at the dollars. >> He's a business guy. >> Just saying for I want to help other people. >> That's very nice. >> I'm thinking I'm thinking of someone else other than myself. >> Sure. So, if if you are in desperate need of another $50,000 a month, then maybe you could do it. But I I think that like if you're getting by and you're paying your bills, you know, you're doing you're doing fine, you know, maybe if you really want to, by all means. >> No, I think that chapter is closed, especially after doing a Mr. Beast video and stuff. I can't >> I feel like that would be kind of like slapping him in the head. >> Yeah, I can't do that. No, I can't have any scandals or anything like that, you know? It's just not I can't do it. But it's a part of the story, you know. I'm going to own that. I'm not going to hide that. Just it's a genuine part of the story. It's he'll probably watch this, but um yeah. So, it is what it is. Would you say you ended up becoming really close friends with him after 100 days? >> Yeah, we're really close. I mean, a couple weeks after he came and we recorded the episode for my podcast with me and him and then I did one for his podcast. We went to dinner. Um, we talk almost every day. Uh, he's just a he's a good dude. He's curious about content. He learned a lot from me. I learned a lot from him. Um, and we have a close relationship. >> What was it like winning $500,000? >> Well, I didn't technically win $500,000, but um, it was uh, >> I don't know. I think that it's not what you would really expect. I mean, my take-home was 240,000. >> Um, but I had gotten a couple paydays like that in the last couple years, so it didn't really hit me necessarily like as hard as you would expect. And I also gave 150,000 of that as soon as the wire came into restitution. Um, to bring that down cuz from my court case, I had about 500,000 restitution. Um, now my balance today is about 197,000 today. Today? Yeah. That's after Mr. beast after paying money from, you know, my business and everything like that. So, that brings it down to that. >> So, how do restitution payments look? Let's say you fraud someone out of $500,000. You get $500,000 in restitution, go to prison, you get out. Could you just file for bankruptcy? Like, how do you how do how many payments do you need to make? How how long of a term is it? Or is it a certain percentage of your income? How does it look? >> So, you can't file for bankruptcy on federal restitution. I'm not sure how it works in the state. At your sentencing, your judge is going to order a payment plan through the term of your supervised release. So, for example, Wolf of Wall Street during his supervised release was 50% of his income. Um, mine was $1,000 a month. Usually after that supervised release ends, the it's called the financial litigation unit. they're like the US attorney team that goes after uh civil stuff because it becomes civil after um they kind of hold that, you know, payment plan um to the standard or they'll you'll negotiate with them or talk to them. The worst thing you could do is avoid them and not pay. >> So, when I got off supervised release, I was paying the $1,000 a month once my business started or after I left Whole Foods um and I met with them and we agreed on the $1,000 a month. But when I got bigger chunks of money, then I pay more towards it. I think the biggest thing is just showing trust. Um because they can't go after you like if you're not paying they can sanction you. They can um levy your bank accounts and do things like that. What they say is that the judgment's good for 20 years and then after that it kind of falls off. But I'm going to at the rate I'm going it's going to be paid before the 20 year mark. But you look at a guy like Jordan and he still owes like $98 million and that case was you know 20 something years ago. Um I read somewhere that he's paying like 10 grand a month. >> So who do you mostly owe it to? just investors that were a part of the case. There's about 12 people. >> Are they like your friends? >> Old friends. Yeah. Friends, parents of of those friends. I had raised money for a concert business. Uh concert business is the worst business you could go get into. Uh overpromised, underdelivered, which was okay in the sense where if I had just been honest and said, I lost your money, it would have been okay. It would have been at best maybe a civil thing. But it turned out to be I lied about those losses and said I made money when I didn't. And in that sense, a Ponzi scheme kind of grew from that cuz I was taking loans from some people to pay off others just to continue to lie and buy time to pay off their investments. >> Yeah, let's talk about that. How did you get into doing this? So, my dad is a caterer and uh I grew up like going to the Harry Potter premieres and and going to like cool events in New York City because he would cater these events and I always had a passion for that and I had a passion for business at a young age. I would sell candy out of my backpack in in middle school and I would um have lemonade stands and I was always like a hustler in that sense. Then where it really starts is my beginning of sophomore year of high school, me and my best friend foamed these cars in our neighborhood. Uh we lived in this gated neighborhood where there's like a president and a vice president and they said you can't you can't ride golf carts. Um and we had golf carts at the time and we felt like offended. So we took insulation foam foam their cars at night and got caught for it and got sentenced to community service. And my community service project was I came up with it to sell like these live strong type bracelets for a dollar a piece and call it fight for the homeless. Um that kind of grew. So, I raised a couple thousand dollars for charity and I decided to make a school dance from it and I made a school dance, organized it, rented the venue, did all these things just as a sophomore in high school and realized that if you could get 300 kids to pay 20 bucks to, you know, go to a school dance, this could be a business. Few months later, um, when I turned 16, I start renting out this local club in Damary called Tuxedo Junction, doing teen parties. Uh, I called it like the Halloween rave, the Christmas rave, a paint party where we threw washable paint like a daylow at kids and I would make 10 or 15 grand a night once a month all in cash doing these like teen parties, no alcohol and that type of thing. That's when I decided I wasn't going to go to college and that I had this business called myself this is where it's at entertainment kind of like a play on words that this is where it's going to be at for the night and uh got my first LLC like my junior year of high school and then I thought the the the next step for club promotion was concerts and the very first concert I ever booked was Big Shawn uh in Danbury and then after that started booking other concerts. >> Did he show up? >> He did. Yeah. I only had one person not show up. That was Chief Keef. But you had you had Big Shawn show up and how much did you have to pay him to that show was he was 40 grand at the time. >> 40,000. >> This was in 2012. Yeah. And how much So how much did you make from that? That we lost money. So the concert business is so tough especially in the arenas and you're also it's not a brickandmortar location. So when you're a promoter and you're renting a location and you lose money, you don't even really have a brand to show for it. You know, at least if you have a brick and mortar, people are getting familiar with the space. with the event. You don't have to start over every time. Never had event insurance. Uh we did everything wrong you could possibly do. I mean, we were kids. We were 18 years old, 17 years old. >> And you booked Big Sean? >> Yeah. >> Did you talk to him? >> No, you Well, that day I met him, but not to book him, but yeah, I met him that day. Got a picture with him, dealt with his tour manager. I booked 21 Savage, Chief Keef. >> How much was Savage? >> 21 Savage I gave 24,000 to in 2016. How much was he? He was 25,000 >> at the time. Didn't show up though. Um, >> what happens if they just don't show up? >> In a case like that, it's it's tough because you're going through a management team. They're hidden by a different LLC's. You're going to spend more money than you know what it takes. >> Why pay them upfront or why not pay half now and half later? >> We paid half up front. Um, the 125, but then you have the where we lost money was uh security, the venue. He literally sent out a tweet. So, first his manager calls us at 7 saying he missed his flight. he'll be on the next one. Then an hour later goes by, we can't find him. We don't hear from them till the next day where they he sends out a tweet saying, "Sorry, Connecticut. Wasn't the promoter's fault." That was it. Never got that money back. I booked the Chain Smokers, Steveoke, uh, Adventure Club. Um, >> how much were the Chain Smokers >> for that night? It was a Thanksgiving Eve party. This is right after they dropped Selfie, but before they dropped Don't Let Me Down, uh, November 2014, I gave him 25 grand. >> What about Steve Aoki? >> Steve Aayoki? Yeah. I wasn't the personal one booking him, but I think he got like 75 grand for that club cuz I was a smaller capacity. It was at my club though. >> Did you Did you ever make money from any concert? >> Yeah, there was plenty. I You know who Blau is? I I did him a couple times. Had money with him. >> Oh, right. >> Um he lives down the street, >> dude. No way. He knows who I am. >> Really? >> Yeah. Um so he was the very first big DJ I booked. So was second DJ. I did GTA at Tuxedo Junction. So he was good friends with this company called Envy Concepts. um that did a lot of shows with him. That's how I got all the big names. So, I booked him twice at my venue. Um and he I put up like a post like before I got into content. He he had responded back to it. Um but he's a really nice guy and stuff. So, anyways, we did him on a Wednesday night. Had like 2,000 people there. Packed out place like we have I'll show you the pictures after. It's really cool. Um