The Iced Coffee Hour - The Unbelievable Story Of Ben Baller: Riches, Jewelry, & Crime

Episode Date: July 23, 2023

Propel your business with a newsletter today with Hubspot: https://clickhubspot.com/udt Protect your privacy with DeleteMe at https://www.joinDeleteMe.com/ICH20 and get 20% off your plan with code ICH20. NEW: Join us at http://www.icedcoffeehour.club for premium content - Enjoy! Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselbyhttps://www.instagram.com/gpstephanhttps://www.instagram.com/alex_nava_photographyTimestamps:INTRO - 00:00:00:00Where Ben Got His Start - 00:03:45:04A Baller Childhood - 00:05:25:13Getting Arrested At 9 Years Old - 00:08:00:15How The Streets Shaped Ben - 00:12:06:16Fighting The Infamous Mendez Brothers - 00:22:00:23Beverly Hills High School Is STACKED - 00:22:53:20Playing Ball Overseas - 00:30:57:12How Working At A Club Changed Everything - 00:34:36:15Getting Audited - 00:40:43:09Making Millions From Sneakers - 00:42:10:14Breaking Up With His Fiance - 00:47:09:11Turning Jewelry Into A Career - 00:52:45:15Connecting With Justin Bieber - 00:56:50:02The "Plain Jane" Incident - 00:57:52:15Ben Baller's Favorite Pieces Of Jewelry - 01:02:33:04Finding Golf - 01:06:25:06Why Ben Lost So Much Weight - 01:17:41:19Getting Through The Rough Patches - 01:20:04:01 Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [e-mail] GET YOUR FREE STOCK WORTH UP TO $1000 WITH OUR SPONSOR PUBLIC - USE CODE GRAHAM: http://www.public.com/graham MY NEW COFFEE IS NOW FOR SALE: http://www.bankrollcoffee.com/ The Equipment used: https://tinyurl.com/y78py5g2 Audio Equipment Used In Podcast: Shure SM7B mics, cloud lifters, rodecaster pro audio interface The YouTube Creator Academy: Learn EXACTLY how to get your first 1000 subscribers on YouTube, rank videos on the front page of searches, grow your following, and turn that into another income source: https://bit.ly/2STxofv $100 OFF WITH CODE 100OFF For Podcast Inquiries, please contact [e-mail] *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ben Baller is your true rags to rich's story. Growing up from Los Angeles gang culture. You know what I'm saying? Representing that platinum lifestyle. To selling some of the most expensive jewelry to the most famous people in the world. This includes people like Drake, Kanye West, Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, John Mayer, Mac Miller, Kid Cuddy, and many, many more. I met Tupac there.

I met Tupac there. I met NFL stars. I met tons of NBA players. I met Dr. Dre there and got my job from him there. all while being featured in some of the most recognizable rap lyrics of all time. However, all of that recently came to an end when he decided to abruptly quit. Today, he's exposing everything from growing his empire, spending money, and the secrets behind all of his success on today's episode of, subscribe.

But first, we're really excited to announce today's sponsor, HubSpot. Look, I could say from experience that running a business could often feel like juggling a whole bunch of things at the same time. And one of the most overlooked aspects that most people don't even consider is digital marketing. That is exactly where HubSpot comes in. They've recently acquired the hustle, which is a newsletter started with just one person and is now skyrocketed to over three million followers. HubSpot and the hustle have teamed up to bring you a comprehensive guide on exactly what you need to do to build an effective newsletter. And I say all of this as somebody

who has a newsletter already with over 40,000 people on it. If you're not doing a newsletter, you absolutely should consider it because it's so powerful. Graham, that sounds really expensive. Well, the good news is that this is completely free. free. And by signing up for the newsletter, you're not only gaining access to super valuable tips and tricks, but you're also becoming a part of the hustle's thriving business community. It's a place where entrepreneurs like you can connect and watch other businesses flourish. Now, you might be wondering, are newsletters even relevant in this day and age? Well, when it comes to digital marketing, volume is key. And when done right, newsletters can drive thousands

of visitors straight to your website. HubSpot provides the tools, expertise, and strategies you need to make your newsletter stand out. And again, I'll tell you from first-hand experience, having a newsletter is so important because the people you reach that sign up with a newsletter are the ones you really want to reach out to. So don't put this off. Don't just think, oh, I'll do it later. Take your business to the next level with HubSpot. So click the link in the description to check out your free newsletter building guide. Again, it's free. That's F-R-E-E. It's in like zero it. It's free. Thank you so much HubSpot. And now back to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you on because I got to say, dude, when it comes to jewelry, hip-hop, I feel like you're a legend

did this man. Like, immortalized in rap lyrics, too, I feel like in a sense. Dude, I had like this marketing company from NBC that did this thing. And I was like, fuck, I didn't even know. I was mentioned like in a hundred songs. I was like, wow. You been mentioned in 100 songs? Yeah, there's actually a huge K-pop star. I was looking at the door and there was like an address, make sure I was and someone's name is Jay Park here or whatever. Jay Park is like the Diddy of Korea. He's, you know, and K-pop is obviously enormous, you know, BTS, all that stuff. He was in a, in a K-pop group. He was huge. So he has like three record labels now and everything else. And his last album, he has a hit single. The name of a song is Ben Baller. So the only the hook is about

I was like, what? I feel kind of weird about that, bro. And then we shot the video up my story. It was just fucking weird. I always forget about things like that, you know, but. Where did you come up with the name, Baller at the end? Where did that come from? It came from playing basketball, because that was the, that was the term on the street. If you were a baller, it was like right before being a baller, it was like a dude on the streets who had money, who was hustling and getting, you know, getting bread or you had bet but really baller was like in that mid late 80s you were playing ball like you actually had to play you know you had skills playing basketball ball or shorts this and that and it was just not

and it changed completely to a different thing you know which it all transitioned correctly so that's interesting uh what where did you get your start you grew up in los angeles right was born or raised about probably we get real geometric uh um i was saying geomiturgical um we get real geometric as far uh I would say what about four or five miles from here. Yeah. I was born and raised in Korea Town. That's probably one of the biggest, gentrified areas, and it was really about a square mile. Ktown probably occupies more area than Hollywood now.

It's ridiculous how far it stretches. Born and raised there, predominantly Latino community, always been predominantly Korean-owned businesses. But then the Koreans really started moving. I saw this thing the other day where people didn't believe me, and I've been saying it for a decade at least, maybe even long two decades Korean food in Los Angeles now

in Korea town is better than Korean food in Korea there's certain soups and stews and certain recipes and certain things in Korea that are going to always have that that you know what I'm saying that sauce but the money here is so big that all the best chefs and all the best cooks have come to L.A

and you could just go to any random place it's hard to get bad Korean food here Korea town they want to make it look like Korea There's certain things infrastructure-wise they can't do here. Like, for instance, you know, when you see a building that's four or five stories tall. Now there's three or four stories underneath as well. And you could be on the fourth story basement. Like, you'd be on 4B and have five bars on your phone.

Like, how the fuck is happening? You know what I mean? Like the Wi-Fi is incredible. You walk everywhere. But it's just a weird thing. Like, I love it. And sometimes I'm like, I want to go. I can never live there.

What was your childhood like? My childhood was very well. weird. Dad's professor, also a pastor at a church. What do you teach? Asian studies, UCLA. My dad was head of Asian history there for 30 plus years.

My mom was a dress contractor. She sewed dresses in a factory. Both of them working early. Either one of them were able to take me to school. Sometimes after a while they didn't. So I was a latchkey kid at an early age. I was probably a latchkey kid. I'd be like even as early as six or seven.

We did have a nanny when I was born. My mom and dad came here, poverty-stricken. I think my mom came over $20 or something like that. I had said $200 one time in an interview, and then my sister was like, what the fuck you mean? She had had $200. And I guess my brother had told me that my dad had went to jail for moving violation because I couldn't afford to pay it.

And like even to the point where I remember going to candy, getting candy in the store. I'm 50. Snickers, Twix, whatever the fuck it was. I remember when Twix came out for the first time. I saw old I remember seeing these candies and seeing like a Hershey's bar. or something. And I remember it was 25 cents. I remember going when gas was like 19 cents like that. I

remember going and seeing like a soda was 30 cents, like a Coke. And you start seeing different things. And so if my brother is eight years older than me, can you imagine how cheap a piece of gum or something was then? And my brother ate a piece of gum because he never been in a store before. He was like tripping. And he didn't pay for it. Just ate a piece of gum. And my parents were having a panic attack because they couldn't afford to pay for that. It's crazy, right? And I've had this fascination with liquor stores since I was a kid. And one thing my wife and my mother-in-law noticed,

like, took him maybe a couple years. My mother-in-law had said, Ben has a fascination with liquor stores, and I always had because I was a kid walking the streets. So I was going to a liquor store. I always used to be video games in there, arcade games. In 20% I would go there,

and that was like, arcade games raised me, the streets raised me. I got arrested for the first time in 1981. I was eight. You know what I'm saying? Why would you get arrested for it? I was stealing 82, sorry, I was nine. I was stealing Kalikovision video games out of Sears.

And they had a tent. They had like a thing where they were doing a renovation inside Sears at the Cerritos Mall in Cerritos, California. And they moved everything outside. And the security was terrible. So that would do was I would see all these video games I loved, Calico Vision shit, right? I would take the video games and shy them under the tent.

Then we'd go into the parking lot and go on the other side and grab the fucking things. And I got away with it. Our dumb asses, me and my boy, Fred, we got on a bus and were bragging about $200-something dollars. I didn't know that was grand theft larceny. I had no idea. Actually, it was probably more than that because it was grand theft larceny. I think maybe it might have hit a certain point.

Whatever grand theft larceny was in 1982. And a security guard from Sears was on the fucking bus with us. Oh, man. And then by the time he goes, hey, man, you guys are like he wasn't aggressive. He was a big dude, much bigger than us. We could have ran. And then we didn't. So I was so scared because my dad was such a bad

He was a big motherfucker People would be like oh shit He's a Korean King Kong Bundy I don't know if you know what King Kong Bundy was That's like like Andre the Giant Like he was a famous wrestler So I stayed in jail overnight because When you were nine?

