Stars who served as celebrity ambassadors for the now-discredited crypto exchange FTX could be on the hook legally for billions of dollars — and it turns out Taylor Swift narrowly avoided the same fate.
In the latest episode of The Scoop podcast, attorney Adam Moskowitz talks about how he’s suing stars like Shaquille O’Neal, Tom Brady and Larry David in a class action lawsuit. The suit contends that, by promoting FTX, the stars were were promoting the sale of unregistered securities, which is illegal in the U.S.
Moskowitz, who’s seeking $5 billion in the lawsuit, says he doesn’t understand why these stars’ handlers didn’t bother to find out more about the company before their clients made digital and TV ads for FTX. The only person he says did their due diligence was Taylor.
“The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift,” Moskowitz says. “In our discovery, Taylor Swift actually asked that: ‘Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?"”
In December of 2022, the Financial Times reported that Taylor and FTX were in negotiations for a $100 million deal involving ticketing and NFTs, but talks collapsed in November.
One former FTX employee told the Financial Times the company was looking for a “light degree of endorsement” from Taylor on social media, but another source insisted, “Taylor would not, and did not, agree to an endorsement deal. The discussion was around a potential tour sponsorship that did not happen.”
FTX filed for bankruptcy in November. The company’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, has pleaded not guilty to fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the U.S., among other charges.
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