MrBeast Winner Breaks Silence On Stealing Money, Going To Prison, & Hitting Rock Bottom

Upwork: Visit https://upwork.com right now to post your job for free Pipedrive: Get started with a 30 day free trial https://pipedrive.com/iced ZocDoc: Go to https://www.zocdoc.com/ICED and download the Zocdoc App for FREE Shopify: Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at https://shopify.com/ich $1 will provide 1 person with clean water for a year: Go to https://teamwater.org to donate today! Follow Ian Bick: On Youtube - https://youtube.com/@ianbickCT?si=NbheCwTwOkesCXzP On Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick Website - https://www.ianbick.com/ Apply for The Index Membership: https://entertheindex.com/ Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [email protected] For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:42 - Hearing about Beast vid 00:02:35 - Are prison influencers real? 00:04:42 - Most viral prison story 00:08:07 - How MrBeast reached out 00:10:27 - Vetting for Beast vid 00:12:40 - Was Beast prison realistic? 00:13:34 - Was drama in video real? 00:18:10 - Sponsor - Upwork 00:23:36 - Beast prison library 00:25:45 - Interacting with others 00:28:49 - What Beast cut from video 00:31:37 - Living without a phone 00:33:41 - Sponsor - Pipedrive 00:34:59 - Living with a stranger 100 days 00:38:37 - Strategy for the challenge 00:42:59 - Winning $500,000 00:43:42 - Restitution payments explained 00:46:01 - Live events business and why it failed 00:57:57 - Do you regret what you did 01:04:05 - Sponsor - Zocdoc 01:05:15 - Sponsor - Shopify 01:10:28 - First day in jail 01:13:36 - Food in prison 01:14:39 - Smuggling in prison 01:16:15 - Hardest part of prison 01:16:55 - First day fight myth 01:18:28 - Most fun thing in prison 01:18:49 - Getting used to no privacy 01:21:31 - Violence in prison 01:25:07 - Smuggling continued 01:27:42 - How to improve prison system 01:29:21 - Dating in prison 01:33:23 - Making friends inside 01:33:52 - Most difficult experience 01:35:29 - Choice to not split money 01:38:24 - Watching the video back 01:39:10 - Opportunities since Beast vid 01:42:42 - Advice for people going to jail 01:43:16 - Prison habits you still have 01:44:54 - Constant distrust in prison? 01:46:43 - Smart prisoners 01:48:23 - Any innocent prisoners? *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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  I built this maximum security prison. And if this cop and this criminal survive 800 days together, I will give them half a million dollars.

• 0:39Speaker 02

  I went to prison when I was 21, and I never expected that would help me win a Mr. Beast video. My prison experience was just crazy, from all the different prisons I was in, to all the incidents that happened, to every little thing. Do you feel bad for what you did? It was ridiculous. I was 18, two months after graduation, and I had like $600,000 in my bank account. And then I hit rock bottom.

• 1:00Graham Stephan?

  How accurate was Mr. Beast's prison to a real life prison?

• 1:04Speaker 02

  Physically, it was very realistic. Like, the guy had the actual prison toilet. But mentally, it was different without having real prison guards pulling the strings.

• 1:12Jack Selby?

  What do you mean by that?

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Like, 90% of the prison violence is caused by guards creating this environment. The inmates run the prison, and the guards let it happen. But I didn't realize how hard it was gonna be.

• 1:22Graham Stephan?

  Is there anything in the video he didn't want the audience to know?

• 1:32Graham Stephan?

  So Ian, I really enjoyed your video with Mr. Beast. 100 days in prison for almost $500,000. It was a really interesting video. I'm happy to have you on. It's cool just to reach out like that, and you're like, I'm down, I'll be right there. And then I think like, three days later, if that, you're here.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks so much for inviting me. It was actually funny, because I saw Mike Malax's video, and then I watched Madja's video. And that was being filmed while I was doing it. And then I was like, I wanna go on this podcast. And then mine came out, and then you hit me up. And here we are, a couple of days later, in Vegas. Pretty cool.

• 2:05Jack Selby?

  Well, you have a fascinating story. You made a ton of money. We're gonna get into how you're spending it. What are you doing with it? But first, How did you hear about this show? When did you know you were gonna do it?