Yeah they were asking me Hey what's your phone number? What's your address? And I was like I don't know What's your phone number? I don't know That's how scared I was to go home Because jail was gonna be better than me going

You know what I'm saying? Do that at nine Was it like a holding cell or something No I was in a holding cell with actual fucking adults and everything. And every time new people would come in, they'd be like, like, there was one chick who was like part-in just a white blonde chick, she'd be like,

what the fuck are you in here for? You know, because tell you the truth back then, I looked like a good kid. You know, I had like long hair, whatever, boom. I looked like, you know, I had decent clothes. So they were like, what the hell? And then at a certain point, there were some drunk dudes. There were some like Pisid, Pisid dudes.

Like, you know, dudes were just fresh off the boat from Mexico. There was a bunch of random dudes. There was like a couple, like, there was like maybe one thug. And I was cracking jokes. So I had the jail cell crack in there laughing and stuff. And I'm nine, the sheriff came in and he goes, the fuck it's so funny. I was a man, go fuck off.

And I remember him grabbing the back of my head and slam my face against the wall. And I was like, fuck you. Finally, my boy Fred kind of caved in. His mom found out. She came to pick us up. They called my parents. And my sister called the police station. Remember this is different times.

This is rotary phone, no call waiting. There's a thing called emergency breakthrough. if you guys I'm familiar with that, there's no call waiting. So if your phone's busy, they will call the operator and they'll do emergency breakthrough to your phone.

Like, this is an emergency breakthrough someone needs to talk to you. Because remember, I always think about now, like, what would you do? Like, you're trying to reach somebody. Yeah. You just didn't. You missed out or whatever.

Like, if you know, you'd be like, oh, shit, there was someone there. They took off. What were you going to do? Go call their cell phone. There wasn't cell phones. I mean, there was, but it's like,

there was, like, maybe like, in the early 80s, mid-80s, but like, it was like $19 a minute. Wait, hold that thought for a moment, Ben, because we just teleported all the way back to our studio to talk about something that's extremely important, and that would be data privacy. So we live in a digital era, which obviously is great for making money, but not so good when it comes to your personal information. Now, I didn't tell you this, Graham, and it's a crazy coincidence, but just last week, one of my housemates Kevin had his identity stolen. And the thief has been trying to use Kevin's identity to buy TVs, and I kid you not is destroying Kevin's credit score. Don't end up like Kevin.

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Stay private and safeguard your financial well-being with Delete Me today. And now what that said, let's get back to the podcast. What was it about the streets that you gravitated towards? What was I going to do? There was really nothing else for me to do. So play basketball and do that, right? Your parents were cool with that? They weren't.

They were super strict. Thing of like a professor would be probably pretty buttoned up, wanting his kid to go down maybe the right path, not like hanging out with. So I was the youngest of three. My brother and sister both went to boarding schools. My brother went to school with the Kennedys. My brother went to school with the most elite of elite. There's no school in Beverly Hills or even Stuyvesant like in New York.

I'm just trying to think of any high-end level school. It doesn't get, you know, I mean, it's up, you know, it gets the point where it's like, even Harvard and Yale and those Ivy League schools, they're still in Ivy League. There's so few schools in a high school system to have a history of Andover or Exeter. a Phillips Academy, you know what I mean? And my brother was there. He was a brilliant, you know, he was a genius, like beyond genius.

Yeah. Almost to the point where I didn't understand what the spectrum was until I started having kids. And you started realizing what like Asperger's is and certain things. And even like, finding out Elon had it. I almost feel like my brother and Elon are a lot alike. And my sister was also very brilliant.

So they're in boarding school. So I was at home just fucking up. And I think that I was smart enough to get good grades. but my homework wasn't very good. So back in the day, you would get graded on tests, you know, your grades, but you also got graded on conduct.

So I could have an A in a class and end up getting a C or a D because my conduct was so bad. Like I would be in school, and I remember, you know, the teacher would call the principal. Like pick up the phone. Again, you know, phone with the wire.

And I'd be like, fuck this. And I'd go get scissors from arts and crafts and cut the phone lines. Hello? Hello? Hello? Because I know I was going to get in trouble. I would do silly shit like

I just deal I cause a lot of trouble How did you not just get continuously spending? Well my parents got divorced when I was 10 and I think

that right there was the end of everything and I think I was really happy as a kid generally yeah we ate dinner every night was my family we um

we were it was a very big thing we had had to have dinner we had to go to church we had to do certain things it was a weird thing then for like a little bit my mom ghosted

I don't think my mom ghosted because she didn't want My mom was getting her ass whooped every day. Like my dad was whooping her. She was the breadwinner. My dad made, I think at one point, I think he was making maybe up to $30,000 a year as a fucking professor.

You know, and that ain't shit. And my mom was just over it. She's like, fuck this, I can't do this anymore. I think she was sleeping at the factory. My mom worked 80 to 100 hour weeks. And she took off for a little bit. And it's like, fuck this. She left everything, like her clothes, everything.

She's like, let's start over. And in a way, I feel like, man me. my mom was so alike. Me and my dad are really like. My dad, he would tell me stories that he was really wild as a young kid. The crazy part is my dad was born in Pyongyang. It wasn't North Korea then.

Korea was one country. How fucking crazy is that? That when the war happened, my dad walked across the fucking border. Do you know what I mean? And now at that point, there was no going back because of North Korea. So that's a weird thing.

I don't know if I've really even, I've talked about on my podcast. I never really talked about it on a public podcast forum. you know, a platform. But yeah, man, I grew up in the streets and everything else. And then I met this dude, Eric Holmes. And he was like 6-2 at like 13.

And he was from a Crip gang. And I was just fascinated with Crips. Crips, you know, I actually lived in a blood neighborhood surrounded by essay neighborhoods, right, by all Mexican gangs. And I was fascinated with the culture. I don't know what it was. I was obsessed with hip-hop. I was breakdancing.

I was winning a break-dance contest. you know, in the early 80s. I was able to go to New York as a young kid, you know what I mean, and try to find rock steady crew and beat street crew and all that stuff. And just doing, I was completely submerged in hip-hop culture from the graffiti aspect to the DJing,

to hip-hop in every possible form. But I also love basketball. And there was a park one block away from me called Audmore Park. I can't tell you how many of it must have it at this fucking park, right? Korea towns are still a pretty decent area, but if you go to some CD parks, you'll see some shit. And then there's an area called Chateau Park where it's like, it could get real ugly right there.

That's kind of like almost at a border. I don't even know if you would call it Koreatown, but you could because it's like across the street. And it was just like this little area that we grew up in. So I think after my parents got divorced, I had transferred so much from fifth grade, sixth grade, to my freshman year in high school. I went to six schools.

That's a lot. I remember getting transferred to one school the first day didn't know anybody there was affiliated with like a little gang and this and that and this was a school where and most people know that live in LAA L.A. I don't know

how it works anywhere else because I think that this is like this was a capital gang culture you know when it comes. But like our school had like you know when you see like valedictorian the whatever boom the principal's office there was areas in office where they actually had all the gangs that were there and they had the people line up and they had

And gang pictures are updated every year. Yeah, if you're an 18th Street, whatever, boom. You know, you're from the Hellrats. You're from the Rockwood Street. You're from the Rascals, whatever, Diamond Street. They had all the gangs lined up. My first week at this school, I've been there a fucking first day. And I kicked this kid in his thigh game with Charlie Horse.

I didn't know who the fucking kid was. Kicked out right there. Why? Why did you kick that game? I have no idea why. You don't remember why you kicked him? Don't even know. I honestly think that he really had no.

I don't think he had a reason to be kicked. You just, I gave a knee right to his thigh And I gave him a Charlie horse And he fell down and he just shot crying My transcript was already bad And you know these transcripts get sent here and there I think after three days They're like yo you're out of here

So finally I went to a Catholic school Catholic school it's like You know they're not gonna fuck around at all And there's like you know Sister marry this blah blah blah There's nuns And I got all the way through the year battling through shit

All this other stuff wearing a uniform On the last fucking week of school I got caught flipping off the nun. Why did you flip off the nun? She didn't have to do that. She was such a bitch. So, what did she do, man? Ready, she was just a bitch. She was a miserable piece of shit. They call my dad's office at UCLA.

My brother's a lot older than me. Yeah. My brother happened to be home from college. Picked up my dad's office phone and acted like my dad and worked out a deal with the school. Because only one week of school left. So let him do all this, this, this is my brother's genius. Yeah. He got a 1580 on his SAT at 14 And then my dad put him in the hospital

Because he didn't get a perfect score Like put him in And every time I think I got my SBW single time Like I think about getting hit by a belt Like 400, 500 times Like cruel shit like he would do Like put me in the bathroom, turn the lights off Maybe sit on my knees for 30 minutes

By the time you get up I don't care how young you are Or how resilient you are You can't walk because you're like sore You know what you have cramps or anything Then you get up and it gets smacked Like you would just do crazy shit My dad would like you know

I would have to wear long sleeves on a hot day Because I have so many lashes on my arms and stuff my brother got beat worse than I did. And regardless, like, imagine getting your ass knocked the fuck out. How do you want, you're not going to, you know, and someone else gets it worse, it's like, Jesus Christ, you know. My brother was able to work out a deal where I would still graduate. Seventh grade.

What was the eighth grade? I forgot. Seventh grade, I think. And not go to school, turn around my homework every day and he would do it. And my brother would just basically, every morning, act like he was taking me to school. He would take me to Venice Beach to go work out at Gold's Jam, boom, whatever. this, he would do the homework. And he's like, I should kick your for being a fuck up. I can't believe this. He understood, like,

I was the youngest, I was fucking up. Finally, my dad was like, look, I don't want to pay for Catholic school anymore. Moved to a 630 square foot apartment, one bedroom fucking apartment. Me, my dad, my sister, part-time, my brother, one bed, this was a tiny place. Now I forget, 360 South Rexford Drive in Beverly Hills so I could be in the Beverly Hills School District. So I went to Beverly Vista.

