Swaggy Accused Of Underpaying Kevin For Charity Game

If you have been following former houseguests on Twitter, you’d know that Swaggy and Fessy had some one on one basketball game they were hyping up for a while. When Kevin (BB19) was diagnosed with cancer, a lot of the Big Brother community came together to support him, and that included Swaggy who turned the event into a charity event.  In fact, Swaggy’s current Twitter header actually says ‘fundraiser’ in it for the event:

There was no mistaking that the event became a charity event. That very very clear with mountains of evidence all over Twitter mentioning it.

Kevin went down and attended the event as well as Scottie, Rockstar, and Haleigh.  It was all fine until this tweet dropped the other day from Kevin’s daughter:

there was a fundraising event for my dad that is STILL recovering from cancer. they charged people $15 to watch it online & hundreds of people paid to attend. they sent him $500 after using him having cancer to get people to come and watch online when they made THOUSANDS.

— we are ysg (@yoursweetguys) January 28, 2019

That’s quite a claim, but it didn’t receive much attention for a few days until the retweets happened. When they did, it got back to Swaggy who not only had a reply, but created a video on Youtube explaining about it (the video has been deleted).

I got 2k for putting the WHOLE event on myself, labor, & playing the game.
Fessy got 2k for bringing/drawing most of the crowd (Fessy fans) & playing the game.
Zero got 800 for their portion of the proceeds.
Kevin got 800.
60-40. Not speaking on it anymore. That’s it.

— GANG GANG ✌🏾 (@SwaggyCTV) February 4, 2019

Seeing as the video is deleted, I can’t do specific quotes, but I’m going to go by memory with a few key points and if anything is wrong, please let me know so I can correct them:

• An issue apparently came up with Kevin became cancer free. Apparently, it sounded like they tried to figure out what to do with the money at that point as he was supposed to receive a majority of it
• They allegedly agreed on a 60/40 split. Well, more like a 30/30/40 split between Swaggy/Fezzy/Kevin.
• Swaggy claims the event pulled in around $19k in gross revenue
• He says expenses were around $8k but did not give a detailed breakout of the expenses.
• He also says the place used to sell the tickets through charged around $2-3k each
• He gave two examples and I want to say that they were these:
  • Eventbrite pulled in around $11k but gave him around $9k
  • The PPV company pulled in around $8k but gave him $5k
• These numbers above are key and I’ll explain shortly. Please give me specifics if they still have the video or if anyone remembers exactly what he said
• Swaggy also said that he took $2k for himself, gave Fessy $2k, and Kevin got $800. Zero Cancer received $800 as well. I believe he mentioned a second charity as well.

I’ll break down some numbers using the $11k figure from Eventbrite and $8k from Cleeng (a PPV provider)

• $11k means (at $25/each) they sold 440 tickets
• $8k means (at $15/each) means they sold 533 PPV

Fees:

• According to their website, Eventbrite charges 2% plus $0.79 per ticket plus 2.5% processing fee
• According to Cleeng, they simply charge 1.54 Euro ($1.76 USD) per sale

Now, for some math:

• 440 tickets would be:
  • $348 in per ticket prices (0.79 per)
  • 2% of each ticket = 50 cents = $220
  • 2.5% of each ticket = $275
  • Total fees = $843
• 533 PPV tickets would be:
  • 533 tickets at $1.76 each would be $938 in fees
• Total fees = $1,781

Out of $19,000 in total gross from those two places, they should be down to $17,219. Unless I missed something somewhere, I’m not sure why he would say each one took a few thousand dollars.

Other expenses would, of course, include airfare for everyone as Swaggy did show that he sent Scottie money for his ticket. That was one of the receipts he indeed showed, so I assume he covered everyone’s airfare and lodging which would be expected. I don’t know how much all of that came out to nor am I going to even try to make any guesses.

