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Hulk Hogan won $140 million in court and called it "just a piece of paper." He settled for $31 million. His divorce had already taken about 70% of his cash. When he died last year, his daughter got nothing from his will, because she had asked to be taken out of it.
Would you do what she did?
In the clip Hogan explains how he bottomed out. Then what he thought of the $140 million. Then Brooke, on why she walked away from the will.
He used to brag he was the only world champion who never got divorced. Then he did, and the money started leaving in pieces.
The math.
Divorce, settled 2009, as reported in 2011: about 70% of the liquid assets, $7.44 million, to his ex-wife.
Plus 40% of his companies and a $3 million property settlement.
Jury verdict against Gawker, 2016: $140 million.
What he actually got that November: $31 million, plus a share of Gawker's sale. That's 22 cents on the dollar.
Estate at his death in July 2025, per ET's source: about $25 million.
Assets in the filing, as reported: about $5 million, to his son Nick.
His daughter Brooke, from the will: $0, by her own request in 2023.
What she gets instead, reportedly: part of a small life insurance trust, for her kids' college.
She says she asked out when he went ahead with his third marriage, and that it wasn't about the woman. Her version: he said he was going the other direction anyway. You live your life, I'll live mine. Her husband said all she wanted from him was time and honesty.
The verdict was a number on paper. The settlement was a fifth of it. The estate depends on who you ask. The only figure in this story that's certain is the zero, and she chose it.
Would you walk away from your father's money to stay out of the fight?
Before the will, before the trial: "TV money doesn't last forever. I moved to Nashville. I started waiting tables." That's Hulk Hogan's daughter, by her own account, with no help from her parents.
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Hulk Hogan won $140 million in court and called it "just a piece of paper." He settled for $31 million. His divorce had already taken about 70% of his cash. When he died last year, his daughter got nothing from his will, because she had asked to be taken out of it.
Would you do what she did?
In the clip Hogan explains how he bottomed out. Then what he thought of the $140 million. Then Brooke, on why she walked away from the will.
He used to brag he was the only world champion who never got divorced. Then he did, and the money started leaving in pieces.
The math.
Divorce, settled 2009, as reported in 2011: about 70% of the liquid assets, $7.44 million, to his ex-wife.
Plus 40% of his companies and a $3 million property settlement.
Jury verdict against Gawker, 2016: $140 million.
What he actually got that November: $31 million, plus a share of Gawker's sale. That's 22 cents on the dollar.
Estate at his death in July 2025, per ET's source: about $25 million.
Assets in the filing, as reported: about $5 million, to his son Nick.
His daughter Brooke, from the will: $0, by her own request in 2023.
What she gets instead, reportedly: part of a small life insurance trust, for her kids' college.
She says she asked out when he went ahead with his third marriage, and that it wasn't about the woman. Her version: he said he was going the other direction anyway. You live your life, I'll live mine. Her husband said all she wanted from him was time and honesty.
The verdict was a number on paper. The settlement was a fifth of it. The estate depends on who you ask. The only figure in this story that's certain is the zero, and she chose it.
Would you walk away from your father's money to stay out of the fight?
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Forbes says MrBeast earned $85 million in a year. Investors valued his company at $5.2 billion. MrBeast says he has "negative money" and is borrowing. In the same interview he says his biggest splurge was a private jet that cost about $150,000.
Which number is real?
In the clip he says nobody believes anything he says about his money. Then how Beast Games came out of his own pocket. Then the jet.
All of them can be true at once. That's the problem with the word "billionaire."
The error bar on MrBeast.
Earned, Forbes estimate, April 2024 to April 2025: $85 million.
Company valuation, September 2025 round: $5.2 billion.
His stake, by his own testimony, as reported: "a little over half."
Net worth on paper, by that math: about $2.6 billion.
Cash, by him, early 2025: under $1 million.
Cash, by him, June 2025: borrowing from his mom for the wedding.
Cash, by him, January 2026: negative.
Beast Games, the headlines: Amazon gave him $100 million.
Beast Games, by him: cost more than $100 million, and he lost tens of millions.
His company, per Bloomberg as reported: a net loss three years running.
Audited personal figures ever published: 0.