At that school, there was a kid, a Russian kid, that was a childmaker, and I was like, all these fucking pussy motherfuckers, Beverly Hills is fucking bull-up. I lived in an apartment building, you know what I'm saying? So it was a weird thing. Russian kid was a graffiti artist.

I was like, who is this clown? Now, mind you, most graffiti artists, you'd be 16, 17, 18, or something. Like, they aren't going to be many graffiti artists that are 13 or 14. but I ran with the older crowd always. So I was the guys who were driving, you know what I'm saying? When I was getting kicked out all the schools and gang banging and stuff,

I was hanging out with one of the most notorious graffiti crews in the world. This dude ended up actually joining a rival group because he's from the west side. I'm all the way, you know, you know, anywhere from Boyle Heights to downtown L.A. to like Korea town. And he used to write Rescue. And he was Russian. And I thought he was like, whatever. Anyways, fast forward, this dude ended up being in a massive hip-hop group called House of Pain. DJ Lethal.

Then after that, he was even a bigger rock band called Limbiscuit. Yeah. So, you know, like, me and me and Leto always been cool. It was like a weird thing. And we've always been cool. And like, I connected with him there. Then when, you know, I finished there, I actually liked that school. There was hot chicks.

I was like, damn, these chicks are there was like, girls are just beautiful. People were rich. Even if you weren't, you were still privileged, Rodeo Drive, whatever. And I was like, wow, this is kind of all right. It was cool. I went to school with Ray Manzarek's son, Pablo. Ray Manzarek was one of the members of the doors, one of the most famous rock bands ever. So it was like a really cool thing.

I don't care we were poor. And then we live in this little small place. So now I go to Beverly Hills High. Menendez brothers. Monica Lewinsky is one of my closest friends. The Menendez brothers were there? Yeah, they were there. I got in a fight with fucking Lyle or Eric, like my first week there.

So how did you get into a fight with Eric Menendez? I was a freshman playing football where we were just walking past and even though it's a big school now Beverly Hills High School is the only high school in Beverly Hills there was like a small private school that there's a couple of Jewish academies

and I remember passing through going to the swim gym which is the gymnasium that has a swimming pool for water polo and for swim meets and has a basketball gym on top of that like an opening one this was a pretty dope school

I ended up getting in a fight with this dude like I shouldered him freshman, this guy's a senior, didn't realize later. I was like, holy shit. Like, later, later, like, all that shit happened in real time. You know what I mean? It was crazy. There was kids driving to school in Porsche, BMWs and things like that.

And I was like, whoa. I had to meet me and some really cool people at a young age. At 15, I met Nicole Egert, and she was already on a hit TV show called Charles in Charge. And I was, like, obsessed with. I was in love with this girl. My friend was dating her. She ended up being the other girl outside of Pamela Anderson on the number one show in the world called Baywatch. me and Nicole

Nicole just sent me a picture the other day she's like I'm knowing you a long time like I saw it the other day I saw it like three or four years ago when I bought my new house and I had a Fourth of July party

and this and that anyways me and Monica Clemensky had like four or five classes together one kid that was in my class that was always quiet was on my football team I saw him get dropped off

in a black testerosa now mind you in 1988 this is Miami Vice a black testerosa that's literally like That's as cool as me dropping off my kid in a in a law Ferrari. It was a big fucking deal. And the kid's name is James Purse.

It's an enormous fucking designer. We were talking a couple weeks ago. Now think about how many kids went to school, David Schwimmer, Richard Dreyfus, Lenny Kravitz went to my high school. And there's so many different people. So obviously, because I was in hip hop, I gravitated towards, you know, many of the black kids that went to school there. One of the kids that went to school with me is a dude named Chauncey.

He ended up being a famous rapper named Loon on Bad Boy Entertainment. He had a couple of really big hit songs. And it was crazy. Like when I think back now, like CW has one of the number one shows, which was Netflix, it was number one show called All-American. It's still on the air now. The show All-American is based on my football team,

on my coach. And my boy, you know what I mean? His dad was crazy. Like that whole show was based on that. It's kind of like. Why do you think so many people graduated from Beverly Hills High School? Do you feel like it's the money?

Do you feel like it's the connections, everybody in the same place? Do you feel like it's maybe just coincidence? I think that one, you get a great education. They had a really high, I think it was like 70-something percent, went to college. If your family worked for the city,

whether it be in sanitation, you know, you'd be a poor person. If your family worked for the city, a boy Greg Holmes, his dad was in sanitation. And you know, you look at sanitation,

like, dude, fuck what up. I never knew trash man made six figures in the fucking 80s. These guys get paid. You know, they're getting money. Firemen, whatever.

And I just think that people wanted to go to a good, they'd rather be in a good school. You know, back in the day, Westwood was, is the place to hang out in. Westwood now, it's like, whatever. There's the Grove, there's this.

But you wanted to go to Westwood to see a movie. That's why everyone cool was going to Westwood. All the movie premieres were in Westwood. All the celebrities were on to Westwood. The Olympics were in town in 84 and all this shit that was going on. But yeah, you know, I ended up getting kicked out of Beverly. Why did you get kicked out of Beverly? I was running a, well, two things.

I was smoking cigarettes and I was running a gambling, a bookie. You know, I was a bookie. The dude I got kicked out of school with, his name is Tommy Wolfo. Lucky I am from a very big hip hop group. That was like a legendary group. There's a dude named Mers from his group, and like Mers was really famous. He was doing commercials and everything. Well, he got kicked out.

Now I'm thinking, fuck, what am I going to do? How do you get caught? I mean, people are losing money and they're reporting. No, because they lost money. Yeah. Now, were you taking a rake on that? Or were you getting paid or were you just facilitating? Let me be real with you, man.

There was a couple kids I knew I could punk. And like, they'd lose. And I would obviously collect. And then one kid, I remember one year in the Super Bowl, he won. And I just thought, I said, fuck you, man. No.

Yeah, I was like, I think that's what ended it. Oh, man. Was it like a negligible amount of money? Or was it something like... It was a couple hundred bucks, but that's a lot of money back then. You have to understand how huge that was.

So there was a kid that lived in the borderline of Beverly Hills. I don't know how he went to school there. He was always hustling. He was always fast talking. He was always this. He today is probably one of the biggest moguls still in music and everything. He's name's Guy Osseri. Guy is,

is a part owner of Maverick, manages Madonna. He created Border Ape Yacht Club, one of the founders at Yuga Labs, all that stuff. And I can't even imagine Uber, like so many different things. I gravitated to him

because he was always down to hip-hop. He was throwing parties. He didn't come from like Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills. And he was just like, he was a Jewish kid, but he was like, it was a trip and half my family was Jewish. So it was like a weird thing

that was going on to my family. And me and got always cool when he said he was going to start a record label. There was, at the time, Madonna was the biggest star in the world female-wise. She was enormous. Her manager, Freddie Demand, his daughter went to our high school.

So he became really friends with her. Later on, met and ended up being a big dude. Guy, straight out of high school, had like three groups. One group was a Beverly Hills West Side rap group called Proper Grounds. Then he had a group called the Rentals. And then he had two guys, one group that was fucking, they're legendary, the deaf tones, like legendary rock band. But he found this girl named Alana's Morse.

And she sold fucking like 35. 40 million records and just off signing her alone. He became filthy rich. And to this day, I know guy, you know, a guy still killing it and everything. But I think I made so many connections there. You know, when I got kicked out, I was like, what am I going to do?

Like, my only chance is to play ball. I ended up transferring. Thank God I was all city, all CIF, all state. I didn't make all American. But I was good enough to where, you know, I had 11 touchdowns in my sophomore year. Then my junior year had 17 touchdowns, which is a record.

And I was a wide receiver and a free safety. I had fucked up so much I got kicked out of my school in junior year, my new school, that I had to move to this small little tiny area. How did you get kicked out of this school as a junior? What did you do this time? It was everything you could think of smoking weed, you name it, just all that shit.

Now, the eligibility for the NCAA was 2.0, 800 SAT score. I did pretty bad in the SAT, bro. I got like a 1060, which in my family was like discreet. I ended up getting a 1300 after that. And when the score jumps up 200 points, now, you know, they do a review because that's too high. Even if you're going through, you know, all the programs and stuff.

Anyways, I was beyond academically available. I think I ended up graduating high school with like a 2.7, which was a disgrace because my brother was like a 4.9, and my sister was like a 4.2. I didn't get to play football my senior year in high school at this small little town called Albany in California. It was just an outskirts suburb of Berkeley. My brother was going to school at Cal.

I still ended up getting a scholarship at Cal. Now, I didn't want to leave the Bay Area. I don't want to leave L.A. And I begged my family. I was like, please, like, look, you have no other chance. What the, dude, we just wanted you to go to school. My dad had the dean of, of Asian studies at UCLA, write me a letter recommendation.

We were willing to pay, you know, my dad had a certain fee. I think it would have been like $700 a semester. So it would have been like $1,400 a year, which is insane for UCLA. I think UCLA is probably 20-something thousand out. But it was amazing. I was going to walk-on to the football team. I had a guaranteed preferred walk-on. I couldn't even get into UCLA because like 900,000 applicants that had 4.0s were Asian.

You know, I know this firmament of action thing is really big right now, but that's the real thing. If you go to the UC System School, you know, right now, it's like, I'm not joking you. I would say if you gathered all the UC system schools right now, it would be at least 72% Asian. it's that ridiculously high and they're turning away millions of people so yeah man you know I end up playing ball I always say if I never went to college

I probably be I would have been a multi-millionaire early my boy guy had offered me a job when I finally finished school you know I connected with some people got back in the scene I feel like I was four years late now my boy already blew up

he's got a couple bands a lot of more set's about to come out he's getting things going and I hit him up and he's like hey what's up dude how you doing bro? Hey, I got to go, man. I talked to you later. Kind of shine me, you know what I'm saying?

