Former National Football League (NFL) quarterback Tom Brady has reportedly lost tens of millions of U.S. dollars in stock of the failed crypto exchange FTX. Brady is one of several celebrities sued by FTX customers for their endorsements of the collapsed crypto trading platform.
Brady and Bündchen Were Paid Millions of Dollars in FTX Stock
Longtime NFL quarterback Tom Brady received $30 million from FTX, mostly in the form of company stock, the New York Times revealed in a report this past Friday. The U.S. football star appeared in commercials for the digital asset exchange before it filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2022.
Besides Brady, who served as an ambassador for FTX, his ex-wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, got $18 million, also in stock, the report added. The stock doesn’t cost much since the collapse of FTX, one of the largest crypto trading platforms, the founder of which faces a criminal trial.
The former couple and other celebrities were named in a lawsuit filed by FTX customers unhappy with their endorsements for the failed exchange. The crypto platform was also promoted by tennis star Naomi Osaka and Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry among others.
In this group of promoters was also National Basketball Association (NBA) Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal who was served a legal notice in the class-action case in April after allegedly trying to avoid being served for quite some time.
According to the New York Times, Brady and Bündchen starred in a $20 million advertising campaign for FTX. Brady even posted Tiktok videos with the company’s founder and former chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, from the FTX headquarters in the Bahamas. Bankman-Fried was arrested there in January and extradited to the U.S. where he was charged with defrauding investors.
The newspaper also wrote that pop icon and Grammy Award winner Taylor Swift was in talks with FTX and after months of discussions signed a deal with the exchange that could have paid her up to $100 million. Citing sources familiar with the agreement, the publication revealed that Bankman-Fried eventually pulled out of the deal.
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