$2.6 billion on paper and less than zero in the bank isn't a contradiction. It's what happens when every dollar goes back into the company. But it means the billion is a number nobody can spend, and the only person who knows the cash figure is the one telling you it's negative.
Would you rather have his $2.6 billion on paper, or $1 million in cash?
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Carlos Ghosn escaped Japan in 2019 hidden in a box for concert equipment. He has lived free in Lebanon ever since and has never stood trial. The ex-Green Beret who planned the escape and his son went to prison in Tokyo. They were paid at least $1.3 million.
Who got the worse deal: the man in the box, or the men who carried it?
In the clip Ghosn explains why he left. Then he calls himself "a fugitive of injustice." Then Michael Taylor, the man who got him out, explains why he pleaded guilty.
Ghosn ran Nissan and Renault. In 2018 he was arrested in Tokyo over how his pay was reported and over company money. He denies all of it. Japan's conviction rate is above 99%. He was released on bail under tight conditions, and decided to leave.
The record.
November 2018: Ghosn arrested at Tokyo airport.
December 29, 2019: he leaves his Tokyo home, takes a bullet train to Osaka, and flies out in a box.
Paid to the Taylors, according to prosecutors: at least $1.3 million, part of it in crypto from Ghosn's son.
July 2021: Michael Taylor, 2 years. His son Peter, 1 year and 8 months.
March 2022: Greg Kelly, the only Nissan executive tried in Japan, gets a suspended sentence.
Ghosn in a Japanese court: 0 days.
Taylor in solitary, by his account: 17 months.
The man who was accused is free. The men who helped him are the ones who served time. Taylor called pleading guilty "a business decision": fight it at 99.4% odds and spend about six years inside, or plead and do two.
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Steven Adler played drums on Appetite for Destruction, an album that has sold more than 30 million copies. In 1990 Guns N' Roses fired him. In court he valued his share at $4 million to $10 million. He settled for about $2.25 million. The band's reunion tour later reportedly grossed $584 million.
In the video below, from the 1993 trial, the band's own lawyer explains why they could do it. Then Slash. Then Adler's lawyer says what Steven didn't understand.
Adler met Slash in school. They were in the band before it was famous. By 1990 he was on heroin. The band gave him a document: sign it and go on probation for 30 days, or be out today. He signed. Then he was out.
He sued in 1991. His side said he was too sick to know what he was signing, and that the people advising him also worked for the band. The band said they had every right to end the partnership. It settled in 1993.
Worked out.
Appetite for Destruction: 18 million US sales, over 30 million worldwide.
His share, by his estimate in court: $4 million to $10 million.
What he got: about $2.25 million, by most reports. One 1993 report says $2.5 million.
That's between 22% and 56% of what he said his share was worth.
Reunion tour, 2016 to 2019: reportedly $584 million.
His part in it: a few songs at a handful of shows in 2016.
He kept his name on the record and lost the band. The paper took a few minutes to sign.
You're 25, sick, and your best friends hand you a document: sign and stay on probation, or leave tonight. Do you sign, or do you walk and get a lawyer?
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In 2018 Brazilian prosecutors went after Ronaldinho's bank accounts over an unpaid fine and reportedly found about €6. In 2020 he and his brother paid $1.6 million in bail in Paraguay after a month in jail.
So where was the money?
Watch the arrest, the bail and the plea deal. Then a former player explains how a star like him ends up holding nothing himself.
The fine started with a pier and a fishing platform built without a licence on a protected lakeshore in Porto Alegre. A demolition order went unfulfilled. The fine grew. Courts blocked 57 of his properties and seized his passports.
In 2020 he and his brother Roberto, who is also his agent, entered Paraguay on fake Paraguayan passports. Prosecutors later said they found no evidence Ronaldinho played a role in getting them. His brother paid the heavier fine.
The math.
Fine, as prosecutors put it in 2018: about R$8.5 million.
Found in his accounts, reportedly: about €6.
Properties blocked: 57.
Bail in Paraguay, him and his brother: $1.6 million.
Time from jail to bail: about a month.
Plea-deal fines: $90,000 for him, $110,000 for his brother.
$1.6 million against €6 is roughly 250,000 times.