Just kind of just wrote me off. And I always kind of resented that, but at the same time, like, I might, I probably did the same thing. Like, he was doing big things. I was, you know, trying to play ball. About about trying to go play pro in the overseas, didn't even last 30 days. Because in Beijing was like, fuck this. I couldn't live here.

You tried? You went? Yeah. And I thought, why didn't you like Beijing, though? Oh, bro. Look, Beijing today I'll never go back to. imagine Beijing in 94. Like, I'm being serious.

It was like, you could eat breakfast there for like $0.8. That's all I need to say. Like, I'm just trying to let you know, like, the soup and this. It just wasn't where I was. I was in Beijing last five years ago. And I said to myself, I'll never come back here ever again. I remember being stuck in traffic for three and a half hours to go 32 miles. Yikes.

And then I asked them to get me a helicopter. I was like, I can't be in this dude. I can't be in this sprinter. You got to get me a helicopter. I don't give how much of costs. I ended up, was able to get out, get to my destination in 22 minutes.

Everyone else that was stuck there, and I won't name their names because it's fucked up. And some of these guys own famous clothing brands. You're not ready for this. Where are you from? Fentura. Where are you from? Here.

L.A. So think about it. So you exit Highland. Next is it's Universal or Barham. X after that is Ventura. X-after that is Vineland, Laurel Canyon, Coldwater Canyon, Woodman, Van Nuys,

Sepulveda, Haskell. Dude, good memory, man. I'm just thinking about the streets, right? You're hitting them all. Exits in China were like 10.5 miles. Mind you, it was an hour to get, you know, a mile and a half.

These guys who didn't get with me in the helicopter had a nine and a half hour of drive back. They did miss the exit, and it was a 10-mile thing. I'd make a U-turn. these guys were Snapchating while they would take off

walk to an exit 7 and 8 miles get cigarettes get a drink whatever they could come back and the car moved like half a mile like that like it was crazy

why is traffic so bad it's just been terrible and you know everything's come controlled by the government so like on certain days white cars can drive certain days license plate just depends so really rich people have different color cars and different license plates and like that

but anyways you know I came back was able to meet Denzel Washington was able to connect with some other people, got a job, got in a music business. How do you connect with these people and get a job like that? So from being in high school at Beverly, there was a radio station at Beverly called K-Bev.

What's crazy is, dude, Mike Karen ran the label. Mike Karen today is probably one of the most powerful people in music still. He's the president of Atlantic Records. I can't even begin to tell you how many, but he's enormous, and he's been there since, you know, back then.

This radio station produced, you know, some major shit. It was a weird thing. She's like, Beverly Hills, man. that. But there is a group that was signed a sole assassin. Soul Assassin was Cyprusil, and Cypressill was huge. House of Pain was fucking huge. Funk dubious was huge at this time. There are a group called the Hooligans. Hooligans consisted of two people, well, three, a DJ, but Alchemist, my boy Alan, who still to this day is one of the most prominent, probably one of most prolific producers in hip-hop history, and a dude named Scott Kahn. Yes, his dad, James Kahn,

late great James Kahn, one of the most famous actors in the world. They were in a rap group together and they were killing it. And so there was like a buzz going on in the West side. So there was this club that we had in Hollywood. My boy Nick Adler, my boy Dea Fostino, who at the time had the number one TV show on the first. Even Fasino, I love him, man. So Mary Wood Cho was the number one show in the world. Not only was the number one show in the world, even after that, it was the longest run and syndicated show in the world. So residual checks were just insane for him. So Dave Fostino, my boy Dan Eisenstein, went to Beverly with me, my boy Nick went to Bradley for a little bit. My best friend of my life is dad with my godfather.

They created a club called Ballistics. And they're still making a documentary about it. I don't know what's going on with it. I filmed for it. But this club had EZE exhibit. Will I, you know, Will I Am was Will 1-X back then, NWA, countless hip-hop dudes that were going to this club at the Whiskey of Go-Go. So I met all these people there. Nick Adler told me that his dad was going to be a small investor in this restaurant, a Jamaican restaurant called Creek Alley on Melrose. And he couldn't really plug me the way he wanted to, but he can give me some ideas. I saw Denzel Washington, Melrose Avenue, walking out of Georgia, the other restaurant that he owned. And it's right there on Martel. Well, Alta Vista and, so it's literally right down the street from here.

He's on Melrose walking and his car's parked in front of Spike Lee store, which obviously at the time, Malcolm X was one of the biggest movies in the world. Walking out of the Spike Lee store, 40 acres of a mule. And I've been waiting for him. And I had a tape. And I was like, yeah, he's my tape. Listen to my tape. A week later, the assistant Tish goes me a call and I get a job there. From there, the rest of history. What was it on the tape? My mixtape. I want a DJ at his restaurant. He's like, we don't do DJ.

I was like, no, New York, that's the style. Let me set the vibe. Let me do it for $100 a night, which was way under like, you know, I was like, look, I'll work seven nights a week. I'll set the music up. I'll play jazz. I'll play vibes. I'll play this, this and this.

There's a point in time where it got a little too hood, he felt like, because it was like a really upscale place. It was the only, it was amazing drinking food. I met Tupac there. I did Jada Pinkett's birthday there. I met NFL stars. I met tons of NBA players. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa,

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I met Dr. Dre there and got my job from there. I met Shug. What was that like meeting Dr. Dre? How did that come to be? I met him like seven times. And I've told this story several times. He would frequent Creek Alley. He loved this place.

You know, I sit at the bar, so many girls there, this and that. And the DJ booth was on the top of the restaurant so I could see everything. And one night, Denzel, Nick Adler's dad, all the owners of the restaurant went on a private jet to go watch Oscar Deloia fight and they told me they said no fucking hip hop tonight no fucking

I'm gonna shoot this bitch here this out of third and I was like yeah don't worry about it it's all good my boy Grant was the manager I was like Grant I will give you everything I have I'll give you some Coke I'll give anything bro please

let me do my thing tonight he's like what I think he was like talking to five different girls at times like yeah I do what the fuck you want I don't give a fuck all the TV's in there it was a sports bar too yeah I turn all the TVs to black exploitation films,

the Mac fucking, you know what I'm saying? Like, um, um, um, um, um, Shaft, all the crazy movies. Yeah. Drey gets there early, like 9.45. This place jumps off at like 1130. Remember, LA last calls early. Mm-hmm.

I started vibing out all 70s, 60s, James Brown, 70s, start going through 80s. I get to, you know, and it's mid-90s. Mm-hmm. So I get to the late 80s. I'm starting to kind of dabbling the hip-hop classic shit. more East Coast stuff

I go down to get a drink and I get a drink where he's sitting instead of going to the where I'm like opposite said and I know he's going to talk to me because I'm fucking murdering this place and I never forget

so crazy dude named Arthur was a bartender I was like hey Arthur man let me get a long island ice tea I had heard to people that that was Dr. Dre's favorite drink and I think to this day it still is so Dre is like probably about as far as he is and he goes

and Dre and my brother were born in the same year. Hey, youngster, what you know about that music, man? And I was like, fuck, you mean I grew up on that shit. He was blown away that an Asian dude had known so much about hip hop and stuff and I was born and raised in the hood and everything.

So we started talking, he's like, all right, man. He's like, you fucking my mind up right now. And I was like, oh, we ain't even got started yet. Now 1130, I have it cracking in there, like everyone they mother, you know. A week later, he pages me. I end up at Canham Studio. Death Row Studios.

You know what I mean? Start working with them. What were you doing with them at the time? Scratches, inserts, bringing breaks. Brakes are like samples and music and stuff like that, going through things, whatever, boom. So is it scratch like an actual, like, that time?

Like literally, there wasn't like, there's not the things that are going on now. You know what I mean? I'd scratch like, fuck you. You know what I'm like, wow. Hell no, you know, whatever it was,

just scratching doing inserts and stuff. And like, really to tell you the truth, almost any DJ that was decent could do that. But if you vibe well, you know, like, why not put somebody on? How many, how easy is it for an, extra to say, hey, not even saying like one line, they get their sag card, right, for acting, whatever.

It can be so easy, like, oh, just walk on a bus. How fucking hard is that for you to do? You know, like Brad Pitt, he worked at fucking El Poeoloco, panning out flyers. I mean, anyway, just about who you're connected to, right? I was lucky. I was there. And then that led to a job at Priority Records.

In two years, I was vice president. And then there, left there. Yeah, Jay Z, did Jay Z's first album, did all masterpiece shit. Ice Cube was huge. started aftermouth entertainment with Dre. And when you do these jobs with these artists, what exactly is your role in them? Are you giving feedback

to, like, you know... On a music level? Yeah. So A&R means artists and repertoire. Back in the day, prior to my time, now I can't even matter what the fucking A&R does now. A&R is a full spectrum. You don't just go find the talent. You groom them.

You can actually play an instrument. You understand. And I was a DJ. I was in music. You're going to the studio. You're listening to sounds. You're part of the market. plan. You have the whole vision to sales everything. Now there's to be 60 deals. Back in the day, labels could never touch your tour money, could never touch your merch money, this, that, whatever. It's all

connected. You know, it was different times then, publishing whatever. So I was coming out with marketing plans. I was coming up with styles, coming up with who to collab with, do certain things. It would be different things for everyone. You know, on Jay-Z's album, I connected them with the only R&B group that we had at the label. That was a group on their mind. I connected writers. I would do everything you could think of. I was literally put everything together. It's damn near a manager in the way. I was that connected to these groups. And I was so passionate about it that I fell in love with every group that I was representing. How was the money on something like that? For me to make six figures in the early 90s at, you know, fucking 24 years old, like, that's insane.