• 2:15Speaker 02

  So this past February, it was the beginning of February, I got reached out to by just a generic casting producer. That was like one of those company, production companies, not affiliated with the Beast team at all. I've been reached out to producers like this probably like 20 or 30 times since starting on TikTok a couple of years ago. And normally it's like dating shows, reality TV shows. I actually quit my job at Whole Foods after getting like 10,000 followers on TikTok because I thought I was getting casted in some new dating show.

• 2:45Jack Selby?

  What were you doing on TikTok?

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Just talking about my prison experience, being in prison and just telling all those stories from my perspective. And I didn't realize that COVID had exploded this whole role, this whole world of prison TikTokers and prison YouTubers, where people are getting all these followers talking about their prison experience.

• 3:05Jack Selby?

  Do you think people are lying about those prison experiences? Like if they're getting all these views and money from telling the craziest stories, how often do you think they're just making them up? Yeah, who would know, right?

• 3:14Speaker 02

  I think some, so I'll tell you from my experience. So I'll have guests on my show where you'll hear that exact story being told by another guest, but just in a, in a different way. And I, and it's always the ones that really listen to the show. Like they'll come in the studio and they're like, big fan of the show. I listen to all your episodes. And then you kind of know that they took that story from another person on the show. So if, if that happens, then I think it's pretty safe to say that that probably happens in a general space, watching other people's TikToks, talking about prison. But where I think I came into this prison TikTok world and prison YouTube world was I gained a following talking about it in a different way.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Like I literally came out and said, I paid for protection, federal prison. No one was doing that before, especially from my point of view.

• 4:03Jack Selby?

  What do you mean by that?

• 4:04Speaker 02

  So I went to prison when I was 21 and I went to federal prison for three years. I got a three year sentence and I literally paid someone to protect me while I was at the federal prison because these guys tried to extort me. They, everyone thought I was a offender, they call them. Because of the way I looked. I was a white nerdy kid, looked like Harry Potter. They actually called me McLovin in prison. So I got the McLovin tattoo and then I have a portrait of him on my leg. They actually were trying to get him as a guard in the Beast video. But it didn't work out as like a cameo. But um, they had, they called me McLovin in prison and just like in the Mr. Beast video, I'm able to.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  My personality type is just able to adapt and and kind of like be funny and and be kind of calm in that. Like I'm shy, but I'm not shy at the same time. So I was able to just befriend people and I guess the way I looked and people thought I was like funny and. And it just naturally clicked there. I was like their little brother. The guards would call me Squints from the Sandlot. So I was just, everyone's like little, little brother and they looked after me.

• 5:12Jack Selby?

  What was your most viral prison story you talked about on TikTok?

• 5:15Speaker 02

  So there was three major ones. That one I just told you. Um, that was the one that really kind of like exploded. The platform where like World Star, No Jumper, all of those sites took it and ran with it. The other one was in the chow hall, my first day at the prison chow hall. The, I went to sit down, I got my tray of food. Sat down at the table and everyone at the table stops eating. I'm not really paying attention to it. I had just got out of the detention center where the food was horrible. And I'm at this new facility, Fort Dix, a low security prison. Where there was like a buffet line and pudding and Jell-O and all this great food, a salad bar. And I sit down at the white guy table. I just figured I had to be with my own race, like what you would see in prison movies.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  And I sit down there, everyone stops eating and uh, one of the white guy's big bald kind of Jack dude tattoos. Just kind of slams his hand on the table and is like, hey you. And he says that a couple of times and I'm looking at him. At that point, and I'm like, are you talking to me? Like, I don't know. I just got here. No one knows me. And I'm like looking behind me and whatnot. And he explains to me that. I'm not allowed to sit there. It's for good, uh, good, it's a good paperwork table. You have to have good paperwork. And I'm like, what's paperwork? And he explains that paperwork shows that you, you're not a offender, you're not a rat. You didn't snitch on anyone. And until you get your paperwork, you, you're not allowed to sit at that table.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  And I was explaining to him that I'm there for fraud. Uh, and he looks at me, he's like, yeah, that's what they all say. And I'm like, what do you mean? What? That's what they all say. And he points to this table behind me and he says, you belong over there at this table. And I look around, it's a bunch of old white guys with the same type of glasses I had on that are staring at me like fresh meat. And that was a offender table. So that was like my first experience realizing what I was going to be labeled at in a federal prison. Eventually I got my paperwork and everything got sorted out. Um, but that was like the reality of it. Most people that are there in federal prison for fraud are not 21 years old. They're like in their 30s or their 40s. I was definitely on the younger side and they, the guys that are offenders will say that they're there for fraud as a cover story.