he's like his arms spread out. It was like a really it was a small club. And what we'd get these artists cuz they would play in Boston. Uh then they would play at Shrine and Foxwoods in your in Connecticut. Then they would hit Danberry, which is an hour away, and then they would go to New York City. And because we were an all ages club with no liquor, we could pretty much do any night. >> Where did things go wrong? >> Um, so things went wrong with my business before I owned the nightclub. Um, it was the concert promotion where I was taking money from investors, promising them a guaranteed profit. So, say I went to you and I said, "Hey, man. Um, give me 20 grand. I'm going to give you a guaranteed profit back." Cuz I was so confident these shows were going to work out. um and you'll get it back after the concert. Well, if the concerts all worked out, everything would have been great, but they failed miserably. Um when I booked Taigga um for 40 grand at this arena show, uh there was an incident. Remember I'm schmacked. >> So, it was a big college tour. >> Yeah, I did. >> Uh yeah. So, there was an incident where um they got like this bar shut down. The venue lost its liquor license. A whole big issue. and the dean of the campus at the University of Rhode Island didn't want buses from outside schools coming to the to the venue. So, we lost like 2,000 ticket sales in the matter of days from kids from other schools. So, I lost on this Tiger show, I paid h 100red grand for the whole show with production and everything. My wire transfer after the show was for $16,000. So, I lost $84,000 that night in one night. So all of these things were piling up and uh simultaneously I had like this electronics business where we were buying like these Beats by Dre for like 50 bucks that turned out to be fake. Um so I was promising people a guaranteed profit. I'd say hey um give me $20,000 as a loan and I'll give you a 50% return on that. I didn't know that 50% was extremely high. I was just basing it off of what we could sell the product for. Beats by Dre 50 bucks selling it for 400 bucks. You could afford that. So, it pretty soon quickly turned into that business getting defunct and I'm borrowing from one person, paying off another. I didn't have credit at the time. I'm thinking, okay, this is a loan. I could use one loan to pay off another loan. Like, you borrow from one bank to pay off another bank or get a loan for another loan. Um, and then the whole thing collapses after a few months. All the concerts failed. Um, the electronics business failed and I'm like 1.2 million in debt with the interest with all like the promised payments. And this was in January of 2014 or of 2013 or uh December of 2013. >> What was it like having all that money come in your bank account though? >> I remember I was 18 years old. It was July 2013, 2 months after graduation. And I had like $600,000 in my bank account, my business bank account. Knew nothing about accounting. I'm this kid I would wear suit and tie to high school thinking I was like this business guy with a briefcase and just I have a baby face now. So, imagine me back then walking into a Wells Fargo depositing all this money. Like, no one really batted an eye. It was just an interesting scene. And, you know, we did stupid things with it. Like, we bought a pair of jet skis. Um, thinking it was like a company car, but company jet skis. Um, we did trip like a couple trips with like other investors and dinners and stuff and clothes. Um, but for the most part, it was just a lot of stupid decisions um that should not have been made. Um, and we just didn't know how to run the business. How did you get caught? >> So, all of this happens. I hire get a lawyer, a lawyer friend in December of 2013. Keep in mind this lasted six months, this whole thing. And uh he sends out letters to all the investors, like 15 of them, 12 or 15 of them, saying, "Hey, um the company we called ourselves WB Investments at the time, um is like basically bankrupt and we're going to analyze to see what you owe." and his logic or what you owed and his logic was don't give anyone a profit, just give them their out- of- pocket back. So, say you invested $20,000, you had gotten back $10,000 in payments. You're really only out of pocket $10,000. But as the investor, you're like, "Whoa, whoa, hold on a minute. I was promised like all of this interest. So, you think you're owed $50,000." So, everyone got pissed and they went to the local police department. I went in with the lawyer, met with the local police department. They were kind of fishing around. They escalated it to the Department of Banking where they subpoenaed me. I didn't know we had a Department of Banking and I thought this whole thing just needed to be cleared up. So, I went there without a lawyer. Testified for like 5 hours. This is when I was 18 years old in 2014 in April. After that meeting, they say there's two gentlemen there waiting to meet with you. And I'm sitting in this room smaller this in this room in like a closet. And two guys in, you know, old suits come out and they show me their IDs and they say they're postal inspectors. Um, and they start asking me questions and I didn't know that they had listened into the whole interview and that they had very targeted questions towards me. The end of the interview, they served me a target letter from the FBI saying, "You're under a federal investigation for wire fraud, mail fraud, moneyaundering, a bunch of things." Um, and at that point, that's when I got a federal attorney, a criminal defense attorney. Couple months after that, I'm 19 now. We met with the US Attorney's Office for this thing called a reverse profer. Uh, a profer is where you give the government information about like the case or uh codefendants. A reverse profer is where they say what they have on you to kind of, you know, look at what the case is. And I'm in this big room at the US attorney's office in Connecticut with the FBI agents, US attorneys, interns from the uh US attorney's office and IRS agents cuz the IRS was on the case too. And they laid out this whole case and basically I was an and I didn't budge. Um, that was actually the night I had the Blau show and I said, "Hey, I got a soldout show with Blau tonight. Um, this doesn't really matter." And I was just very arrogant and cocky and and and and and um that kind of started the whole war. And then in January 2015, I got indicted 5:00 in the morning. FBI agents, IRS, uh the uh state troopers, local police department, banging on my door at my parents house at 5:00 a.m. I had just gotten back from the casino cuz I had a little gambling habit at the time. And um they woke me up. I'm in my boxers and uh they hauled me out of the house in handcuffs and in cowboy boots cuz they needed me to be in shoes without laces and I was in the high school musicals throughout high school. So I had those in my closet. Did you have any contracts with the people who gave you money or was it all just word of mouth? >> I had contracts. I had these I actually went that was one of our defenses at trial. I went to an attorney, told him exactly what we were doing and he wrote me this onepage contract saying I waved the right to usery like usery claims and that these were loans just loans for business purposes. Um onepage document and that was it. So, in hindsight, had you just said nothing when they started probing you, would you have gone to jail? >> I don't think so, because I made their whole case for them. I gave them all the documents, all everything. I put it all together, names, phone numbers. But even before that, all I had to do is just say, "I lost your money, and there wouldn't have been any fraud." I just started lying profusely because I didn't want to let anyone down. >> Do you feel bad for what you did or do you think that the punishment didn't really fit the crime? I I I definitely felt bad about losing everyone's money. I would have plead guilty right then and there if there was no jail time. I went to trial because my plea deal was for like four years. It was ridiculous. I was 18 and they wanted to send me to prison for 4 years over a very relatively small amount compared to what they normally prosecute. Yeah, that's the part that was confusing because it seems like the the amount of resources that they went after for the amount of loss that's there, like they would spend more money on your case than would cost just to put you to work and have you pay these people back. >> The cost to keep you and send you to prison for that long could have just paid the restitution. >> Oh, the cost of the trial. I mean, keep in mind this was a one one month trial. They were flying out people from all over the country cuz everyone was at college at this point. Agents, there was a task force. like it didn't make sense. I think they thought it was bigger than what it was. I think they thought it was in the millions cuz normally with these fraud cases, it there's always more to be discovered and there wasn't and it was very quick period of time. And I think they thought I was going to take a plea deal, which I would have if it was no jail time. Um, so that's what kind of got them pissed off. And what pissed them off even more is that while my whole case is going on, I open up this club, Tuxedo Junction, that had now went out of business from the old owners. I take it over and I'm doing all these concerts like with Blau and Zed's dad and the Chain Smokers and all while on bond and on bail and you know taking the government to trial. >> Were you making good money during that period of time? >> It was hit or miss cuz the problem was I had a this new business which was completely underfunded. I mean literally there would be nights where I was taking ticket money and running next door to the dollar store to get sodas to fill up the bar um to sell it. I was so underfunded and the problem was is that it was a brand new business and I had some early losses like as in any new business losses early on like a couple concerts failed miserably. So say I made 10 grand with Blau and then I would do another show that would lose 15. I'm