You know what I'm saying? In 23, I was the youngest vice president of the company. Like, that was crazy to drive Alexis, to live in a ball and ass fucking apartment building. I lived in a broadcast center. I lived on top of Arawan market. And this is when Arawans, don't know, everyone's so cool in that motherfucker I was going Airwant in the 90s. Tupac lived in my building. How much fucking cooler is that? Russell Simmons, Tupac, one of the bone thugs do live my building.

Sally Richardson was a really famous black actress back then. I had a lit-ass life. The only thing was I was living way beyond my means. And I really appreciate the fact that I went so fucking hard and lost all that money. I went broke three times before I turned 30. How much were you spending? It wasn't that.

It was just like, you know, you don't understand taxes. You don't understand this. You're like, all right, fuck this. You know, all right, I'm going to claim three. I don't have no kids. Yeah. Like, I want to take three or four deductions. No.

You know, boom, whatever. Just toward stupid shit. Were you ever audited then? Yeah, yeah, of course. What is that like? I mean, you just go through stupid shit. You know, you're just like, it's just dumb. You owe the IRS money here, boom.

But again, that's small potatoes. You know, it's like, this is nothing. It was like, you know, and then, you know, I was DJing, so I had cash money and had this and just, it was until around 2001 or 2002, where I started finally having like $5 grand in the bank, six grand, started saving money. And then finally, you know, 2004, I became a millionaire.

And not from any kind of work. From fucking selling sneakers. From a hobby that I had. That was a passion again, you know. So explain this, how you made a million-dollar selling sneakers. So you're collecting these sneakers over time and then you sold the collection? So I've been a sneakerhead since the 80s. Even when I was getting arrested at Sears, I always wanted to be a fresh sneakers.

Around my time at the record label, I started to collect sneakers. So in the mid-90s, I was collecting sneakers. Throughout that time, I was collecting rare sneakers that weren't being reproduced. They barely started retroing Jordans. Around 2002, I got a marketing job with Nike and already had been deep in the sneaker community. Now it's Discord, but back then it was forums.

And I was heavily part of a world-famous legendary forum called Nike Talk. And I just created this buzz. And I was doing all these things. And I was planting forced marketing that people didn't realize I was doing this shit. And I'd get crazy rare shoes. A couple pair of the shoes

I sold for like 20 grand. I was like, damn, I got 20 grand for a pair of shoes in 04 million dollars a pair right now. You know, like stupid shit. I exited the sneaker game early. I had a fallen out with Nike. My shoe was supposed to come out. It was going to be a Nike Terminator. I was super excited.

Didn't work out. Didn't happen. I said, fuck Nike. Fuck them. I didn't wear Nike's for eight years. I only wore vans and Ditas and everything else. I was that. And it was to the point where they were telling people from high-end Nike accounts.

Hey, if Ben Ballers at your store and promoted this on the internet, internet, we're going to pull your Nike account. That's how much drama there was. Funny thing is, they end up sending me the most rarest pair of Yeezys when no one can get a pair to like as a good faith, like, hey, we've changed, you know, blah, blah, whatever. But anyways, I end up selling all the shoes they gave me, all the shoes I collected. It was about 1,800 pairs of sneakers. And it was two different auctions. One for $2.9 million, another one for like $3.30. It was like $3.2.2 million dollars I made off my steed collection. Two questions. One, where do you store 1,800 pairs of shoes and then to why sell? So I had three bedroom apartment in Sherman Oaks, California,

right by Whole Foods, never forget this place. My boy methamphibian who he had a sneaker customization company with lived there and we just stacked them on top like a fucking warehouse. It was like crazy. And I remember my boy, we had a crew called AirMax crew, me, DJ Am, rest in peace, was one of the most famous DJs ever spawned the career so many people and DJ Homicide, who was in a rock band called Sugar Ray and he'd been killing it. Each of us all had 600 pairs of shoes. I just went mental. And at a certain point, each one of our parents were like,

100 pair of shoes, a lot of pair of shoes. 300, 400, 400 pairs is ridiculous, right? At 5,600, you know, maybe something's wrong with you. Like, seriously, people think something's slow off with you. At 1800, bro, I can't even, you know, we can't even talk about that, right? Would you wear these shoes or did you just buy them? If I didn't like a pair of shoes, I would buy two, three pairs.

If I loved them, I had five pairs. No way. Yeah. Did you think these would be an investment? Or you just liked collecting? Yeah, I knew immediately. I knew. Why?

Just because they were so hard to get. The demand was crazy. When I was typing Nike dunk on eBay in the early 2000s, like 2001, 2000, whatever, you would see 47 fucking results. And out of 47, maybe seven were actually real dunk results. If you do it now, there might be something millions. Like, I was early in the game. And I didn't want to fucking, why would I want to hold Nike's fucking up?

How do you know it wasn't going to be like a bubble where like maybe for like a few years someone was going to be in the age? That was the only thing. I was a sure thing about. Really? I was a sure thing. I was a fair. I was a huge advocate for that. I started like these rooms called stock room picks and this and that and the reselling shit.

Like I was literally like at the forefront of it. You know, I was a pioneer in that whole game. And all the OG people who are still alive in this, you know, sneaker resell space, like, they're like, damn, man, you got out of that great time. I wish I got out around 06, 07. Sure. I got a lot too early. Would that have been worth had you just waited a few years? You could have never told me because I never had a million dollars before.

you know like that was a big deal for me you know so um do you think though if you waited you might have like three million bucks for like well i had three point two yeah i would have had eight if i waited oh wow okay been a huge difference yeah i was going through a lot of my life at that point it was the first time i was ever engaged in my life i think i've always been the same person but that enhanced you know having money i remember going to the ATM and i remember at the time five hundred dollars is the most you could take out of an ATM yeah i would take out five hundred dollars every single day and I thought that was a big deal for me. I was like, oh, fuck this, who cares, man? Let's go have fun.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. See a chick. Like, fuck that. I got. You don't worry about it. Drinks, I got it. Boom, whatever. It just, you know, just being hood rich, being stupid. And that's after you got the 3.2 million. Yeah, I've had a Ferrari, you know what I'm saying. So you bought a Ferrari. Yeah. What Ferrari? I bought a 360 challenge to Dolly. Oh, no way. Yeah. In real time, too. So that was like, that was crazy.

And that must have been when the car just came out? Just came out. I love that car. of that money did you think like hey i got to invest this i got to play it smart or was it like this is so much compared to what i ever thought i would make well i knew at that point i was good for a little bit at least yeah and pretty early on the engagement was called off i got caught cheating and she didn't even catch me if that makes any sense she was so tied into me and she was in fucking germany she was a supermodel and she'd call me like at midnight or like 11 p.m.

when she'd waking up for a shoot and one night I didn't pick up the phone and she just knew. And we were that aligned and I think she just knew I was out with Little John at a party, whatever, boom, end up going to Vegas. And she felt the vibe off. And I think she was also going through some shit.

In the way, it was a great fucking thing that happened. I don't think I was ready to get married in that anyway. So at that point I traveled the world and that's when I knew that like, seeing the world and become more worldly, that's when I knew that I didn't need a lot of money to just really soak up a lot of game and then came back was like,

all right, I need to figure something out because I can't do this forever. And that's when I transitioned and pivoted into a jewelry. I got a question about the cheating if you're cool to answer about it. Yeah, go ahead. So what was your, how did you rationalize getting with somebody else when you had a fiancé at the time?

Did you think, oh, I could just not get a, I could get away with it. It was funny. I'll tell you this right now. I never really worried about cheating because I never really stayed with the girl long enough. You know, that was a long relationship if I've been to my entire life. How long were you with her? Two and a half years maybe.

That was a long time for me. And she was so beautiful and I think everything else was so right that I was so in love with her mentally and everything else. I think her being away so much to Europe and all this other shit and gone, I just got horny. It was simple as that. It didn't really mean anything. But did you think? oh, she's going to find out, it's going to cause complications. I had zero.

Didn't think twice about it. I was like, fuck this. This is going down. Why get engaged at that point, though? Like, isn't it better just not get engaged? I thought I was ready. I thought this was a good thing. But then it just, you know, impulses came up and you just.

Yeah. It was just, you know, again, look, if I think about who I was at 31, who I am tonight now, that was 20 years ago. Right, of course, of course. You know, I was a fucking, that was stupidest shit. Did you, did you think about her? when making this decision to sleep with this other person

or were you just like no this is she was in the back of my mind for sure in the back of your mind and especially when the phone ring when the phone rang I never forget we had two phones and one phone me and her had a phone together this sprint phone and I never forget this silver little flip phone and when the phone rang I was like

motherfucker I was like damn and I remember like I went to bed I woke up I was like maybe 9 a.m. so that's what like 6 p.m. their time and I called and she's like hey what's up She was already weird. I went to go visit her mom,

drove to her mom's house, and I was like, damn, man, I miss her so much, you know, blah, blah, whatever, this and that. And she's like, yeah, it's crazy. And then a door opened up, and she flew into L.A. without telling me and stayed at her mom's house.

I was like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, the fuck's going on. I was like, oh my God, I was so shocked. I took her, I was like, let's go get some food. You know, boom. Went to fucking Marina Dorae to get some food. We were talking. talking and then she was trying to tell me that things ain't gonna work out and I didn't understand

like we live together like what the fuck's going on you just went to your mom's like you're staying that was weird and it was like a weird vibe now really still couldn't get it and then I remember um at a portion 9-11 at the time I pulled over in the middle of the road and I was like y'all are you trying to say you like that's it and she's like I'm trying to say yeah that's it at the time what was crazy was she had fallen in love with another dude like an older man because I know her well enough to know like she was dressing slightly different she was rocking Cartier stuff

which she had money but it was like it was weird and I was like wait a minute and then I was like all right it's time to go so I went through a pretty I was sad because it was my fault I felt bad and the fucked up part about it is

I never admitted that something was wrong I just you know what I'm saying she never knew yeah funny part about it was when me and my wife first started dating 14, 13, 14 years ago, I ran into her and I felt obligated to say something. And then it was awkward. I was having dinner with my brother, my sister, my dad, my wife, and I think the two boys

were alive. That was it. She was in the same Korean restaurant with three friends of mine. My boy, Jerry Lorenzo, who owns Fear of God. It was a really small circle, you know, whatever. Another guy I knew. And then her husband and her husband and her friends. kids. It was just like a really weird thing.