• 7:26Jack Selby?

  So what is like the, the main difference in prison life between someone that's an S O and someone that's there for something else? Like what is, what is their existence in prison?

• 7:36Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 8:05Jack Selby?

  Look like?

• 8:05Speaker 02

  So I was at a, the highest security prison I was at is a low, so I can only speak on that. And then I went to a camp after where there's no offenders, but at a low, basically, basically if you're a defender, you're not allowed to be in your room. They're 12 man bunks. Um, you, after wake up, you can't stay in your room. Throughout the day, you have to go wherever defenders would hang out in the library or you would see them actually playing Dungeons and Dragons with like fake wands out on the yard.

• 8:30Jack Selby?

  So they all hang out together?

• 8:31Speaker 02

  They all hang out together. Um, Younger, older ones, they're the ones that have to clean your room. Um, if there's a defender in your room, they're cleaning your room for no pay. Um, they can't sit in the TV room. They don't have a chair um to sit in. They have to like go to the chow hall and sit at certain tables. These are all inmate rules. These aren't prison rules like that the staff create. Um, but at Fort Dix, a low-security prison, it's a heavily defender compound because that's the only place these guys can go. At the higher-security prisons, they'll get physically hurt. Um, but the prison does frown upon that.

• 9:06Jack Selby?

  So how did you get the call from Mr. Beast?

• 9:09Speaker 02

  So in February, that casting agent slid into all my DMs on every platform. And in my mind, I'm like, I'm not, this here goes another one. Like, I'm not gonna even respond. And they don't use the term Mr. Beast. They just said, we're casting um prison content creators. And I saw that and then a bunch of other prison content creators, because we're all friends, just like I'm sure you guys are friends with other people in your space, are all like in group texting, hey, did you just get this offer? Did you just get this, like this casting agent reach out? All of these things. And so um I ended up taking the call. I'm not sure why I did it, but I did it at the time. It was just like a gut thing. And what I liked about this casting producer is they were ready to do the call right away. Normally with the casting producers, they'll schedule something for two or three days later.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  It's like an hour. It's like a whole big thing. I was free at the moment. I hopped on the call and I did a half-hour talk. And there was no like childhood stuff. It was all just tell me everything about prison. And I think what I, what won her over was I had built an actual prison cell in my studio where we do skits, um like funny reenactments and stuff. So I showed her I had the real prison toilet. I had everything I should. They asked about my tattoos. Um, we just had this whole conversation. I sent that in and I had assigned an NDA at the time. And that's when I learned it was about Mr. Beast. They don't tell you it's prison-related. They don't tell you how many people. They don't tell you how many days, and they don't tell you about the money. It was just, it's a Mr. Beast video.

• 10:32Jack Selby?

  So then when did you find out what it was that you were doing?

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Three weeks later, um, that same casting agent follows up and says, hey, you made it to the next round. Can you meet with someone on the Beast team? I get on a call with now her and the lead casting agent of the Beast team. The questions on that call were more like, what would you do with the money? What would you do if you lost? What would you do if you stayed for 100 days? This is when I learned it was a 100 day video. And I said, all right, let me get back to you tomorrow. Cause they said I had 24 hours to give them a yes. And that wouldn't even guarantee me a spot. And so I text the casting agent right away and I said, I'm in. And she said, are you sure? Like you could still take some time? And I said, no, like everything works out. I could do this. Few days later, I'm on the call with the psychologist.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  I had to do like a 500 question questionnaire before, and then an hour call with the psychologist. Just getting a vibe, feeling everything like that.

• 11:26Jack Selby?

  That seems like very, very intense vetting. You went through like, I don't even know how many calls you mentioned and like interviews and this and that. And then the psych evaluation, what were they probing for?