Note – I am not here to judge whether or not Scottie, Rockstar, or Haleigh even needed to be there as their names were not listed on the event page as official meet and greet people, but that’s something for them to worry about. My goal here is to see if anything fishy went on. 

Here is where the situation gets sticky. This is the claim by Swaggy:

• Swaggy got $2,000
• Fessy got $2,000
• $800 went to Kevin (or $500)
• $800 went to Zero Cancer charity
• Alleged total of $5,600 net profit

He claims that is a 60/40 split but I am not seeing where that adds up:

• 60% of $5,600 is $3,600
• 40% is $2,400

In no way does that break down to $2k for each player and $1,600 for Kevin’s side.  I’m not even sure which side got 60 and which side got 40, but I’ll run the numbers both ways….

• If Swaggy/Fes received 60%, that means the total would be $6,666 and Kevin should have received $2,666
• If Swaggy/Fes received 40%, that means the total would be $10,000 and Kevin should have received $6,000

I’d assume they meant Swaggy/Fessy received 60% which would have put Kevin’s side at $2,666. Kevin allegedly received $800 and Zero Cancer charity received another $800. That is $1,066 off.

Another thing, Kevin allegedly received only $500 of the $800 as the remaining $300 was for his airfare. One question I do have is why was Kevin’s airfare not included in the expenses report with Scottie, Haleigh, Rockstar, etc?

There are a lot of unanswered questions to this situation, but right now it seems like we have these major questions:

1. Why did Swaggy say the processing fees from Eventbrite and Cleeg total thousands of dollars (upwards of $3-5k) when their website say it would have been less than $2,000 total?
2. Why did Kevin’s side only receive $1,600 in a 60/40 split?
3. Why was Kevin charged for airfare (if he was)?

Now, there are a number of weird issues with this, for example, the morality of even trying to decide what to do with the money once Kevin was cancer free. If the money was for his bills, they didn’t go away when he beat the disease.  If the money was for charity, Kevin’s status as an active cancer patient should be irrelevant. Cancer itself wasn’t beaten.

Another thing, the issue of whether or not the event would have done well without bringing Kevin along in the first place. A fundraiser for a person or charity is typically just that, an event raising funds for that cause. The difference between a fundraiser and a regular basketball match also is important for tax filing status.

I understand a number of issues have come up as excuses on Twitter for why Swaggy is being attacked over this, but my main issue is merely the numbers do not even come close to adding up.   I reached out to both sides for more details but did not hear back from either, so I am going by whatever information is out there and right now it does not look good for Swaggy. If he wants to reach out to me to show me actual proof of expenses and percentage agreements, I’d love to see them and try to clear this entire thing up for them.

Update:

I was able to re-watch the video!

Swaggy’s updated words:

• Kevin says he made $19k and he paid $8k out of pocket (doesn’t say on what) so that means they’re break even for some reason
• Eventbrite and Cleng charged $3.5k combined according to Swaggy. It should be under $2,000
• Then he says “If we made $13k on eventbrite, we only got $10.8” ($2,200 in fees). Cleng got cut from $8 to $6.5 ($1,500 in fees)
• After that, it went from $11k to $7.5k which is what was used to give people money
  • Himself $2,000
  • Fessy $2,000
  • Kevin $800
  • Zero Cancer $800
  • Michelle event planner $250
  • Then he gave an undisclosed amount to another charity in FL
  • Then he had refunds for shirts

So his overall breakdown from $19k

• $8,000 “expenses”
• $3,500 “fees”
• $4,000 “talent” (himself and Fes)
• $800 Kevin
• $800 Charity
• $250 Michelle
• Unknown Refunds
• $1,750 unaccounted for

Now I have more questions…

1. How much did he give the FL charity?
2. Why mention refunds as an expense if they were not counted as income? Isn’t that just borrowed money?
3. Did he sell any shirts and just refund the people he promised a shirt?
   1. If he did, how much profit from shirts?
4. What did they spend $8,000 on?
5. What happened to the other $1,750?