She walks over. Here's my dad a big hug. Kids my sister a big hug. Gives my brother a hug. My family's like, why would they have a problem with her? Because it was me being super right. My wife had to kind of know. My wife was real weird about it.

So it was like a weird thing. So I was like, fuck it. It is what it is. Sure. So did you admit later and say, hey, I screwed up. I did. I told her like, and I was like, hey, listen, I just want you to know. Tomorrow that night you called me and she's like, yeah.

I was fucking some stupid-ass bitch in Vegas. And she was like, I know you was doing something off. And at that point, though, at that point, it was already in my mind. I was already like, you weren't the one. And I was like, she was the one for me, as fucked up as that sounds. But yeah, it was the one. So it is what it is. So how did that lead then to you getting into jewelry?

I was thinking about opening up a small little random one-stop shop, barbershop, buy some cool books. Maybe you get a couple pairs of cool sneakers. But like basics, like, why don't white, I force ones? Yeah. It was like a just essential things. White teas, certain things. Are you coming in town?

All right, boom. This was like a destination store. Sure. Like think about going to LAX or going to JFK or whatever, boom, but like, no, go here. You're going to get a haircut. You can get some cool little trinkets, get some white teas, and Ben Baller owns it with, you know, people. So I thought about that.

I thought it'd be for other things. I was like, now that ain't going to work. I had an exotic car, like really unorthodox, exotic car rental thing that I was doing. And then my cousin hit me up And I asked him I said, what kind of money is jewelry making? At the time he had a corvette He had like put all this money into it

He was killing it We had been always talked about joy In time I needed jewelry I'd get it from him I had a long talk with him and his dad And then He started a joy business How do you just start a jewelry business Like that?

Well, they're only jewelers But how do you even know like what looks good And what's in demand? I always had an eye for jewelry You know what I mean? And I was like, hey listen You guys are jewelers and I just know what sweat

you know what looks right I was a week about this no that ain't cool I'm gonna make this cool I'm gonna make this cool I'll bring this back this is lit you motherfuckers weren't

while you guys were out golfing and doing other shit you were not in the streets like me you know what the real hood shit is I'm talking about universally what we could do yeah yeah sure whatever next year like Mariah Carey Travis Barker

like you know the game nah I was just sort of gathering big names how did they find you I was in the music business so you know I would start reaching out to people My boy was dating Mariah Carey at the time. He produced her album.

It's crazy because he just finished his divorce. It's like six months before me. And it's like a crazy thing. But Mariah Carey is enormous. She's, you know, gonna be top three biggest female stars ever in history, right? So like that was a big plug. So how does it work?

Do you make something specific for them? Yeah, yeah, of course. She got an MC chain, her logo, her Maria Carrier. Do you give it to them at that point? Because of them wearing it. Like, Mariah Carey wears anything inside. I was one of the people that was really good at doing very little promo. Yeah.

Like I wasn't going to just calm motherfuckers, 25,000, 30, 40,000. I was able to just build this brand out of the hood and get people attracted to it. And I built hype and I built the marketing thing behind it. So who's the first famous person to take a chance on you and say, you know, I'm going to buy something from Ben Baller? Travis Barker. And how did you get connected with him? Was it just mutual? I've known Travis forever.

Yeah. He was him and DJ and we're in a group together, you know, so Travis and, you know, whatever. and just we were always, I'm known Travis forever. So what was the piece you made for him? It was just grills. It was grills. The first chain I made for a famous person was Fat Joe.

And Fat Joe was always known for jewelry. He was always here and there, whatever, boom. He introduced me to so many other people. Then the game, then the game made his fucking song about double game change. I'm saying on his second album, his sophomore album, that was enormous.

It still went two, three times platinum. And it just literally steamrolled from there. And how much, what's a profit margin on some? something like that. Like how much does it cost to make? What's the time involved in like the It depends. I was able to make a chain in like three weeks to a month, which is like really fast. I can make a chain in 10 days if I needed to scientifically like get one, but it was just, I don't want to put myself through that stress. And I have four deadlines for TV shows and stuff. But let's say for instance, if I'm going to charge somebody 50K for a chain back then, I would say my profit and me and my cousin would split at 5050. I would say like maybe like 10 to 12,000. So it was a pretty good profit margin

You know what I'm saying? Like now If I'm making a chain for 50K today I'd have to take at least 10 or 15 Just by myself Sure Because it's my name alone Right

So like when I was doing minimums For like 200,000 250 whatever Some people wouldn't have an idea For a chain that was gonna cost More than 6070K So that right there You gotta give me 160 Just because my name's on it

Yeah How did you connect with people like Justin Bieber? Justin reached out to me through if I got it if I was Sean Kingston or somebody someone reached out to me

and said man Justin wants to meet you and I was a long time ago bro this was a long time ago and funny thing was Justin had like a like a low key crush

on my wife and at the time a lot of people were Googling Asian Kim Kardashian and a lot of people even said even I remember me and my wife

were going to the pole lounge of Beverly Hills and I ran to Kim Kim just finished having a gym and she's like hey what's up blah blah

and then Kim was like oh this is your girlfriend I was like yeah boom Kim had told Rob her brother I was like, Ben's girlfriend looks fucking lot like me. It was like a weird thing, you know?

So then I remember a studio engineer told me he was like, yo, and Justin, when you left, Justin Google, Asian congratulations to find out your nephew and I was like, oh, that's not a good thing, right? But yeah, me and Justin just connected. I ended up making grills for him for the first time,

and then we just end up, I mean, I took Justin to career for the first time. Like, we've always been cool. Yeah. Been friends with Justin for 11, 12 years, I think, something like that. Yeah. I've been cool for a while.

So I'm curious, when people mention you in, their lyrics. Like, Ferg is the name. Ben Ballard did the change. Do they reach out to you ahead of time? No.

It just shows up when, Tane, you're surprised. First time I heard playing Jane was like in January, 2016, 2017, sorry. The song didn't even scorch until like summer,

midsummer, 2017. By October, it was like already major platinum. Yeah. And like, it's one of what,

four songs in hip hop history, in rap history, sorry. It's one of the only four rap songs that gone diamond, 10 million sold. So I'm like, whoa. Like to this day, you go to any nightclub. That song's being played, no other way.

I don't give a fuck if you're in Tuscaloosa. You could be anywhere. I was in Shanghai and that shit was playing. And I was like, what was your initial reaction to that? I was like, all right, cool, whatever, no big song. It blew up and got caught, got catchy. I still, even when it was starting to get hot in the summer, I was like, eh, you know, whatever, cool.

Cool, whatever, no big deal. When it became that big and it was like monotonous, I was like, oh shit, this is big. Turned into a brand name, you know. How did that impact business afterwards? Because for me, that's one of the most recognizable lyrics of that song. Yeah, it took things to a whole different level. I skyrocketed after that.

So, like, who reaches out to you afterwards? Everyone you could think of. Really? Yeah. And then how do you pick who to, because you obviously don't have the capacity to give it to everybody? No, I just pick, you know, whatever random people here and there. It was cool. It was a good run.

It was a good run. It still, you know, it still trickles off now, you know. You mentioned that you're friends with people like Justin Bieber. I mean, you went to Shanghai with him. How do you... Korea. Korea, sorry. Why do you go, or how do you go from like a business type relationship to actual friendship

type relationship with these people? I think that just happened organically, you know what I mean? He just wanted to, he just fucked with me, you know? Like, he just knew like I was a big... I was older than his dad by year. I'm older than Jeremy by year. I just think that he thought I was wise. I was cool, had a lot of style.

And, um, trusted me. He was going to Korea at the same time I was. And I was like, all right, pull. up on me. Sure enough, he pulls up. I'm like, hey, bro, you got to chill the fuck out. You way too wild right now, you know, like it was a trip. But we just always been cool. And then, you know, he started golfing not that long ago. I started golfing pretty recently. He's actually been golfing way longer than me, but he got the bug again and we started golfing and stuff. And I think either I click with you or I don't. Like A Zab Rocky, like we clicked, you know,

off top. Certain people click and I don't accompany with that with, with Rocky. And, you know, you just, again, if alignment, you know? How seriously do you take marketing in terms of your own name and business? You've built a brand around yourself. I don't think you could take it more serious than I take it. Then what do you do specifically? Because it seems on my end, it's very effortless. And it seems like more of a relationship-based business.

It's got to be effortless because it's like golf. Yeah. The harder you try to swing the club, the short of the ball is going to go. The distance won't go the same. I never understood that concept. because if you punch somebody soft in the face, it's not going to land hard. Scientifically, it won't.

When you hit somebody, you know, you throw a ball at a glass at a certain point, depending on how the glass is, you have to throw it pretty hard, or it has to be a lot of ball speed and pressure. With golf, this dude named Bryson D. Chambot started really breaking down the science of a ball,

the way you hit it. You can hit so soft. And the actual clubhead speed, meaning how hard the clubbed, how fast the club was spinning, he was getting the ball to go further than people who had much higher club head speed. And now there are people who have

very high club head speed, very high ball speed. What I'm saying is like, it was just effortless and you could play better golf that way if you're more relaxed. I think if I don't go out there and try so hard with marketing, if you're out chasing somebody,

am you going to get a chain? Hey, Brian, I'm hurt for you a few weeks. You come in here, you're doing it? All right, boom. You can be annoying like that in certain things where people owe you money, whatever, and it just makes things worse and generally it does.

Sometimes it works for people, sometimes it doesn't. For me, I think that's the point where I retire. I just completely just stop, do something different. You know, like if I have to chase somebody down to get a job or get something, it's like it just ain't going to work. Yeah. You know, either I think at this point, that's why I say it was like 10, 15, 20 years in the making where I am now.