A fortune doesn't have to be in your name to be yours. But if it's in someone else's, you're trusting them with all of it, including the parts you never look at. One of his old opponents said it on air: he probably just took the passport off his brother.
Would you let one family member hold every account you have?
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Sasha Grey's most famous TV interview is a 2006 Tyra Banks segment that still goes viral. She says 75 to 80% of what she said was cut out. In it she said she hoped to make $100,000 to $150,000 that year. Today the internet puts her net worth anywhere from $2 million to $12 million, and none of those numbers has a source.
The clip opens on her own account of that show. Then the money line from the show itself. Then what she says about money now.
"The art of montage created an illusion that I had nothing to say." Five or more cameras, she says. Her answers became shots of her listening.
The error bar on Sasha Grey.
Her answers that made it to air, by her account: 20 to 25%.
Cameras on set, by her account: five or more.
Films at the time of the show, by the show: over 80 in 8 months.
Films in total, by The Guardian's count: about 270.
What she hoped to earn in 2006: $100,000 to $150,000.
Her net worth, online estimates: $2 million to $12 million.
The spread: 6 times.
Sources named for any of them: 0.
Last adult film: 2009, at 21. Retirement announced: 2011.
Since: the lead in a Steven Soderbergh film, a run on Entourage, four books, DJ sets, and 1.2 million followers on Twitch.
She says porn was the one thing she relied on "maybe economically for a while in the beginning." She doesn't say how much. She told Tyra her hope, and nobody has given a real number since.
The clip people share is an edit. The fortune people quote is a guess.
Which do you trust more: the edit, or her account of it?
In 2018 Brazilian prosecutors went after Ronaldinho's bank accounts over an unpaid fine and reportedly found about €6. In 2020 he and his brother paid $1.6 million in bail in Paraguay after a month in jail.
So where was the money?
Watch the arrest, the bail and the plea deal. Then a former player explains how a star like him ends up holding nothing himself.
The fine started with a pier and a fishing platform built without a licence on a protected lakeshore in Porto Alegre. A demolition order went unfulfilled. The fine grew. Courts blocked 57 of his properties and seized his passports.
In 2020 he and his brother Roberto, who is also his agent, entered Paraguay on fake Paraguayan passports. Prosecutors later said they found no evidence Ronaldinho played a role in getting them. His brother paid the heavier fine.
The math.
Fine, as prosecutors put it in 2018: about R$8.5 million.
Found in his accounts, reportedly: about €6.
Properties blocked: 57.
Bail in Paraguay, him and his brother: $1.6 million.
Time from jail to bail: about a month.
Plea-deal fines: $90,000 for him, $110,000 for his brother.
$1.6 million against €6 is roughly 250,000 times.
A fortune doesn't have to be in your name to be yours. But if it's in someone else's, you're trusting them with all of it, including the parts you never look at. One of his old opponents said it on air: he probably just took the passport off his brother.
Would you let one family member hold every account you have?
Ito retweeted
In 2006 YouTube's founders sold the company to Google for $1.65 billion. It was about 20 months old.
In 2025, analysts put a standalone YouTube at $475 billion to $550 billion.
Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were in their late 20s. Jawed Karim had already stepped back to finish school. In Google stock, their shares were later reported worth roughly $345 million, $326 million and $64 million.
In the video below, recorded the day the deal was announced, Hurley and Chen thank their users. Then Hurley calls it two kings coming together.
YouTube had raised about $11.5 million, mostly from Sequoia. It was losing money, and the media companies were circling over copyright. Google offered $1.65 billion, all in stock. The founders took it.
Worked out.
Sale price, 2006: $1.65 billion.
Founders' stock, valued at the early-2007 filing: roughly $735 million combined.
YouTube revenue in 2025: more than $60 billion.
Standalone value, analyst estimate in 2025: $475 to $550 billion.
$1.65 billion → $500 billion is about 300 times.
More than Netflix's revenue: yes, in 2025.
They got paid in Google shares, so they didn't lose all the upside. They lost the part only owners of YouTube itself would have had.
You're 28. Your company is losing money and the copyright lawyers are calling. Someone offers you $1.65 billion in stock. Do you take it?