• 11:37Speaker 02

  So I think this one was super strict and intense because of the felon part. So they, from their perspective, they needed to cast the perfect criminal in a way. Like they needed to cast someone that wasn't going to be too, like there wasn't going to be too much negative feedback, but was also a criminal. Someone that wasn't going to reoffend again, or had a high potential to reoffend. So a lot of the psychological questions are like your current mind state, your family, business. They do a whole social media deep dive to see what your social media is like. That goes through that whole round. And then there was a lot of like, like confined spaces, questions, like mental, decision-making questions, like standard stuff you would see on a psych eval. But they were definitely, I think this was more extreme than anything because of the felon aspect.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  I mean, they needed to have someone with the felony that is going to, I mean, when they're casting, they're keeping in mind, can this person make it the whole 100 days? Because if you show up there, think about how much money's on the line from the crew to the set, to the prize winnings. And in our competition, if one person left, it's over.

• 12:40Jack Selby?

  Will they have still posted it?

• 12:42Speaker 02

  I think that what from what I've heard from the Beast team, like it has to be a certain amount of days. Like they have to have a workable video. I think if I left anywhere before like day 50, I don't think they would add enough for a video.

• 12:54Graham Stephan?

  Makes me wonder because they're doing so many challenges, how many of them they just don't end up posting because someone walks out.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've like I've heard rumors like of a couple that didn't get posted. I don't know the details of that, but I'm sure it happens and you just don't see the light of day of them ever. I mean, the casting, there's a lot of pressure on the casting. You're just taking two random strangers, putting them in an environment like this, especially this, when you have a cop and a criminal. And that was the other thing, like a lot of the prison community is like anti-cop or very outspoken, like 90% of the prison violence is caused by guards creating this environment, creating these prison politics, that all of these rules that the inmates make, the inmates run the prison and the guards let it happen. That's, that's so interesting. So, okay, well, we can get on more of the prison stuff later.

• 13:40Graham Stephan?

  I'm curious, how accurate was Mr. Beast's prison to real life prison?

• 13:44Speaker 02

  So physically, it was very realistic. Like the guy had the actual prison toilet hooked up. Even in my studio, we didn't have a hooked up toilet. Like he had the real deal. He had the real prison shower, prison bunks. He had the actual like 500 pound metal table like drilled in to the concrete. So realistic. I think mentally it was different because like in real prison, you're not going 30 days without a book. That's why me and him would always bicker like on every check-in day about how this is a fake prison, this isn't a real prison, because there's more to do in an actual real prison. But again, this is a challenge and I understood his standpoint. But from a physical part, he made it very real and they based it off of like their art team based it off of prison

• 14:27Speaker 02

  movies, prison shows. It was really cool. Even the doors, the tray slots, like they spared no expense to make this super legitimate. How accurately did they depict the drama that was going on between you and the cop? So the drama wasn't real. All the drama.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Pieces, not that it was scripted. He doesn't script anything. We scripted it ourselves. So the drama that you see in the video was real, but me and Lenny were doing it as a joke to punk him.

• 14:55Graham Stephan?

  So, so Jimmy didn't ask you guys, hey, like make this into a bigger deal, but you were just like, you were like, hey, I'm bored in this pseudo prison. May as well bake some drama.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  So the, the first fake drama we had was on day 30 and we really wanted them to put it in because Mr. Beast's reaction was priceless. We devised this plan with the books as you guys saw in the video and I passed Lenny a note and I said, hey, let me take the books and I'll smuggle them out. We make the deal, go along with it and Jimmy was filming another video and came back a couple of hours later, like you guys see in the video. Lenny winks at me while I'm sitting on the bed and that's when he says, I want the Bible. Why do you think you could get the books? We're arguing back and forth for like three hours, like a real fight, like the tensions in the room. They called the casting department and the team, the creative team saying, hey, I think one of them is going home. Like it was real.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Jimmy walks in and I, I say to him, I'm like, hey, I can't stand next to him. Like I'm ready to go home. If I don't get the library, like the tension was there. All the way to the last second where he's like, well, who's getting the books? And I say me after a long pause. That was all real, not edited. And Jimmy like lets out a huge sigh of relief. Because he thought it was real and we punked him over it. But that was like the first scripted drama on our part. No one ever told us to say anything. What they will say to do is just whatever you guys talk about, keep talking about it. Like I said, I talked about wanting a haircut like every day. Cause they need a way to introduce it into the, the video, but they'll never say stir up drama or do this or do that. It's all real.

• 16:22Graham Stephan?