So as I gather along and gather all these fucking, you know, all this game and all this knowledge and experience, I'm only getting better as time goes by. I'm not getting worse, you know. I'm not getting, my memory is a little off here and there. Sure. Sure. You know, it would benefit you to, you know what I'm saying?

Fuck with me on a marketing thing. Sure. Can you say what the nicest piece of jewelry is that you've commissioned? You know, that's always a hard thing to say, but I think that Kid Cuddy has to have the, he holds the top dog rain. Like I just think the Murakami collaboration and the cause collaboration, that these are official actual artist pieces that are museum pieces.

You can't beat that. You know, these would be forever. these would be forever. How much is something like that worth? I mean, I think his cause piece is probably up in the couple million now. How do you source diamonds? That's easy.

That's easy. Millions of dollars? Yeah, that's easy. Now, is it because of the cut in clarity or is it because there's so many of them? It's a combination of the cut and clarity and all that. I think the actual piece itself,

it was melted down in a pawn shop. It would be like maybe $5,600K. But the fact, it's one of the most famous street artists, you know, in well-known artist period. You know, Kaz has paintings that are out there in the millions already, you know. So it's like his fan base, that and everything else.

Now this is the commission one-on-one piece. There's actually in his book. You know, he has an artist proof of it. You know, Takashi Murakami, same thing. You know, these things are being shown in museums. Like this is a different level of what we're doing here. So that right there is a big deal. Now, I heard you say recently, I think a year ago,

that you said that you're doing fewer pieces now, but you're making more money overall than doing, you know, like what you were doing like five, six years ago. Well, I'm not doing jewelry, and I haven't done jewelry in a year or so. So I'm just not doing jewelry at all. I pivoting to golf full time, you know what I mean? In podcasting.

So, I mean, if there's a favor for somebody and they want me to make a ring for them, sure. I do it. If Moricomia cause want me to come out at retirement and make something for them, I do it. But I'm not doing jewelry anymore. Why do you decide to get out of jewelry and do golf?

I had no passionate anymore. What happened? I just think I just, I think I just lost. I just, another thing, too, is I'll be honest with your Instagram ruined it for me. Social media ruined it for me. I think seeing all the thirsty jewelers out there, I just want to become famous from it,

I'd rather be well known for the pieces of the quality than being known for celebrities or whatever else. You know, I could have made fucking X, Y, Z for literally X, Y, Z. If they're fresh, they're fresh. They don't got to be tied to a fucking celebrity's name. You know, when I have my reality show, they were like, it's shows to be celebrity driven. And I'm like, it should be fucking character-driven.

And I'm the celebrity, because I'm funny than all these motherfuckers, right? But that's cool. Let's just keep it rocking. When it finally came time to be on my time and my clock, and I just felt, like seeing where the joy world was going. I was like, I can't. This shit ain't for me.

What direction was going? Just do you say it's mostly driven by cloud? It's just saturated with the bullshit. It's all cloud. All this other bullshit. It's all cap. It's all bullshit. It's just literally just lies, man.

You know what I mean? It's just like, oh, this piece was a minute. Shut the fuck up, bro. No, what's not. You know what? Oh, great. I'm not going to hate on you. Go, do you think.

I just didn't want to be a part of it anymore. Sure. I'm curious. How difficult was it for you walk away from, I guess, the notoriety, the money, and the fame that came along with making such high-end custom jewelry and deciding that, you know, I'm tired of it. Was that a difficult decision for you?

Or were you at a point financially where it's like, hey, it doesn't make sense. No, I think, to be honest with you, let me get brutally honest. Yeah. I think I actually hurt my marriage. Right. And it created what's going on now with my life with the, what's the fucking word? You see it when you get through the divorce. I forgot.

Dissimulation or whatever. Disillusion. Dissolution. Yeah. It had a decent part to do it, the dissolution of my marriage, right? So I think I truly fell out of love with it, you know? Now, the thing is, I've never counted out and said,

I'll never do it again. That's not all. I could easily go back and come and be top dog and whatever. If there's an opportunity for me to do something, that makes sense, I got no problem coming back to it. But how much I fell in love with golf was like, you can't compare, like, It's ridiculous.

So you found something else that you love more. And then it's like, well, between the two, I love doing this. Beyond. And you saw the way that the jewelry culture was going and you didn't really want to associate. It was been going to shit. It'd been going to shit. And where I see where golf is going, I was like, look, I could enter this place and change the entire landscape of golf. And the stigma behind this old, rich, white country club, you know, reputation.

and open the game up. What is it about golf? Have you ever golfed before? I have. What did you think? I'm not that athletic. And I got to say, after 18 holes in golf, you are exhausted. But I'd start early.

Like, you get there like 6 a.m. There's no golf muscles. Yeah. So think about that. There's nothing natural about a golf swing. So you're going to be sore regardless. There's really no muscle memory either. I could do nine holes.

And that's where you bow out. It's a little too much for you. I've done 18. Right. Did you have a cart or did you walk? I had a cart. I couldn't walk. It gets a lot to it now, you know?

But I think one of my marketing things with my golf merch and stuff is golf will always be there for you. I wish I did it when I was 12, 11, 10 with my kids, you know, how they're playing now. I wish I did it during the pandemic even. I found it so late in life. But the thing about golf is there's so many fucking parallels to actual real life. Getting in trouble in golf, getting out of trouble. You find out so much about yourself in a golf. golf course when you're by yourself because there's no one else to save you.

There's no one else that's going to help you. You know what I mean? You cheat golf? You cheat in life. You cheat yourself. There's so many different ways of doing things. I don't like walking the course. I would say I've walked a course less than 10 times, mostly for a pro

or a tournament, right? When you do walk a course, though you get to think about your shots. You got to have a short-term memory in golf. You have a bad shot. If you think about that motherfucker, You're fucked. You know? Gotta keep moving.

I think when I turned 50, I was like, all right, the front line was pretty decent. It was all right. There were some rocky parts. There were some good parts in there. There were some double bogeys. There were some triple bogeys.

There were some quadruple bogeys. I had an ace. I had some birdies. Had an eagle. I'm on the back nine of my life now. So let's fucking go. Let's turn this up, you know? How do you find it?

What do you mean? Golf. George Lopez had asked me to come to his tournament a couple times. I never really cared. And I was like, know what, fuck it, I'm gonna come. Taylor made to reach out to me.

I end up having a deal with them later. And just, they all, everything came together. When I say came together, it's like, imagine like playing Lego or something. Everything's just like, oh, there's, oh, that piece is right here, okay. Everything just felt together. This might sound stupid, but when you're there by yourself, are you listening to music or is it just like, no phone,

just like silence, just you and your thoughts? I think a lot of times, there are times where I do play music here and there. But I think I just think about my life. And I go back and go about all the pain that's been happening. And I think about, I think for most of my life, I ran from the pain and ignored it. And now I'm all about, let me get the feels. Let me not sweep anything under the rug.

All that shit ends up being bigger problems later, right? Like a cavity. Don't let that shit get into a root canal. Don't let that shit get any more serious, right? And I just think that on the golf course, I'm just sitting there just really just marinating, going over things, going over life. Like, all right.

But at the same time, you can't have any of that shit your swing thoughts. Because you're going to fucking shank the ball, chunk it, thin it, whatever. You gotta be out there and really just be disciplined and be pure. So it's a lot, man. And what about having kids?

I'm very curious, because you've mentioned several times how having children has really affected the way you view life. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that, like having your first born. How does that shift your mentality when it comes to business and motivation

and, like, your priorities? One, it's not about you anymore. Yeah. I think I've been selfish for most of my life. also been a very generous person so it's kind of weird, right? Imagine a dude who talks a gang of shit. Like, imagine Donald Trump.

It doesn't matter, I'm not going to talk about left or right at all because people think I'm something else than I actually am, right? As far as politically, I'm really down the middle, I think now, right? I don't really care. I don't think Biden's a great president or whatever. We're not going to get in politics. But what I'm saying is, imagine if Donald Trump was actually a really good person in general as well, though he was doing a ton of charity,

doing other stuff, whatever, boom, and just with a kid, it's not about you anymore. People fail to realize that they did not ask to be here in the world. They are a complete your responsibility for at least 20 years or so, right? You have so much true responsibility. Can't leave a kid in the car.

You can't do you know what I'm saying? Certain things, at least until like 13 or 14, right? To be homes alone. And like, you think about, all right, well, it's another mouth to feed. Then you have a second kid. Shit, then you have a third kid. Not only is it to be mouths to feed.

It's three mouths to feed. this, women, you know, girls are twice, three times the price of a boy, tuition, shit like that. If that doesn't light a fire under your ass, I don't know what will. Because now you've put, you know, more rent, more mortgage, whatever the fuck it is, you know, so it's a lot. Schooling is expensive in L.A.? Yeah. So how do you balance that?

You just find, like, a good private school? Yeah, I mean, they've been private school since they're born, so, yeah. Okay. It sucks. It's, it's, you know, I wish they could go to public school. Yeah. I wish, like, you know, I mean, I mean, they're in, you know, I mean, they're in, I mean, I mean, I thought about being in Beverly Hills and being like, you know, at least they'd go there.

But I don't even know if I wanted to go to Beverly Hills. You know, I don't know, man. Is there any part of you that's worried in the sense that you've become so successful that your children have to live up to that? Nah. I'd like them to. I tell you, I just want my kids to be happy, man. I think about it. You know, I don't want to put it out there like that.

Like, it's a negative thing. But, like, you know, people in the family have been like, oh, your dad's rich. Like, no, we're not. I can't, I never think, like, oh, I'm rich. I've never told anybody I'm rich as fuck Never said that before I've done that before when I had like $10,000 in the bank You know what I mean? I'm like I've got money done

It wasn't where I was Yeah I'm like now bro we all right we do cool Well it's a quarter million dollar watch So what? It's for sale you want it? Do you get what I mean? Like I just wasn't there And I think early on I remember driving in the school, preschool nursery school They get dropped off in a Ferrari Lamborghini or something

When they started going to school school Even my wife was like, yeah, why don't you just bring to McLaren and go to take it like, you know, fuck it. Like these kids are flossing, their parents floss and far as stuff. Like, no, they've never even picked up anything crazy at school.