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Lance Armstrong said "yes" to Oprah five times. The US government then went after him for up to $100 million and settled for $5 million. A $100,000 bet on Uber reportedly made him about $20 million. Two years after the confession he told the BBC he'd probably dope again.
Did he pay for it, or did he get away with it?
For years he called the people who told the truth liars. In the clip he admits he was a bully about it. Then the BBC asks the question nobody else did.
The record.
1999 to 2005: seven Tour de France wins.
2012: stripped of all seven and banned for life.
January 2013: "yes," five times, to Oprah.
2015: an arbitration panel orders him to pay $10 million to SCA Promotions, as a penalty for lying.
2018: the federal whistleblower case, which could have reached $100 million with triple damages, settles for $5 million, plus $1.65 million for Floyd Landis's lawyers.
What he says he lost in total, including income: $111 million.
What $100,000 in Uber reportedly turned into: about $20 million.
Prison: none. Doping wasn't charged as a crime.
The government asked for up to $100 million and took $5 million. Betsy Andreu, one of the people he called a liar, called that "utterly shocking."
He says the sport was "completely and totally pervasive" in 1995, and that's why he'd probably do it again. That's either the most honest thing he's said, or the last excuse.
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Lily Phillips says she made £800,000 in one month. She says she slept with 1,113 men in 12 hours. Holly Willoughby told her to her face that neither her record nor Bonnie Blue's has been verified. And the one time she showed her income on camera, the camera didn't see it.
The clip opens on the £800,000. Then the host who asked to see her dashboard. Then Holly. Then the day she broke down on film, and the BBC asking the question nobody on a podcast asks.
The dashboard scene is the whole story. A host says girls lie about what they make, so she hands him her phone. He looks. Nobody else does. His verdict: "Test passed."
The error bar on Lily Phillips.
Best month, by her, on Holly's show: £800,000.
A month before the documentary, by her: 150 to 200 grand.
That's not a contradiction. It's a peak and a normal month, and only she knows how many of each.
Net worth, public estimates: about $370,000 to $5 million. That's 13 times.
The average creator, by her: $100 to $200 a month.
Her record claim: 1,113 men in 12 hours.
What she told Holly when asked to verify it: she watched the 14-hour video.
Bonnie Blue's claim: 1,057. Also unverified.
Independent counts I could find: 0.
People who saw the dashboard: 1.
The one number nobody disputes came after the first stunt. She said she could remember 5 or 10 faces out of 100. "If I didn't have the videos, I wouldn't have known."
The BBC put it to her: don't you have to keep doing more extreme things to keep the money coming in? She said everyone in her line of work feels that. "It's consumption."
Two women in the same business claim two world records 56 apart, and neither has a referee.
What would you need to see before you believed the 1,113?
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The lawyer behind the real Erin Brockovich case was convicted of stealing $15 million from his own injured clients. Prosecutors said $20 million helped fund his wife's career. She's a Real Housewife, and she says she found out from a lawsuit.
Did Erika Jayne know, or did she really have no idea?
Tom Girardi spent decades as one of America's biggest injury lawyers. In the clip, his former client Josie Hernandez says he promised to "make my life whole again." Then a victim sits across from his wife and asks her the question directly.
Jayne says she learned something was wrong when a lending company sued her in Arizona, and that he kept telling her: "Don't worry about it. I've got it handled." She has not been charged, and she denies any wrongdoing. On the show she said: "We're not even sure that there were people that weren't paid." A jury then said they weren't.
The record.
1996: the Hinkley case against PG&E settles for $333 million. The film follows in 2000.
August 2024: guilty on all four counts of wire fraud. More than $15 million from four clients.
His defense: dementia. The judge found him competent, twice.
Money used for her career, per prosecutors: $20 million.
June 2025: 87 months, on his 86th birthday. The guidelines said 135 to 168.
Restitution ordered: about $2.3 million.
The gap: $15 million taken, about $2.3 million ordered back. About 6.5 times.
Erika Jayne: not charged. Civil cases followed.
One thing isn't in dispute anymore: a jury found the money belonged to his clients, and that he took it. What his wife knew is the part no court has decided.
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In 2006 Twitter sold for about $5 million. In 2022 Elon Musk paid $44 billion for it. Who got the worse deal?