  Wouldn't they know though, if you're devising a plan, cause it's all recorded, like how much of this can they not get on camera? Like I'd imagine passing a note, there's someone watching you pass a note.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  They saw us pass a note, but they did, I wrote it in the bathroom. There's no notes, like no cameras in the bathroom or showers or in the back. So they didn't see what I wrote. Um, and they didn't know what the plan was. And then he winked at me and they didn't see it or whatever. That you ask anyone on their team, they would have thought one of us is going home on day 30. And also by that point, I was complaining heavily because I wanted to quit like probably 10 or 15 times in the first 10 days.

• 16:55Graham Stephan?

  Why?

• 16:56Speaker 02

  So for me. I went to real prison and that prison experience gave me a good break from all the disaster that was going on in my world. All the stress, everything. I was overweight. I was miserable. I was in a massive amount of debt, failed businesses. All my friends abandoned me. It was a really bad spot. So those three years in real prison was a great break and a reset and I got to plan what I was gonna do in the future. I get out, I rebuild my life. I work at Whole Foods and then I'm able to create a successful business and have a really good life. Then you go leave that on the line and you go into this environment where you have no phone. You have no internet, no family, no friends, no communication. You give up your life

• 17:38Speaker 02

  and you don't know how your baby's doing on the outside. And the baby being my podcast and what I was able to build, literally trusting someone else with that. And I always compare it to would Jimmy be able to go off the map for a hundred days? And not know his analytics. I mean, how many times do you guys look at your analytics in a day and respond to comments? Like I was doing all of that. I was a one man team before my friend came into the picture. I was doing all the posts, all the editing, everything. So I was literally trusting my whole life. And this is a great topic to talk about later too, is that I would never have risked my whole platform for a Mr. Beast video because you can't depend on just that money or just that exposure to blow you up. And I think that's where a lot of contestants might go wrong after a Mr. Beast video if they don't have their own laner, their own content.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  So I had all those things in mind. So for me, I was miserable being away from all that. I'm a worker by trait and like to be physically hands on. So to be in an environment where you have nothing going on. Cause you can only talk to someone, I mean, we talked probably the first four days or whatever about our whole lives. But after that, how much is there really to get to know each other on that level? So we did things like we made a chessboard engraved into the table and we use like vitamins and gummies and stuff that we had as pieces. And then we made like the basketball hoop and a pull up bar with my bed, but that's all we had to do. And we lived through like getting the three meals a day and going to the rec yard once a day and splitting up the time that way, but a lot of it was nothing.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  You know, it was just sitting there. So to me, that was the hardest part.

• 19:10Jack Selby?

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• 19:53Jack Selby?

  Trust me, guys, I've actually used Upwork quite a few different times, and it's an absolutely phenomenal resource. If you're looking for any sort of freelancer work in any field, I highly recommend it. Upwork just makes the entire process easier, simpler, and more affordable with industry-low fees. So post a job today and hire tomorrow with Upwork. All you gotta do is head to upwork.com, U.P.W.O.R.K. com, or you can just click the link down below in the description. Once again, if you guys are looking for freelancer work of any kind, I highly recommend it. I've used it. I've had great success with it. Upwork.com or the link down below in the description. Thank you so much to Upwork for sponsoring this episode. So there was no drama between you and the cop whatsoever in actuality. Like, all of the drama was just you and him plotting to make things fun, to make things entertaining.

• 20:37Jack Selby?

  Was there ever a part where you guys were feuding a little bit?

• 20:39Speaker 02

  So the snoring was definitely like the first real drama. I guess you could call it real drama.

• 20:43Jack Selby?

  That could be annoying.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was more me solo drama because it was, um, it was at night. He was asleep. He was a heavy sleeper at night. I went to bed early, and I was up like all night listening to these snores. And I'm like flipping out on the camera in the middle of the night. Like, I was pissed about that because I wanted to sleep. So there was that. And then at day 50, I was pissed, not necessarily at him, but I was just angry that one I was thrown in solitary during the visit.

• 21:09Jack Selby?

  So that was real?

• 21:10Speaker 02

  That was all real, yeah. So this is when I really realized how legit Mr. Beast is, and anyone could say whatever they want about him. But this, like, I think solidifies it. When that-

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Happened on day 50 where only one of us could pick the visit. In my mind, I'm thinking, okay, he's, this is gonna happen. They'll focus on Lenny and then they're gonna let me say hi to my family or something. They flew them out there all the way from Connecticut. Like, I'll have time with them to see them and he got his edit for the video. Everything's good. They put me in solitary. I'm thinking, okay, they're gonna open the door any second. They got the shots. Everything's good. None of that happened. I'm literally in solitary for like five hours waiting. They put my family back in a car and sent them all the way back to Connecticut. I didn't talk to them.