So I just like, no, that ain't, I don't want that. I don't want that. They already, right now, for the first time now, their kids are starting to realize that their dad's popular. We're on vacation in Hawaii

and we've been up on. They see people ask them all the time of pictures. I don't protect their, I don't have super proud about their life. I just don't post my house and certain things where they go to school. But like, we're walking in downtown Waikiki Beach and we can stop 40 times in an hour.

They know their dad's like, you know, I'm not Mr. Beast, but they know what time it is, you know? So that's pretty cool. I mean, think about it, like Drake and Bieber and all these people since they were born, it's been giving them birthday shoutouts and doing videos and coming up to their birthday parties. It's like, you know, it's like they kind of know.

Sure. Like randomly, like two months ago, my old song was like, Dad, listen, you know Justin Bieber? I was like, yeah, of course, what do you mean? He just fucking came to your birthday. He's, does birthday videos? He does birthday videos for you all this stuff. And so finally went to his Instagram page.

Look, this is you and Justin right here. He's like, oh, shit. Kids are trying to really, like, oh, wow, that's crazy. Yeah. Like, my middle son's obsessed with Michael Jackson. I was like, Daddy made all his joy last year of his life. He's like, whoa, what was Neverland like, you know? It's like they're super sharp, man, you know?

So that's kind of cool. Got to be kind of cool to be able to share that with them, though. Yeah, for sure. I had Mr. Beast, was going to do something with me for my sons. They're obsessed with them as well as well. And that was a big, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to be honest with you. out of every favor I could think of from a celebrity, whether it be drinking at my wedding, whatever it is.

That was probably the hardest thing to get. That was harder than anything I've ever done in my entire life. That was harder than anything. And I think about it now. He's so big at this point that he could ask Apple to do something for him. That's how big it is. He's trying to do that right now with streaming platforms. No, I mean, like he could literally have a Mr. Beast app.

That guy, he's that powerful. I think it's like, you know, so like, it's just, it's just crazy. You know. Yeah. It's crazy now that the power that YouTubers have had. At this point, I wouldn't even consider Mr. Beast a YouTube. No,

it's just mainstream celebrity. Yeah. And I'm not a huge fan of YouTube, but yeah. My kids are. Have you found, though, that after having kids, maybe you've been safer in your own life and more conservative in terms of like your investments

and what you spend and, like, career choices? I think, I think not even in the political term. If you really think about having kids, how do you not think conservatively? And I mean that in all aspects of the term

of the definition of conservative. Even from being a Republican but whatever just as far as like what you want for your children and stuff, right? And again, I'm not a political person. I have been ultra cautious about what it is. So you know, if someone sees me

spending a bunch of money here, know that either someone paid for that or there was a lot saved to fuck off that one little thing here and there, you know. I wasn't those dudes in the pandemic was like, look, fuck this. I never might see outside again. We're going to spend a lot of money.

I was like, what the fuck are you doing? But financially last year was a bad year for me. And knowing whatever, no, unless I'm telling you now, you know. But I think also me pivoting into a whole different world, it's going to take a little time. I've never been a patient person. I'm like, all right, cool. I'm going to start a company. All right, two weeks come by.

All right, are we a billion dollar company yet? Not? What? What the fuck's going on? You know? Like, I understand. it takes some time. And even what I'm doing with golf, what I've done in a year and some change,

people don't do in seven years. So why was last year a bad year financially? Because I completely stopped making jewelry. The jewelry was the sole driver of your income. Because at that point, I'm just saying, like, it's a lot of money. Even jobs based off my jewelry was getting me jewelry. You know what I'm saying? Like, whether it be a sponsor

with a brand, they want to tie it to some jewelry thing, do you know? And I was like, let me just... Did you reach like a net worth or something where you could say, I'm comfortable walking? away from this that, you know, no matter what, I know I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do in life. I think a few years ago I did.

Okay. And then it wasn't like, it wasn't enough because of what's going on now. Do you know what you realize it's like, you know, I mean, honestly. Yeah. You know, I thought I'd be married forever. So that's also a weird thing. But at the same time, I've never spoke about this because it's still so fresh and new. I have no idea what's going to happen.

Yeah. You know what I mean? The ink isn't try yet. I have no idea. And I'm not even opening a possibility because my mind is not there. but I never know what's going to happen because the last two and a half, three months have been so fucking insane that who knows. You know what happened. If that's insane there, you know, what happens now?

I don't know. At what point did you decide to go through also with losing weight? What fed into that? May, June last year, I was like, look, I got 2.14 during the pandemic. And I just, this is just not it. And I think also at a certain point again, my wife was like, yo man, your belly is too fucking big, man. This ain't sexy.

This ain't this. And she was like, can you just one time before, you know, blah, blah, whatever. And I think she was a big driver to it. But I think about like what's going through my life right now. If I was 200 something right now, I would be probably in a way, way worse place. The fact that I feel great, that I'm walking on a course, I'm slim, I can take my shirt off.

I'm like not tripping. Like when I was in Hawaii, like two months ago or so, I just feel great slim. You know, like, I was like, this is really where I need to be. Yeah. How'd you do it? Intermitt fasting, straight up. Really?

So what was your schedule like? I was your schedule like that? I was doing 1410. I'm stuck with that for a while. I'm at 12, 12 now. What does 1410 mean? 14 hours I do not eat nothing. 10 hours I eat.

So pretty much, let's say, for instance, 8 p.m. is my last meal. After that, I can only have water or tea. Nothing that would break a fast. And then my first meal would be, at 10 a.m. the next day. So at 10 a.m., I have my coffee with milk, with sugar,

with cream, whatever the fuck it is, have a bagel, have a pizza for lunch, have a burger, have steak, have French fries, have some candy, drink soda all day long. 8 p.m. It's got to stop. I kept that, and I couldn't believe it. The thing is, it's very slow. You might not see any results for like four or five months.

Whereas I could do a fucking Atkins or, you know, carb-free diet, and I could lose 25 pounds. in three weeks. The thing is this. As soon as you fuck up, that weight's coming back instantly. It's water weight, it's bullshit.

Right now, it'd take me like five, six months to get the weight back. It'd take me even longer. Now I'm talking about just eating like a fucking piece of shit. I was eating at 1 a.m. I was smoking weed, eat all day, night, one, two in morning, and just like eat what the fuck I want.

Now I just do it within that schedule. Was that like stress eating or was that like the habits? Bad habits? Bad habits. Just bad habits throughout life. I think if you really added up how much you snack throughout the day, you'd be surprised. No, late night snacks. I know exactly how bad it was.

Because I look at myself now, you know? Interesting. Yeah. How are you keeping yourself calm, collected right now with everything going on? Do you meditate? Is it golf? Is it, do you find an outlet through business? You know, man, I've asked some of my friends who are very successful in business that've gone through divorces, and they're like,

I just drowned myself in work. And I know that wasn't it because I'd be too emotional at work. So I think one thing about me is I'm a homebody. but at the same time, it's different when you're at home alone, right? Or you don't have the kids that week or whatever. And I've never been through this level of mental toughness in my life. So, again, going back to the kids, I don't really have a choice, you know, because they need me.

And that's where the toughest struggle is. And I think, I haven't lost it. I've had the, I think there have been times where I lost it. for way less reason. I think talking to the right people has helped me a lot, but I went through the darkest time in my life probably two months ago. I probably hit the rock bottom of all 50 years of my living on this earth. I don't think I've been in a darker place in my life.

And then about a week ago, it kind of came back a little bit. And about two months ago, I was driving my kids to Daven Busters. I looked over to all three of them and I said, I would die for you. Like what? I was like, I would literally take a bullet for you guys. I understand. You know, like, it's easy to say, but, like, you know,

when you really mean you, like, I would die for you guys. I would sacrifice my life for you. My middle son, writer, looked at me and he goes, I couldn't fucking believe this was coming out of an eight-year-old's mouth. He was like, but then, Dad, who would guide us through life? And I'm, like, going through a parking lot, and I stopped dead. And I pulled over. I was like, wow.

Because he knew it couldn't be his grandfather. He knew it couldn't be his uncle. He knew it couldn't be anybody that his mom's friends with or anyone I'm friends with. He knew it couldn't be his mom. He tried to be a man. He meant it deeper than just saying, like, you know, because he elaborated a little bit more. And I was like, fuck, man. That's crazy.

He's like, you know, we know how hard you work. You know, we know you were gone a lot. I think early on for a long time, you know. My wife's been a stay-at-home mom for 10-plus years. So, like, you know, of course there, with her so much. And I was gone a lot. There was one year I was gone 190 days out of the year. I was gone. And then, you know, when the pandemic finally opened up, I was starting to go again. I think that definitely fuck some things up. But right now, I have the strongest relationship with

much old I've ever had in my entire life. Like, when I say strong, I'm talking like it's a different level. Yeah. You know, like they'll go psycho without me. You know what I'm saying? Like, they're like heavy with me right now. So that right there is really the only way to keep calm. Because I think about that. Yeah. You know. They seem great, by the way. They're so polite.

Oh, my gosh. And they walked in. And they're in a bad, they're kind of acting bad today, man. But yeah, I don't see it. Oh, my gosh. I was so shy as he came.

They're coming up, like introducing themselves. Like, seems so confident. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. And that's, it's a rare thing because my oldest one

has gone through so many health issues. You know, he just came out of his shell like in this past year. I mean, up to, I mean, up to eight months ago where he didn't really speak at all. That's incredible. So you probably got to go? Yeah, I gotta get to fuck out of here, man.

Hey, thank you so much. Thank you. You really appreciate it. This is an honor, man. You have no idea. Thank you so much, man. Appreciate it, man. I told me it would be 40 minutes.

Oh, shit. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, I'm too out.