Kevin Bacon has opened up about losing “most” of his money in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
During Monday’s (10 October) episode of the SmartLess podcast, hosted by fellow actors Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett, the Footloose star revealed that he and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, had invested and lost “most of our money” in Madoff’s $50b (£45.2b) Ponzi scheme.
“There’s obvious life lessons there. You know, if something is too good to be true, it’s too good to be true,” Bacon reflected.
“When something like that happens, you know, you look at each other, then you go, ‘Well, that sucks. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work,’ you know?”
The 64-year-old later said: “We’ve made it this far. Our kids are healthy. We’re healthy. Let’s look at what we have that’s good.”
He further added that others might not be “happy to hear me whining about money”, acknowledging that there were many others affected by Madoff’s investment scandal, which led to the fraudster’s eventual 150-year prison sentence in 2009.
“Certainly, you get angry and stuff, but I have to say that there were a lot of people who were much worse off than we were,” Bacon said. “Old people, people whose retirement funds were completely decimated. There’s always gonna be somebody that’s gonna have it a lot worse than you.”
Bacon later said that they were able to “get a portion of some money back and there was also a lawsuit and stuff like that”.
“Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” he said.
Madoff, who died last year at the age of 82 during his incarceration, was famously known for orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme that wiped out people’s fortunes and ruined charities.