already in a deficit from the past. I'm underfunded. I have no funding and I'm taking on more debt. So there would be periods of time like the Chain Smokers, I owed them 20 grand for like 6 months and I'm like going to the casino to gamble to win money to pay their agent so I didn't get blacklisted. I was selling equipment at the club. I was doing whatever I had to do to make that happen. >> What was your game of choice? >> I'd play uh Bakarat. I know I'm pronouncing it wrong. Bakarat. Um it was So this is what ultimately sent me to prison. And I would go to this casino called Empire City in Yonkers and it was electronic table cuz I wasn't 21 yet so I couldn't go to the Connecticut casino. And I would take like 500 bucks and play this electronic machine and I would ride the streaks. So when it's going all player, all banker, I would just continuously double down on that. Um you can only bet up to two grand, but I would just keep putting that that that and doubling it down. There would be days I'd make 500 turn 500 into $30,000. That's how I was funding the club in the the later days. so lucky cuz you could lose that like just >> I mean you could say that about how did I get cast in Mr. beast and how did I do everything I've been able to accomplish, you know, over that luck is a big part of it. There's no rhyme or reason to it. There's no skill. It was just a part of my, I guess, destiny, the way I look at it. But one of the conditions of my supervised release uh for bail, I had a 500,000 or $250,000 bail, was that I couldn't go out of state without permission. So, what ends up happening is they find out cuz one of the guys that was working for me snitched on me and wanted to take the club for me. Um, and they told the FBI after I got convicted at trial that I was going out of state to gamble. So, they did an investigation a month before sentencing. The judge revoked my bond. That's what really pissed the judge off and sent me to federal prison. He told me the party's over. It was a whole press release on it and I got put in a detention center a month before sentencing. >> Do you think you needed that to happen to like put you in place or to like teach you a lesson? Like, could you have been where you are today had that not happened? So, I think mentally um I could have done it probably in half the time to like really figure life out. But I think those three years are the best thing that could have ever happened to me because it gave me the prison story that helped me build the platform I have because my prison experience was just crazy from all the different prisons I was in to all the incidents that happened to every little thing. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I gotten like a year and a day or my dad and I were talking about this the other day. If I had just gotten house arrest or probation, me and you wouldn't be here today. My whole story came from prison. I always thought my story, like I remember being in prison, trying to write a book, trying to be Jordan Belffort, the Wolf of Wall Street, getting my story option and stuff, thinking how cool it was that a 18-year-old owned a nightclub and booked all these acts. But then it's like Billy McFarland kind of already did that, you know? He had that story, the Firefest thing and whatnot. And uh it just it it wasn't it it wasn't hitting. It was the second when I started talking about prison from my perspective that everything changed. So I needed that. That was the best thing that could ever happened to me. >> What happened to the fire festival? Do you have sympathy towards Billy and his failed fire festival knowing what you know about the entertainment industry? >> No, I think Billy's kind of a piece of honestly. Like I've I've talked to him on Twitter. He gave me the runaround. Like when I first started I wanted to have him on my show. He was too good for me. like sent me to his manager who sent me to another manager that sent me to another manager like just very sketchy. Um then like funny enough he called me or his manager called me last year cuz they wanted me to do that karate fight thing against him but they didn't want to pay me for it. Um and it was just like a silly thing and my following's bigger than Billy's and he had all this press. Um I just think he's not that likable. Like I'm just not a fan of him. um in the Firefest thing, like people could pair me to him and it's like I was able to actually do the shows. Um he he never produced a successful show, but I guess in some ways like I feel for him about how the shows ended up, but >> you got to you can't like in some sense your mind you got to be like you're selling tickets. How is no one figuring this out logistically? Cuz this could have all been avoided. I mean the concert could have happened. Remember that doctor's appointment you were supposed to make a while ago? the one that's been sitting on your to-do list for weeks, maybe months. Maybe it's just that overdue annual checkup, that weird rash you keep googling, Graham, or your dentist reminding you that it's been 2 years since your last cleaning. Trust me, we've all been there. Booking a doctor's appointment can feel like such a hassle until now. That's where our sponsor, Zach Dog, comes in. For those unaware, Zdoc is a free app and website that allows you to search and compare highquality in-et network doctors and book an appointment on the spot. You could also filter by location, insurance, medical specialty, even look at verified patient reviews so you know exactly what you're walking into. And then once you find the right doctor, you could see their real time availability and instantly book an appointment that works for your schedule. And appointments made through ZDOC happen fast, typically within just 24 to 72 hours of booking. And you can even score sameday appointments. So seriously guys, stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zoddock.com/istic to find and instantly book a toprated doctor today. Z Oc.com. Don't forget the /istic or there's a link down below in the description. You can just click it right there. Thank you so much to ZuckDoc for sponsoring this episode. Although really quick, I just want to say that when Jack and I first started the Ice Coffee Hour, we had to figure out everything ourselves. From the best cameras to use, the best editing equipment, how to get guests, every single day was a brand new challenge. That's why if you're growing your own business, you know how valuable today's sponsor is, and that would be Shopify. Shopify is basically your all-in-one business partner. They power millions of businesses worldwide, from major brands like Mattel and Gym Shark to entrepreneurs just getting started. And here's a fun fact. If you've shopped online in the US, there's a really good chance it was through Shopify because they handle about 10% of all American e-commerce. What's great about Shopify is that they give you access to a complete design studio with hundreds of readytouse templates to build a beautiful online store that perfectly matches your brand. There's no coding needed, and their AI tools help you write product descriptions and even enhance your product photos. Shopify also makes marketing extremely easy with simple email and social campaigns to reach customers wherever they're scrolling. Plus, they handle literally everything from inventory to shipping to returns. Basically, all of the complicated stuff you do not want to deal with. So, if you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business ideas into So, sign up for a $1 per month trial at shopify.com/ic. Guys, it is literally $1 to try it out for a month. You can create your own store, make millions of dollars. Like plenty of people that have came on this show, they've had Shopify stores. They've done incredibly well. I've had a Shopify store. Graham's had a Shopify store and you can too for $1 for the first month at Shopify.com/ic. There's also a link down below in the description. You can just click it right there. Thank you so much to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. I don't understand how you were making as much as you were and you had probably very little expenses living with your parents. Like, how could you not have just shifted some money around to slowly pay back investors? And also like are these relationships with these investors destroyed now? If they were like your friends growing up and you were borrowing money from them, borrowing money from your from their parents, you're paying them off now, but like how are those relationships? Well, I couldn't pay them back when I started the club like Tuxedo Junction cuz there would be losses at the club. Like if I made some money, I would lose on another show and then you have the bills, you have the overhead, you have staff. It was never a the goal with Tuxedo Junction, the club that I owned after the case during the trial was to build up a big enough name where I could sell it and pay everyone back and it never got to that point. My bond ends up getting you know revoked and I I don't accomplish that. The relationships now I mean some people have reached out and you know made amends the the guy that was actually owed half of the money 250,000 passed away from an overdose um a few years ago when I got out of prison. uh he had won a big lawsuit with a gym, lost vision in his eye when he was 18. Uh got a bunch of money. That's how he had the money. So, there's that. I've talked to like his uh the mother of his child. Um but other than that, some people have reached out. I think people are just happy that they're getting the money. I think that's all it really comes down to. >> I'm curious also like I see you're wearing a necklace. >> The chain. I see you're wearing a chain. That looks pretty nice. >> Oh, this is a gift. >> That was a gift. Yeah. >> So, like what do these people think if you're still owing them money in restitution and you go and you spend your money on like nice things? I mean, you you didn't buy the chain, but like if you're buying a new car or you're buying a new this, new that, like has that ever came to the mix? Do you