Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This SNL Star Lost Everything // The Kenan Thompson Story

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

Kenan Thompson lost an estimated $1.5 million in childhood earnings after a trusted family accountant absconded with his money. Thompson, who had granted the accountant power of attorney, discovered the devastating theft while attempting to buy his first home in Atlanta. He later faced unpaid tax issues with the IRS, which forced him into bankruptcy.

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. So Keenan Thompson worked his entire childhood just for someone to steal it from him. Now, Keenan, he's around 14 years old when this story starts and he's living in Atlanta. And he's a child actor at this point who's already done a few major movies. And Bro is obsessed with comedy. Like he loves performing and making people laugh and he dreams of being on TV. Specifically, he wants to be on SNL like his idol was.

Eddie Murphy. And one day, in 1994, Keenan's mom gets a call that changes his life forever. He overhears and learns that he's just been cast on a new Nickelodeon sketch comedy show, all that, which is basically like S&L for kids. And this is great for him. So Keenan flies out to Nickelodeon studios in Orlando, Florida, to work on the show. And this show, it becomes a hit. And suddenly, he's a series regular on this hit show, and this is everything Keenan has always dreamed of. But here's the thing about all of this. He comes from very humble beginnings. So when he suddenly starts making money, his mom doesn't have enough experience to manage it,

and she wants to make sure it's not spent irresponsibly. And one day, while she's at church, she meets this guy, who will just call accountant. An accountant tells her that he's some kind of tax expert and that he can protect her son's earnings and manage it safely for him. And this is great news for them. And eventually, accountant says, you should give me power of attorney. That way I can make decisions for Keenan without bothering him while he's on set. And they trust him, so Keenan and his mom agree and they sign the paperwork. And to make sure that Keenan doesn't overspend, accountant gives him a debit card with a spending limit of $150 a day.

And so a year or two passes, and Keenan is now 16 years old. And he wants to buy himself a nice car, a sports car. I mean, of course he does. He's 16-year-old making money. But accountant is like, no, no, buy something practical. And he tells him to buy an old used, cheap, beat-up Chevy Beretta. It looks like this. And of course, Keenan isn't happy about this.

In fact, whenever Keenan wants to spend a bit of his money, accountant always discourages him saying, you need to keep saving for your future. And so Keenan saves and he keeps on working and performing and acting. And eventually his performance on all that makes him such a standout that he's offered a lead role on his own TV show, Keenan and Kel. So now he's working on two hit TV shows at the same time. And soon he becomes one of the biggest stars on Nickelodeon. He even gets to star in his own Nickelodeon movie. Good Burger.

I mean, you get it. He's a massive success, and this success goes on for years. But it's not going to last forever. Because now it's the year 2000, and Kenan is 21 years old at this point. And so he's no longer a kid, and this same year, his contract with Nickelodeon ends. And this really sucks for him, because now he feels really lost. I mean, it's one thing to make it as a child actor. It's a whole different thing to be taken seriously by the industry as an adult actor.

But, even so, he still hasn't given up on his dream of being on SNL. His agent even sends Keenan's tapes to SNL producers over and over again trying to get him on the show. But unfortunately, he gets rejected every single time with the same response. You look too young. And Keenan, he doesn't take this rejection well. I mean, he's just like, well, that's just an excuse. I'm older than Eddie Murphy was when he was on the show. They just don't want me.

And so, Keenan, he's kind of in a crisis. He feels like he needs to figure out what he's going to do with the rest of his life. And so he goes back home to Atlanta and he stays with his mom. And one day, he's chilling at his mom's house. And that is when he gets an idea. I've been working my whole life. I've saved up $1.5 million by now. And he figures that he can buy himself a house for $400,000 and still have over a million

left over. And with that, he can basically retire and not have to worry about whether Hollywood will ever accept him as an adult actor. And so, Keenan goes out and he finds his dream house. It's right down the street from his mom's. It's perfect. This is the future he's been saving for his whole life. So, for the first time, he's going to make amazing.

purchase using his own money. So he calls accountant and he's like, I'm buying a house, meet me at escrow and bring a check. Then he goes to the escrow offices and he's waiting there with all the people ready to sign the paperwork. He just needs the check. So they wait and they wait and they wait. But accountant doesn't show up and Keenan keeps calling him and calling him but he doesn't pick up. And this is the moment when he gets That's a really bad feeling. He's going to get to the bottom of it. So he drives to accountant's house and accountant is not home.

So he parks in his driveway and he doesn't sleep and he doesn't eat. He just sits in his car waiting for accountant to come home all night. But by dawn, he's still not there. And that is when Keenan starts to realize that he's been robbed of his entire life savings. $1.5 million. dollars. Everything he worked for, all that Nickelodeon money, the money he was so careful not to spend, the future he had been planning for, all of it, gone. And so poor Kenan is devastated. And that is when things keep getting worse. Because sometime after this, he gets a letter in the mail from the IRS. Apparently, all those years that accountant was supposed to be paying his taxes for him, he wasn't. He was just pocket. the money, I guess. And so now, Keenan has a massive IRS bill from years of unpaid taxes, plus tons of penalties tacked on. So at this point, he has no choice. He has to sue accountant.

So Keenan takes him to court, and he wins the lawsuit, but it doesn't seem to matter. Accountant has already spent all of Keenan's money, and people without money can't pay you back, even if you sue them. So now, Keenan isn't just broke. He's in massive. debt, unpaid taxes, IRS penalties, and now lawyers fees. And thus he has to go and file for bankruptcy. And this is officially the lowest point in his life. And so now he has a choice. He can let this injustice drive him insane or he can try to move on with his life.

And ultimately he decides he's not going to let this destroy him. And he says, fuck this, I'm going to get back to work. And so he flies to Hollywood, determined to rebuild his life from the ground up. And he doesn't have a place to live, so he has to crash on the couch of one of his former co-stars of all that. And he, like, has to borrow money from his mom and from his buddies just to get by. And he hustles and he hustles. But, you know, work doesn't come easily.

And so he tells his agent, I will literally take any role that you can get me. I don't care if I have to play a hot dog vendor with one line. I'll take anything. And slowly, over time, one role leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another. And then in 2003, he finally gets the call. The greatest call he's ever gotten. It's Saturday Night Live. They want him to join the cast.

It is a dream come true. And so in three years, he went from sleeping on a couch to the greatest job a comedian can get. and Kenan's been on SNL ever since then, and he's become the longest lasting cast member in the show's history.