In the video below the man who wrote the book on Twitter says what happened in between: the four friends who built it pushed each other out, one by one.
The 2006 sellers were the investors in Odeo, a dying podcasting startup. Twitter was its side project. Noah Glass gave it the name. In September 2006 CEO Evan Williams wrote to them that the company wasn't headed anywhere and offered to buy them out so they wouldn't take a loss. On Twitter he wrote: "it's much too early to tell what's there." It had fewer than 5,000 users, and he said he planned to keep investing in it.
They took the deal. Investors say they were made whole. Some said later they felt misled, others that it was gracious. James Hong, one of the angels: "Obviously, I wish what happened hadn't happened."
Then the other side of the question. In March 2025 Musk's AI company xAI bought X in an all-stock deal. He put X at $33 billion, or $45 billion counting $12 billion of debt. The $44 billion he paid in 2022 included debt too, so he values it about where he bought it. The number came from a deal between two of his own companies.
Worked out.
Sale, 2006: about $5 million. The exact price was never reported.
Users in the letter: under 5,000.
Close on IPO day, 2013: about $31 billion, counting options and restricted stock.
Musk's price, 2022: $44 billion.
$5 million → $44 billion in 16 years is about 8,800 times.
X in 2025, by Musk's own deal: $45 billion including debt.
Noah Glass's stake: the BBC said almost none.
The investors kept their money and lost Twitter. Musk got the company at a price he set the value of himself three years later. Glass kept the credit for the name and almost nothing else. "I do know that without me, Twitter wouldn't exist."
You've put money into a dying startup. The CEO offers it back in full. One side project has 5,000 users. Do you take the check?
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Diego Maradona told his children on video he was leaving them nothing and giving it all away. A year later he was dead, and the law had never allowed it. Five heirs, and estimates of his estate running from under £500,000 to $600 million.
Watch him say it. It's November 2019. His daughter Gianinna had posted that she was worried about him, and this was his answer.
"They worry more about what you leave than about what you're doing."
He was 59. He had five recognized children, and he had reportedly signed a will favoring his two eldest daughters, then revoked it.
What he didn't mention: under Argentine law you can only give away one third. The other two thirds go to your children. You can't vote them out, however angry you are.
The math.
Estate, Forbes estimate: $10 million to $40 million.
Estate, one Argentine lawyer: about $600 million.
Estate after debts, one estimate cited by the BBC: under £500,000.
The most he could give away: 1/3.
Each child's minimum share: 2/3 divided by 5 = 2/15, about 13%.
On $40 million that's about $5.3 million each.
On $10 million, about $1.3 million each.
On £500,000, about £67,000 each.
On $600 million, $80 million each.
A court later reportedly named the five children as equal heirs. The fight moved to his name. In September 2025 an appeals court indicted his former lawyer and two assistants over the handling of his brand, with two of his sisters prosecuted as accomplices. It's a case, not a conviction.
He tried to use the one vote a parent has left, and found out it only counts for a third.
You have five children and you're angry with them. If the law let you, would you really leave them nothing?
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Nicolas Cage told 60 Minutes he didn't blow his fortune on toys. "I was over-invested in real estate." His IRS bill? "About $6 million."
There is one problem with his story.
In the video below, Cage tells it his way, while his pet crow objects to the questions.
First, the dinosaur. He reportedly paid $276,000 for a 70-million-year-old skull, outbidding Leonardo DiCaprio. "I bought it at an auction, and I bought it legally."
Then US authorities found it was stolen from Mongolia. "I gave it to them, but I never got my money back. So somebody at the auction house should be in jail."
On the money, he is firm. "The real estate market crashed, and I couldn't get out in time." And: "I never filed for bankruptcy."
Here is the catch. In 2009 Cage sued his business manager for $20 million. The manager's countersuit, reported by CNN, told a different story.
It listed 15 homes, two castles, four yachts, an island in the Bahamas and a Gulfstream jet. In 2007 alone, it said, he bought $33 million in property and 22 cars.
And the tax bill he puts at $6 million? In 2010, NBC reported he had a plan to repay $14 million in back taxes.