ever think about that? I mean, I maybe it comes to the mix, but I pay so much in restitution. I mean, I gave up last year I paid like 60 or $70,000. This year I paid almost it'll be over $160,000 with the monthly payments and everything. I mean, if you think about it, the average person in my position that owes way more than me, pays pennies on the dollar. Um, I'll give you a great example. I saw Matt Cox was on your show. He owes millions of dollars. He makes way more money than me on YouTube. >> I wonder how much he's paying towards restitution. >> Who is he paying restitution to? >> All the victims that are a part of him that that got defrauded through him. And he'll go out and say that his thing was a con. You know, I got I give him credit for, you know, doing that. He's he's very opposite of me. But yeah, but to answer your question, like the maj the majority of my money goes to restitution. And once I get a book deal, that'll all go towards restitution, too. I mean, $197,000 of restitution left is not that much money. That's going to be paid off in a year tops. >> Why didn't you just go to these people and say, "Hey, I'm really sorry. I messed up before like the police got involved." just apologize and say, "I'm going to I'm going to spend the next four years of my life paying you back." And, you know, just have like a heartto-he heart. Do you think that would have alleviated? >> 100%. If I was just honest with everyone from the get- go instead of I would just avoid it. Like when people would call me about money, I would turn off my phone or block them or I just didn't know how to >> be aggressive and come clean and tell everyone the truth. And by the time I was ready to tell people the truth, no one believed me. >> Why do you think it was so difficult to do that? I think I just had this, you know, I was popular, I guess, in high school from the parties and and throwing house parties and building. I was successful in high school and I think I wanted to keep up that image and uh I felt bad about losing everyone's money and I thought I could eventually make it back. Um, and I I couldn't. Um, but I should have just been honest with everyone. >> What was it like the first day in jail? >> Uh, like what's the process like to do they shave your head? Do they like put you in a like an orange? >> Shave your head, >> right? Do they >> They don't Do they tattoo some numbers in your arm? Do they not boot camp? >> No, I thought they I thought they hitting me. No, >> it's not like military boot camp. Yeah, >> maybe I'm confusing the two. I thought you're confusing and they put you in an orange. >> No, but um the my first day like when I got my bond revoked, I was chained and shackled. >> They put a ball in chain on your ankle. >> Give you a Yeah. My first day I was chained and shackled and put in a van where I had to go in this van with like six other inmates to Rhode Island where the detention center was. And you everything's so slow. Like when you go through processing, it's like 2 hours long. Um 3 hours long. Everything just takes forever going through the paperwork, going through get the one phone call, going through fingerprints, and you're fed like a tray of cold food from whatever was left in the chow hall. And um I just remember getting put in that cell. It was like a solitary sale cell that first night and I was in there for 48 hours uh because they have to do your TB shot and you can't go out into general population until that passes. Um but I just remember that feeling of being locked in there that first night, you know, not your all your freedom's taken away. And that's I think a feeling that came to me when I was doing the Mr. Beast video. Like you it was even harder during the Mr. Beast video because I could leave whenever I wanted, but there was so much at stake. >> Yeah. Was it surreal? But when did the reality set in in being in jail? >> I would say after all the appeals got exhausted. Like I always had hope um that I was going to get a a bail pending appeal or I was going to win the appeal and go home. So that got me through like the first I'd say seven eight months and then when everything got exhausted you're kind of already adjusted to it and you're like okay this um this is going to be okay. >> What was your first night like? First, I had a bunk mate that was like he was a like a crack head or a crack addict uh who was detoxing, itching himself all night long, pacing the cell. Um I wasn't hungry and I couldn't sleep, so he ate my tray of food and he was telling me all these things about what to do in prison, what not to do in prison. All of it completely false. Um but just kind of like bouncing around the cell. He was just like, "Oh, make sure you're, you know, you're sitting with um just the white people and you know, don't do this, don't do that. This is how you take a shower." And >> were you trusting of him at the time or are you like, "Ah, and there's no way that what this guy's saying is true." >> I honestly I was kind of scared of him because you're put into a cell lock that there's not like an emergency button or anything when you're in the cell. This guy me or something. No one would find out like right then and there to save me. >> Couldn't you have talked to a guard and said, "Hey, this guy's like on something or he's coming down." Like >> this guy's on something. He's not on something. He's off, but it's just like I don't feel safe. >> I guess you could have, but I was just, man, I was just in in a fog. Like my one minute I'm out free running the club and then the next minute my bonds revoked and you know, I went in that courtroom not going home. You know, I went there a free person and walked out in handcuffs. >> What was the food like in jail? >> Um, at the detention centers that sucked. There's like no seconds. That's like a tray of food. um wasn't the best. All the federal prisons have like a set menu like a school lunch program that changes like quarterly. >> Um like cheeseburger Wednesdays or hamburger Wednesdays. Every Thursday was chicken day. It's like a broiled burger. Um but depending on where they make it, like the food sounds good on the menu. If you pulled up the prison menu, which is available online, sounds great, but depending on the location that they make it. So say you're at a low security prison where they're feeding 2500 guys, that food quality is going to suck. they're building or they're cooking in a batch. But then when you get to the camp and there's a hundred guys, the food was excellent. Bigger portions, it was well seasoned. We had a scratch bakery. I got to work in the bakery, too, where we're having like fresh danishes and bagels and donuts and pizza. And then inmates cook their own food, too, like make their own commissary items. Um, then there's the whole smuggling food. I mean, there would be nights that we smuggled in Chicago deep dish pizza in Wisconsin. Sushi, chicken, burritos, everything like So, how was smuggling in prison? >> So, smuggling I had just seen at first inmates like have cell phones and and like Chinese food and stuff like through the guards at the Lowe's. A lot of that comes through the guards. Now there's drones and everything that fly it over. But when I I got to the opportunity to personally smuggle in items was at the camp and I saw guys running through the woods cuz there's no fence at the camp and there's only one guard um before count or after count cuz they count you throughout the day. These guys would run across the field, run through the woods, and go to the local motel, have their wife wife or girlfriend pick them up, go to the motel, and hook up with them, and they'd have someone at the camp keeping guard to make sure they don't call an emergency count or anything, and then they'd sneak back in. I would do that sometimes. I I never left the actual grounds. I'd just run through the woods to the border, and I'd pick up bags. people would pay me to pick up the bags. Um that would have cell phones, that would have food, um that would have sneakers, weight equipment, anything. And then you just run it back. >> How do people go to a camp versus a prison? >> So camp is it's uh set by point level. So if you have like 11 points or under, then you could go to a camp and you can't have a dangerous uh crime. You can't be a defender. Um age plays a factor. Um how many years you can't have more than I think 10 years to go to a camp. It's like that's why they call clubfed. That's the make off of uh Club Ned. Um but it's Clubfed. Uh it's a lot of um I would say uh white collar criminals or low-level drug offenses. Um and it goes by a point system based on your criminal history, uh your schooling, everything like that. >> So what part of prison out of everything was the hardest? Um I had a male prison guard almost. For this episode that you're watching here, we had to probably cut out 30 plus minutes of it for the main release because we talked about a lot of Jack mentioned a lot of stuff here. What about dating in prison? White knuckling like grabbing the soap. Do you like movies about gladiators? We just can't put it out on YouTube because we know if we did the whole episode is going to get shadowbanned. That's why we have a membership. So, if you want to see this entire video uncensored and Jack asking all of his questions that were a little weird, you could join the membership, see the full thing. >> There we go. Okay. >> What about the saying where if you go to jail like you're supposed to beat up a guy, >> you know, >> you have to prove yourself ever, >> right? It's like find the biggest guy and just kick his >> Well, I clearly didn't do that at the chow hall that day. That that was my moment to do that, you know, when I should have stood up for myself, but I didn't. But there are guys that do that. I hear those stories all the time. And I mean it's a very real thing. >> Should you have stood up for yourself? >> 100%. I >> in the chow hall. >> Yeah. I caused all my I should have swung at the guy or not. >> Actually, >> yeah, cuz my paperwork was fine. I wasn't in the wrong. You >> should have hit him. >> Yeah, I should have I should have hit