If the trailer for the next season of The White Lotus landing earlier this week wasn't enough rich people bullshit for you, Business Insider has now published an exposé about how already-wealthy musicians like Lil Wayne, Alice in Chains and Chris Brown allegedly abused 2020's Shuttered Venue Operators Law, which was intended to subsidize venues and artists who were suffering lost wages due to pandemic-related shutdowns.
If it tugged at your heartstrings back in September when Lil Wayne posted that video talking about losing out on the 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show to Kendrick Lamar, ready yourself to maybe feel otherwise: according to Business Insider's report, Lil Wayne received an $8.9 million USD taxpayer-funded grant, and spent "more than $1.3 million from the grant on private-jet flights and over $460,000 on clothes and accessories."
The rapper reportedly also used some grant money for "flights and luxury hotel rooms for women whose connection to Lil Wayne's touring operation was unclear, including a waitress at a Hooters-type restaurant and a porn actress," as well as taking $88,000 for a concert he didn't show up to. Business Insider reached him via text and he answered with "a sexually explicit overture to a reporter and did not respond to questions."
While we normally reserve writing about Chris Brown for his annual inclusion on our Worst Album Covers list, we'd be remiss not to point out that the report said that the disgraced singer's touring company received $10 million in grant money, with an additional $5.1 million going directly to him — plus $80,000 to throw himself a birthday party? Meanwhile, Marshmello apparently got $10 million, more than any other single musician. Royalties from Ed Sheeran features can only go so far!
The Business Insider exposé goes on to detail the ways in which musicians like Steve Aoki, Shinedown and Rae Sremmurd allegedly spent taxpayer dollars. The members of Alice in Chains were given $3.4 million in grant money, but instead of spending it on benefits like healthcare, they launched a GoFundMe campaign for longtime guitar tech and tour photographer Scott Dachroeden when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2022. (Dachroeden has since died, with sources telling the publication that the band did little to help him financially.)
There is so much to be infuriated by when it comes to how governments — especially here in North America — have handled the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, brazenly proving themselves to value the economy far more than human life. It's especially frustrating that grants created to keep artists and cultural institutions afloat somehow ended up (again, rich people bullshit) funding Lil Wayne's Gucci and Balenciaga drip for his private-jet flights.