The case for Cage: the 2008 crash was real, he paid everyone back, and he made three to four movies a year to do it. "Work was always my guardian angel."
The case against: a housing crash doesn't buy yachts. Both lawsuits ended in a confidential settlement in 2010.
Bottom line: the market sank his houses. Somebody still had to buy 15 of them.
Who do you believe: Cage, who blames the market, or the manager who says he warned him?
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Channing Tatum: "My best night, on a normal night, like 150 bucks." Years later he put his own money into a movie about the job that paid it.
He was 18, taking his clothes off on stage in Tampa.
Before the stage, he had been framing houses and spraying perfume samples at a Dillard's, hungover. Then he answered an ad for exotic dancers. His sister showed up on his first night to try to shame him out of going on.
He went on anyway. He lasted about eight months.
More than a decade later he was starring in Hollywood movies. His producing partner Reid Carolin says everyone on Tatum's team thought the stripper movie was "the worst idea in the history of ideas."
In 2011 Steven Soderbergh told him how they would make it: "You and I are going to pay for it."
"I didn't know if I had the money to do that," Tatum said, "but I knew I had to say yes."
The two of them put up the budget, about $7 million. Warner Bros. only bought the rights once they were already shooting.
Magic Mike opened to $39 million.
$150 for his best night on that stage. $167 million for the movie about it.
His own team called it the worst idea. He put his own money in anyway.
In 2012 he said: "After this movie's out I will never talk about it again." He has made two more Magic Mike movies since.
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In 2008, the main suspect in Natalee Holloway's disappearance sat in a friend's car, lit a joint, and told him what happened to her.
The car was rigged with hidden cameras.
His name was Joran van der Sloot. In 2005, 18-year-old Natalee left an Aruba nightclub with him on her graduation trip and was never seen again. He was arrested twice and released twice.
The "friend" was working with Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries. He spent about two months getting close to him before the tape rolled.
In the video below, they're sitting in the car. He talks about it like it's nothing.
"I know what happened to that girl."
"Dead. She's dead, right?" "Of course."
"I would never murder a girl."
"The ocean is big, huh."
"I just think I got really lucky that she was never found."
The tape aired on Dutch TV. An Aruban judge still refused to lock him up. He said he'd been high and lying.
Two years later he asked Natalee's mother for $250,000 to reveal where her body was. He took $25,000, $10,000 in cash and $15,000 wired to the Netherlands. Her lawyer was wearing a wire for the FBI. The location was a lie. Nobody stopped him from leaving Aruba.
He flew to Peru. On May 30, 2010, five years to the day after Natalee vanished, he killed again.
In 2023, in a US plea deal for the extortion, he finally admitted he killed Natalee. Her body has never been found, and Aruba's statute of limitations has run out.
He said it on camera in 2008. Should a confession like that have been enough to hold him, or did they need a body?
Diego Maradona told his children on video he was leaving them nothing and giving it all away. A year later he was dead, and the law had never allowed it. Five heirs, and estimates of his estate running from under £500,000 to $600 million.
Watch him say it. It's November 2019. His daughter Gianinna had posted that she was worried about him, and this was his answer.
"They worry more about what you leave than about what you're doing."
He was 59. He had five recognized children, and he had reportedly signed a will favoring his two eldest daughters, then revoked it.
What he didn't mention: under Argentine law you can only give away one third. The other two thirds go to your children. You can't vote them out, however angry you are.
The math.
Estate, Forbes estimate: $10 million to $40 million.
Estate, one Argentine lawyer: about $600 million.
Estate after debts, one estimate cited by the BBC: under £500,000.
The most he could give away: 1/3.
Each child's minimum share: 2/3 divided by 5 = 2/15, about 13%.
On $40 million that's about $5.3 million each.
On $10 million, about $1.3 million each.
On £500,000, about £67,000 each.
On $600 million, $80 million each.
A court later reportedly named the five children as equal heirs. The fight moved to his name. In September 2025 an appeals court indicted his former lawyer and two assistants over the handling of his brand, with two of his sisters prosecuted as accomplices. It's a case, not a conviction.
He tried to use the one vote a parent has left, and found out it only counts for a third.
You have five children and you're angry with them. If the law let you, would you really leave them nothing?