him right there. >> But why? But I feel like he would have beat you up. >> It doesn't matter. It's just you're proving that you have it in you. From there, I was looked at as like kind of like a in a way if you think about it. >> And were there repercussions of being the b- word? Were there like things that happened? um guys just trying to extort me. Like I was the white kid running around that didn't really run with anyone. So it's they're not gangs in like the Lowe's. It's called a car. Um and the car is like who you're riding with and and that goes by the state. So there's like the New England car where it's like Connecticut, Massachusetts, there's a New York car, there's a New Jersey car. Um and I never ran with anyone. I was like just by myself. I didn't know how these politics worked. So when I started gambling like playing dice and playing spades and I had a cell a contraband cell phone, these guys that have worked their way down from maxes or medium security prisons are like who's this white boy running around without anyone thinking like he's hot and I just didn't I didn't think I was hot [ __ ] I just didn't really know what I was doing. I was just having fun. So they looked at me as like fresh meat as prey. >> What was the most fun thing in prison? >> Fun thing? Definitely sports or um they like people are very into the sports. There would be sports teams like basketball league, softball league. I love playing softball at the camp or or basketball and also spades which is the card game that we play in prison or CEO 456 dice. We would play that all night for hours. That was a lot of fun. >> Did you ever get used to the lack of privacy? >> Um I think in the detention center is where you have the least amount of privacy because you have the group showers um where you know like you're literally showering like it's like a YMCA type thing. Um, and then also in solitary where you're literally peeing and pooping into the same toilet, you know, as right next to your bunkmate. Um, so you would have to make like a makeshift curtain sometimes or um, you have no privacy in solitary. But then at like the camps and the lows, there's actual stalls or shower stalls or shower curtains. You have way more privacy um, in those scenarios. >> Was that uncomfortable? >> 100%. There would be days like I would like if I like really had to go to the bathroom, I would hold it in all night for them to pop the doors for breakfast and my cellmate would walk out to go get breakfast. I would skip breakfast and use the bathroom. Um, then there's this whole thing about like how to use the toilets properly in a cell, like sitting to pee. I didn't realize you have to sit to pee to not be disrespectful. Like if you stand up and pee the cuz there's no toilet seats, the pee could hit the to the toilet that you also sit on and hit the guy's bed, whoever's on the bottom bunk. So you avoid that by either kneeling to pee and just, you know, peeing like while kneeling or sitting to pee. Um, so the first time I ever was standing up cuz I thought that was normal, I got yelled at by my bug mate. He's like, "You can't do this in here. This isn't how we do it." Also, another thing that's big is you can't spit in the sink. like when you're brushing your teeth, they want you to spit in the toilet uh your bunk bed because sometimes they'll wash their clothes um in the sink, which that doesn't make sense. They'll wash their boxers in the sink, but you can't spit in it. Um just all these little simple things. Another big one is at the chow hall, you have to knock on the table before you get up after you eat. And I didn't know why everyone was doing that, but it's a sign of respect. Um that you're finished your meal. Um peace be upon the table and someone could take your seat after. So you always knock uh after you finish your meal. >> Was there like a kingpin at this prison? >> Plenty of kingpins, but what you're thinking more like a shot caller. Yeah. Um yeah, that like they call them head of the cars or the shot caller of the car. Those are the guys that are like checking paperwork that are, you know, probably down for a while and they're running things and yeah, they're all the time. But it's not like what you see in the movies in like a low or a camp. It's more those what you what you're thinking of is more in like the mediums or the higher security prisons. Best prison movie ever is that movie called Shot Caller. You ever watch it? >> You got to watch it. It's really good. That talks about a guy that went to prison for manslaughter that ultimately got life in prison after he teamed up with like Darian Brotherhood and stuff to protect his family cuz he was threatened. So it shows the whole evolution of becoming like a shot caller. Did you ever see any acts of violence between prisoners? So, my very first act of violence was when I was at the detention center after I got my bond revoked. Sitting in line to get my tray for chow. Because in the detention centers, they bring a cart, they have all the trays. Another guy cuts this other guy in line, turns into a whole thing. You would think like what's a big deal, you know, like we're we're not in high school or middle school, just address it, whatever. And these two start swinging at each other, throwing punches, stuff like that um happen. And then just normal fights, you know, like fist fights. And then guys at the low, especially like the Mexican guys and stuff are all walking around with like steel rods that are like this long. Um, just tucked in their pants. It's crazy. >> And did the prison guards not think anything of that? >> They'll search you and stuff and if you get caught with it, it's a 100 series shot, which is like the worst infraction. You'll lose some good time. You could go with the shoe. Like if you get caught with a cell phone, you're going to the shoe. Um, but most of the time people will toss it or they're running around or you got to keep in mind there's at these facilities there's one guard for 400 inmates and at Fort Dicks like it's an old army barrack so it's a giant building three floors tall that has a staircase on either side. So when the guards coming up one way there's lookouts and everyone's running the other way down with the phones and the and the knives and whatnot. >> How do you charge your phone? >> So this is why they didn't have iPhones because you can't take the battery out of an iPhone. They had these LG Samsungs and I'll tell you why Boost Mobile's still in business is because of prisoners. They would do the unlimited plan. Uh you have Boost. >> Yeah. Yeah, I do. I plan. >> So they're in business cuz of him and prisoners, but literally everyone has a phone plan cuz at the time I don't know if it's true now though, but you didn't. You could put a fake name and just pay it. Yeah, >> everyone's doing that. And everyone's using Cash App on the phone. Cash App is huge and Western Union is huge cuz people put money on your commissary through Western Union. So, you're paying Boost Mobile for these phone plans which aren't linked to you or traceable. And guys would pop the battery out and they would convert the MP3 player, a little sand disk that they sold on commissary into a charger where the battery plugs into the MP3 player which plugs into either the light like one of those fluorescent lights that you would have one of the guys in the electrical department unscrew and hook up to make it look like it's like it just in the light or whatnot or you would plug it in at the computers cuz we had computers to email on and you would but that was more risky cuz that's like next to the CEO's office. But you would just see batteries all the time because the logic is if a battery gets popped, it's only four or 5 hund bucks to replace. If a phone gets popped, that could cost you thousands. You would see some guys get a phone and lose two phones in a week. It's pretty crazy. And then guys would make little pouches um in their in their pants pocket. That would be a guy's hustle making pouches for people. Um so if the guards patted you down, they would think it's just like your junk right there and not the actual phone. But if they have the wand on you, you're kind of screwed. And then there was the little pocket phones, like the little booty phones. Guys would shove up their butt or just walk around with it like on their hat uh like on their skull cap um and just do laps and have the headphones in. >> So how much is it to buy a cell phone in jail? >> So at a low security prison at the time it was like 1,500 or two grand for an LG like used Samsung more if it's a little new. Um but at the camp it was 200 bucks. Now this is 2016, 2017, 2018. It's probably way more expensive now. It all has to do with the economy and how um things are doing with like shakedowns and stuff. Camps are obviously the easiest because there's no there's no um fence. It's easier to get in. But I mean also now they have drones and stuff. You see videos on Tik Tok all the time of people dropping in drones and whatnot. It's crazy. >> What other things did you see smuggled into prison? >> A lot of food like Chinese food, sushi, pizza, good meals. Like we had a whole Mexican buffet one time. It was pretty crazy. you were just sitting in the cell eating this like tins of food, gym clothes, watches, jewelry. Um, pretty much anything from the street is considered like a like a high commodity item. Uh, protein powder was huge cuz we would empty the creamer. Uh, they didn't sell protein powder, just protein bars on um, commissary, but they sold creamer jars of creamer. So, you would empty the powder and stuff that with protein powder to hide it. Um, so that was interesting. You get a lot of stuff on commissary though, too. And how would you make money in jail? A >> lot of hustle. So you have like the guys that rent the cell phone. So say you bought a cell phone for $2,000. There's guys that can make thousands and thousands of dollars off that $2,000. They'll sell uh they'll rent phone time to people for say 30 bucks, 30 mackerels, fish pouches, or three books of stamps cuz a book of stamps was $10 each. And you have this prison money. Um say you have like a 100 mackerel. We would then sell those 100 m macer to say the bookie or to someone that is say wealthy and wants to use mackerel to pay for a haircut or their room cleaned or laundry and they would send money onto your books on your commissary account for say 90 bucks. So that's how you convert prison commissary into real money like street money. Um, and then other hustles were like room cleaning, pay some, everyone gets assigned a job, but most people don't work their job. They just have someone else do the job for them. So, you pay that to them. Um, there's pretty much anything is a hustle. The barber, gambling, the bookie is probably the biggest source of income there. >> You ever see anything really clever? Stitching pouches is kind of interesting. >> Yeah, pillows. We don't have pillows. So, people making pillows. I think the most clever ones are the chargers, the phone chargers. What these guys could do. Also, if you get someone on the maintenance team because inmates run everything, the fac the facilities and everything, you get someone on the maintenance team, you pay them like 200 bucks to come drill a hole in your wall or on the floor to hide your contraband or hide your phone or something like that. Where I had my phone was under my bunk, it was cinder block. We had the guy come in, drill a little slot, and then put the rubber like mat right up against it so it looked like it the hole wasn't there. >> Wow. >> Things like that. >> Why don't you have pillows? >> I don't know. It's so weird. They don't have pillows. That's why I made a comment about the pillows on the beginning of the Mr. Beast video. No pillows. They have like in the mattress they have like a slant type of pillow built in, but um other than that, they don't have much of anything. >> How would you improve the prison system having been through it? >> I would divide the politics aspect of it. Like gang members should not be mixed with non-gang members because then you have this whole issue of politics being created, more people getting recruited. I would kind of like cut the head off the snake, separate more of the violent offenders cuz what they're doing is they're mixing you got a violent people with people that are there for non-violent crimes. It doesn't make sense and then also have more programs, more rehabilitation. There's no rehabilitation right now in the prison system. >> Do you think the prison system is set up to rehabilitate people or do you think that it just continues to like perpetuate cycles of violence and crime? >> It's definitely not meant to rehabilitate people. I mean, you look at their halfway house program is a great example where you're supposed to be released in the community before the end of your sentence, help find work, um, help get on your feet. They just kind of set you out there to fend for yourself. There's a lot of underexperienced staff or little to no staff. There's more rules. Like, it didn't make any sense when I got to the halfway house for 3 months after like I got out. There's all these petty rules about curfews and times and they make it so hard to find a job and you're not allowed to have a smartphone. um you were but it was 2016 now could you not have a smartphone? They wanted you to just have a little flip phone but you're already released to the world. Um there was just all these little things that just didn't make sense. A lot of petty rules. Um when I got to prison I thought that there was going to be programs like you hear about these college courses. None of that's there. It's all just talked about or they might have been there at some point but they don't actually exist. I would say state prisons do a better job depending on the state than the federal system. The federal system's terrible. >> What about dating in prison? >> You ever hear of the dating app, Plenty of Fish? >> Uh, >> PF. >> So, that's like the number one dating app used by inmates in prison. It's so funny. People would make this a hustle. So, you would see guys >> go on POF, swipe with people, match with people, and talk to them on on the phone or do FaceTime dates. And they would hustle these women and get them to send commissaries. So, they this guy would be on call with one woman, she'd send 50 bucks. then that he would go to another woman. They're all sending money and these guys are making hundreds of dollars doing it. Then on visiting day, he would have like three or four visits in the day because these women would come and visit him. There's like I I understand like there's this fascination with like serial um with women like sending fan mail and stuff. I saw that firsthand in prison with all of these individuals that these women obsess and latch on to who they've never met before and take care of these guys, send them money, come visit them. Granted, there are some guys that stick with their wives or girlfriends for a long time, but most of the time people are just meeting people organically or they're also cheating on their wives or girlfriends by talking to other girls. >> How do these guys have so much pull? Like my understanding is that you kind of, you know, when you when you're dating, you kind of have to have something to offer to the other person. But if these guys are in prison for I don't know how long, you know, how can they like what do they have? >> It makes no sense. People love it. It's a new era of like, you know, write a prisoner or pen pal or anything like that. >> People just are they love doing it. They'll reach out to it. I mean, it's like I look at like all the fan mail about like that Brian Coberger guy um with the Idaho and stuff and it's just like what goes through these people's minds to do this? >> Why do you think so many women are attracted to to the guy in prison? Is it because there's like a mystique about them or like it's the the bad boy or do you think it's I could fix this person? >> I don't know about I don't think it's fix. I think it's just like that attractive aspect of it. And it's also another great thing is or great question is female prison guards sleeping with male inmates. You're literally risking your career, your life. You have the all these options in the world and you're going after these guys that are in prison and maybe it's an attention issue where these guys will obviously give the female cos so much attention. So maybe that applies to people in the street. These women are not getting the attention they want. And these guys, they know they're locked up. They know they're in one spot. They think they can't cheat on them, but they kind of really can. Uh maybe not physically. Uh but, you know, it just it's interesting. >> You didn't date around in prison, though. >> No, I did make a Tinder and I did POF, but POF was too spammy. But then I made a Tinder and Snapchat. I would go live for my Snapchat. Girls would like send me nudes and stuff from my old Snapchat in prison. They just like it's people are it just doesn't make sense, you know? Uh there's just like that mystique with it. And then like when I got out and got on a dating app cuz I had lost a bunch of weight and stuff, girls like knew who I was because it was a small town. They knew I just got out of prison and they were interested in that. You know, like when I was single, a lot of my DMs were from my target like woman that would reach out to me was >> a single mom like in her mid30s, has kids but no dad in the picture. And that's who would DM me. So would you say then if someone's out there right now and they're trying to find a partner but they're struggling with it, what they should do is find a way to go to prison and then create a Tinder or Playish account to then find women to date once they get out in a few years. >> That's inefficient. You could just lie. >> Just set up like a pseudo jail cell behind you getting out in a week. Yeah, something like that money. is the whole dating thing is just like so weird like in today's culture. But I think there is definitely a people like someone that I think they like the redemption arc of like someone going to prison then coming out and getting their life together. I can't really speak for the people that are into the people that don't have their life together and are kind of like bums or have like six kids or something like that. But >> did you make any really close friends while in prison? >> Yeah, I met a few. Like I had my first bunk mate from Fort Dicks. He watches my episodes and talks to me um pretty often. Um I have another guy that was by Bunk Bait that worked with me in the kitchen that I talked to. We visit each other. He's in Chicago, but I've gone there. He's come to me. I've had like four of them on my show. Um and I stay in touch with quite a few of them. A lot of reached out. Um so it was it's interesting those bonds, you know, just like my relationship with Lenny I've built with other people. So, of all of these things that you'd experience, such as lying to investors, going to court, going to trial, going to prison, and then doing the solitary, being in a Mr. Beast video for 100 days, being in solitary there. What would you say out of all of those was the most difficult? I think owing money like at that young age being in that much debt failing to that level um when you experience success. I really genuinely thought like I had that success and I was going up and up and up and I was going to be like something big and I think to get kicked down and lose it all and and really I think that even beyond that is being portrayed as something that you're not. I think my I think what really was the benefit of the beast video is it it got to show my true character and intentions at heart. I mean on day 99 I had the option to take all that money and I could have paid off the restitution with that and I didn't because of that bond I I built with Lenny and a lot of my decisions throughout that video were to make sure that you know like Lenny didn't get hurt too. I had to think of both of us and I think when I went through what I did at my age the news blasted me. It was very one-sided. they never got the full perspective and I always made even worse decisions trying to do the right thing but it was just not the right way of doing things. Um but having that amount of pressure and hate and seeing all those comments from people that you went to school with and that you were close with and really just you know making you feel really lousy and miserable about yourself. And I'm not saying I didn't deserve that but some of it was a little bit extreme too and uh it was just definitely that was the hardest aspect I think of my whole journey. Was it a difficult decision to not split the money? >> I so I wanted to take all the money as it in a sense where like I wanted to win the lottery. You know, it was that feeling of it would be great to win the lottery, but I know I'm not going to. So, in that moment is I want to hit this button, take all the money, but I know I'm not going to cuz that's not who I am. I'm not going to I'd be no different than what everyone has said about me in the past if I took that money in that moment. Cuz he earned that money. He did the 100 days with me. I granted that it was a it was a show. It was a competition, but when you everyone says like there there's a lot of people in the comments are like, "I would have taken the money." It sounds easy all said and done. Just like saying you'll do a 100 days sounds easy, but when you're in the belly of the beast, it's a lot harder. But when you're living with someone for 100 days, you form a connection, you know? >> Did you know that he wouldn't take the money? >> 100%. >> And did did you think he thought you would or you wouldn't? I think a part of him thought, especially after seeing the video, how Jimmy was putting it in his head. Jimmy wanted me to take the money. Uh because that would have been great content for him. He even said to me in the cell, he's like, "Dude, I'd love for you to hit that button." Cuz no one's done that before on one of his things on one of these 100 day videos. It would have been great content. If I had hit the button, it was only because I didn't want to be in solitary because I had such a miserable experience. It was literally PTSD. Like, it was literally like a a wave of emotions being back in there. But that 24 hours that last time felt way better than the four hours I was there the first time because it was a feeling of I know I'm going home after this. There's not another 50 days I have to do. So that got me through it. Um I got sick as a dog that night. I ate something bad or something. I was literally cuz the toilets in there were like these little uh plastic toilets and they give you a tent to put up in there. So I was [ __ ] my brains out at 12:00 in the dark putting my poop in a garbage bag and passing it through the door for the for the um for the guard. Um, but if I we Lenny and I had talked about it, like if we were in a situation we were kind of predicting something like that, we just send the money to each other. So I think he knew that even if I did hit the button, I would send him the money like his half. But it would also >> Was that even legal? Cuz we asked uh Jeff from Beast Games who won the money, you know, what's to stop you from just, you know, taking everything and then splitting it with someone. >> Yeah. So Lenny had brought that up, too. I didn't read the contract. Like I just skimmed through it and signed it. I had like a couple hours to sign it when I got it. Um, but I think Lenny said that that you couldn't do that. I don't know all the specifics. I guess I could read it now. But I mean, I probably would have done it anyways, but I also knew that how they would have painted the picture, right, >> of me, you know, that was it going to make it in the video. Oh yeah, he sent the buddy to Lety, you know, afterwards. It was literally end with I mean, look how they edited it. They did a really good job editing that to make it look like I left. And they wouldn't have put that in. They would have just said, "Ian took all the money. That's it." And I would have that would have destroyed everything I've worked for. I mean, the criminals would have loved me, but anyone knew, you know, they wouldn't have been too kind to that. >> What was it like watching the video back? >> So, I actually got to watch a rough edit of it like the week before, which I was surprised about, but they kind of showed it all and we gave him like some feedback of, hey, do this or do that. Um, and um, it was it was interesting to see. I like watching the reaction videos from people. Um, uh, I've watched on the plane I watched a couple reaction videos that other creators did. Um, but I guess the sad part about it is like you you do so much. I guess the sad part is you you you miss the moments that didn't make it in cuz you remember everything that happened over those 100 days. Like we did so much. There was so much that you know your 100 days of your life. But I feel like they did an overall good job of getting the good moments and I thought it was a a really nicely done edit. I found it to be exciting. What are some of the opportunities you've gotten from that? >> So, this goes back to like what we were talking about earlier about like why I wouldn't have taken it if I didn't have the episodes planned out. People, one of the things they sell you on like when you're on the casting call, they're like it's Mr. Beast, like this is a big opportunity and this is how they can kind of, I guess, get away with the pressure of the timing, like giving you no time to prepare and it's boom boom boom boom. And I get that. He's a big content creator. Like, who's not going to want to work with him? But they kind of hold that on you like that it's this big thing. It could change your life. And when you think about it, right, if you look at my following after Beast compared to before, like there's comments saying, "Oh, you got all this because of Mr. Beast." And that's not true. I had 1.2 million followers on Tik Tok before Mr. Beast. And I think I went up like 20,000 on Tik Tok. Audio downloads and stuff. I I'm up 20% since the release over the past week, which is cool. And my YouTube's up. I put on like 15,000 subscribers. Um, but conversion-wise, I went up like 3,000 Instagram followers. It's not as big for the exposure that it is, it doesn't really convert that well. I think M's video is the exception because he became one of them, like one of the boys, and he was physically posted. They don't tag you in anything. I'm not tagged in any of the posts. any following I got was because we were working the channels all day responding to comments, making posts, putting out clips, doing like the the solo episode, uh like me interviewing Lenny and me talking about my experience solo and responding to as many comments on the Beast video, but they don't promote you in that sense. I mean, perfect example is a guy that won Beast Games, I think he's got 60,000 followers on Instagram. That was one of the most watched shows in what prime history. You would think that that would convert to a lot more on YouTube, on Instagram. It's just that following doesn't convert. And maybe it's the audience demographic or whatnot. But I look at it as if I tanked my YouTube channel for three and a half months to do this, would it have been worth it? And I think the answer is no. I think it's probably also like attachment to the person in the video itself because match like lost all this weight. And so now people are curious to see like how is that going to all play out whereas in this situation or in beast games, it's more about like the competition. itself and like other sorts of things. Also imagine like he had very high emotional swings, ups and downs and stuff like that. So you feel like a lot more of a a connection with him. >> It's tied to the personality. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, I'm not complaining. I'm very happy. Um my I think what I've built and and having that flow, I think it it helps me get in the door for new opportunities like going on bigger podcasts and just kind of like uh um stabilizes you with like just in general working with a creator like that and everything. Um, I think it's good and that'll live there forever and it'll open the door to more things. >> How were the comments on your video? You you said you were responding to people. >> Um, so the comments were pretty interesting. Uh, not so I there wasn't like too many negative comments. It was just a lot of >> people calling me like a fake criminal like on the repost like on those big uh news article ones that dropped like on World Star or like whatever those big, you know, uh, pop culture ones were. Um, people calling a fake criminal or how easy they could do it. um or how like everything's scripted or staged. Um people thought it was scripted or staged, which you know it wasn't. Um there was comments about how everyone I think the biggest topic of conversation was the ending of would they have taken the money or would they have screwed him over? And I know a lot of my new subscribers that came to my channel and watched the videos appreciated that I didn't screw him over and that they enjoyed watching my content after. >> Is there any advice you have for someone who's going to jail? >> Yeah, don't do what I did. um which is, you know, definitely figure out kind of like the prison politics of it. Um figure out who you need to kind of like associate with, who you need to, you know, be involved with, and definitely don't gamble. Gambling gets you into a lot of trouble in prison. Um even dealing with any type of contraband, doing stuff you're not supposed to do. Um and kind of just like observe the environment. Um and see, kind of watch and see before you jump into everything and and know how to move around. Do you have any prison habits you still practice today? Um, I guess one thing is maybe like food. Like I I like I'll eat quicker like because I'm I'm used to like eating quick and then like getting off off at the table cuz the chow hall is so small and you're kind of trying to clear the room for the next guy or you're hovering over your food. I guess I I would do that. Um, definitely don't sit to pee anymore. Um, it was weird going in the shower for the first time after prison uh because of flip flops. You use flip flops that whole time cuz the showers are gross. Even the Beast video, I use flip-flops every shower for those 100 days. So, being able to keep your feet in a regular shower was nice. >> So, I would have no idea. What other little things like that do people not realize? >> So, like the toothbrush, like Jimmy had us use the little baby toothbrush for the full 100 days. Normally in real prison, he would be able to you get the stateisssued toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, which sucks like the Bob Barker smells terrible or has like no scent. We had used it the whole 100 days cuz on commissary on day 40 he offered us like Colgate toothpaste for 10 grand with like um real deodorant and one toothbrush. What are we going to do with one toothbrush? So obviously we didn't buy that. Uh but we had to go the whole 100 days with that which was really rough. Imagine using a thumb toothbrush for 100 days and like the little baby soap and everything. That was terrible. But there's things like that. Um, also I guess you know living on a bunk bed, you can't like sleep on your back or on your stomach. My bunk bed would always like hit my bed when I was sleeping on my stomach cuz he would always say like the booty bandit would come and get you. Um, things like that. There's all those like Jack too. >> Don't sleep on your stomach. If if you're in prison, is there just a general like air of distrust around like like like how how difficult is it to just go up to someone be like, "Hey, talk to me straight." Like how's it going? Tell me about what's what your life this and that. Like can you really connect with people? Is there always like this like little under under feeling of of like distrust and and like and danger? >> I think there's always that feeling of distrust. I was too trusting of people. I thought everyone was my friend. And it's those same ones that are your friends that will slip a kite or plant a phone on you um or steal out of your locker um or anything like that. Um or set you up. Um there's obviously a few genuine ones. I think those are the ones you keep the friendships with the years later like I've been able to. But the majority of people are just trained not to trust anyone. Can't blame them for that. You know, there's a lot of snakes in prison. There's a lot of scumbags. You see that with like these jailhouse lawyers. Um, just everything, you know, everyone's out for themsel. And I guess in an environment like that, you kind of have to be. >> Does it help to have tattoos in in prison? >> Didn't help me. >> It didn't help you. >> No, because I guess the way I look like my face, my body doesn't really match my face. That's like a big comment on my social media. I guess for the most part, I guess it would help people, just not me in my situation. >> Did you ever get into a prison fight? >> I just that time I got slapped. I didn't really fight back. Um, and I got cornered like a couple months later by a bunch of like the New Yorker car guys cuz of that whole drama cuz I had hired one of the guys in their car to do the protection over me and that caused drama and like prison politic type stuff. Never got a prison tattoo either. I was thinking about it, but I it kind of sketched me out. But prison tattoos are pretty legit. They would use like the guitar strings as needles. Um, and they'd get like real ink smuggled in from the street, which was cool. And they would use like the radio to make a tattoo gun. That's safe. These people sound smart. What's stopping these people from going out and having like productive careers where they're an entrepreneur or they're making money, you know, like once they get out? Is it just like like these this culture is just instilled in them to like don't trust people, you know, steal from people or whatever it is? These guys are so smart. I mean, you see a lot of these guys making hooch um this thing called white lightning, which is like distilled honey or whatever into like vodka. They would do all these things and make thousands of dollars in there and send it. A lot of the Mexican people will send it home to their families. They'll do so well and then when they get out, they just can't convert that in anything. A lot of the drug dealers I interview, like they're super successful, build like these empires, I guess you could say, go to prison and then they just can't figure it out after. Um, it just doesn't click for them. Some do, don't get me wrong, some do, but a lot of them don't. And then that's when I think they're I think the problem is is that quick money. Um, once you experience that, that's kind of hard to, you know, go away from. I think that's really the biggest issue. I tell all the people that I talk to that ask me for advice or want to get into content right away. I say, "Go work a regular job first. Go work as a dishwasher in the kitchen." That's what I did for 15 bucks an hour working at at a hot bar at Whole Foods. And then eventually I worked my way up to a manager where I was making 30 bucks an hour. Um, but I was able to rebuild my life, build my credit, get a dog, get an apartment, get a car, do all these things just off of a normal job and be a contributing me uh member to society. And that was a very humbling experience. I think if I got out and if I got cast in the beast video the first week I got out or started making money on social media, my attitude would be completely different. >> Was there anyone you met in prison who was innocent? I me personally, I haven't met anyone that was innocent, but I have interviewed people and talked to people that were actually genuinely innocent. And literally every guy you meet in prison, and I know I was one of them that was like, I'm innocent. I don't deserve to be here. But I did get to witness like in 2016 the Obama pardons um where people literally serving 20 years got to go home that day cuz he reduced it down to like 15 or 12 like the drug time uh times. I think there's a lot of people that are over sentenced. Guys with 20, 30, 40 years, crazy sentences for a minimal amount of drugs, but truly innocent, I think that's a dime a dozen. I think you'll see that more in state prison because the feds are very thorough. Um, I wasn't around too many, you know, and I think that's where the cases you see like those convictions on, but all the I would say all the fraud guys, I'm innocent. It didn't go down this way or that. Then when you read about them when you get out, I don't know, it kind of makes sense, you know? But I get their perspective, too. Like I was one of them. And for the longest time, my whole thing was like I didn't have the intent to do it, but I still did it. And people still lost money because of it. So it doesn't just cuz I didn't have the criminal intent doesn't mean it wasn't wrong. Uh, and became a crime in that cuz even if a crime's accidental, it doesn't take away from the fact that it's still a crime and you broke the law. Um, so that was one thing I learned from that. >> Do you think there's any better system than prison? Like maybe like a, you know, like a home sort of stay, like uh, what do they call it? >> I think I've talked to a lot of people that were like in the state system has really good work release programs where you're working. That's how it should be. Like if I spent those 3 years working, paying a a a piece of it to restitution and a piece to like maybe the government like for the funding of the monitoring or something, but I it really should just most people I feel like could be house arrest, good monitoring type system like a GPS type thing and just work work a job, you know, monitor communications. There's got to be something with AI that could be even better at this. But the prison thing doesn't make any sense. For the really violent offenders, yes. But for the average amount of people, no, it doesn't make sense at all. That's why camps are the most pointless thing ever. I mean, granted, they are closing down a lot of camps right now. Uh I know Trump's doing that, but it just the camps are so silly. Imagine spending 10 years in a like a adult day camp um where you're just spending your time playing sports, doing botchi ball, and I don't know, just like living the life, I guess, you know, but you owe $50 million to investors. It just doesn't make sense. >> Yeah. So, it's more practical to have that person just work and and >> see I think they should be in those cases working. >> All the money gets funneled into like a federalowned bank account. Money gets taken out from there automatically and they pay you like a wage. >> Yeah. And you see a lot of um I speak in a lot of like these men sober houses and stuff and some county jails that have these programs which are great where guys are on a work release program. They get to work. They also get to pay some expenses to the facility, but they also have money to give their kids Christmas presents or birthday presents or actually account for their money and have a card to like order stuff, but it's still structured. That's how it I feel like it should be. I would have much rather work those years, you know, that it just makes way more sense. Um, but what they're what they the current system doesn't really make sense at all. >> Thank you. I really appreciate you coming out here on short notice. I'll link to all of your info down below in the description. And also, if you guys haven't donated yet to Team Water, there is a link down below in the description. Come join us, donate. It's almost up. How much does he have left to raise? I feel like we're going to we're going to hit it. $40 million in the month of August. So, if you want to be a part of that, highly recommend it. Link is down below as with your information as well. >> Yeah. Thank you guys. This was a lot of fun, man. Thanks for inviting me. >> Thanks for coming on. That was a blast. Thank you guys so much for watching. As always, we can't do this without you. So, it really means a lot. Thank you guys for watching. One more thing. I'm kidding. Till next time. Bye.