• 21:54Jack Selby?

  How did your family feel about that?

• 21:55Speaker 02

  My dad's pissed to this day. So something that didn't make the video was that on day 80, cause every check in, I would say, Jimmy, this is a real prison. Where's my phone call? And we would go back and forth and he would always string me along. And on day 80, he finally gave me a FaceTime, like right before that rock challenge. So that was the first time I got to talk to my family. We were able to send letters because we bought down commissary, but we couldn't receive letters back. So they had a whole stack of letters for us when we got out. But on day 80, you know, I FaceTime my dad for like five minutes when Lenny was deciding on the rock. And that was the first time I got to talk to him. My dad like is yelling at Mr. Beast like in the background, I'm still mad at you. Cause my dad doesn't, he's almost 80, he doesn't really understand how this all works at its content, you know?

• 22:38Speaker 02

  But I had told them before I left, listen, I'm not paying for you guys. Like if there's a, if there's a visit and they offer money, I'm not doing it. I want to keep the money to see you guys. Cause I saw on other videos, you could pay for a visit. But that, that's what essentially happened. I realized how real it is. Nothing scripted or, or you're, you're being recorded 24/7.

• 22:58Jack Selby?

  So those were the only things that you really feuded about was the solitary confinement and then the snoring?

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, we, we fought about the rock though too. So Lenny made that decision on his own because I was so happy about the phone call and focused on that.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  I left it to Lenny to make the decision on the rock. He inspected the rock. He's like, bro, we got this. This is easy. That first hour, we're just swinging it because we didn't have the proper tool yet. We didn't have the chisel yet. We ended up finding what we needed in the book and then they gave us the chisel because they knew that you needed the chisel for it. But I was pissed at him. I was getting beat up like splinters and blisters and we were both getting hurt and the rock was not budging.

• 23:36Jack Selby?

  So explain the offering that they made to you with the rock.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Okay, so with the rock on day 80, they came in and they said, hey, do you guys want to make money? This is the first challenge in 80 days where we have the opportunity to make money. They say if you want to do this challenge, they don't tell us what it is yet. You have to pay 50 grand to enter. So we pay the 50 grand, we go outside and we see the rock. We heard noises outside all day, like them moving everything around, but we didn't know what it was. We see the rock, they took our 50 grand, then he explains that if you break the rock and get the key, you'll get your 50 grand back plus another 50 grand, so 100 grand total. And so Lenny decides to do that, take the rock deal. And I was going to support him and I thought we would be able to do it. But I didn't realize how hard it was going to be.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  That rock was hard, it was a granite rock that they literally drilled it at the top. Some, put a cement block in it with the key and then flipped it over. So that's at the bottom. That's why you see in the video, we're trying to pry it with the chest press to flip it over to get to it. And it wasn't working.

• 24:37Graham Stephan?

  How did there just happen to be a book that you found in the library?

• 24:41Speaker 02

  So I think that it might've been planted, like they had that planned from day one. Cause they have all the challenges planned, like they, they know what their plan is. But also there was a lot of random books in there. Like they, they did a really good job. That was like a real prison library. They had every book you can possibly imagine in that library.

• 24:58Graham Stephan?

  How, it, it didn't look like they had that many books.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  There's a lot of books.

• 25:01Graham Stephan?

  And so there just happened to be a book about like rocks and how they work and how you can open them. How did you find that?

• 25:08Speaker 02

  It was a masonry book. And so by, by that point, by day 80, I knew every book in that library. Cause I was going in there for an hour a day. I was tearing books out, I was ripping them apart, I was skimming through it and I was reading a book a day too. I was literally reading a book a day, I read the whole, um, Lord of the Rings series. Wait, how are you reading a book a day if you only had an hour? I smuggled them out, remember in the video? Yeah, I smuggle, I started smuggling the books out on day one. Actually, the first night we got the challenge, when Jimmy turned around, I was able to get the Bible out for Lenny.

• 25:36Graham Stephan?

  Did you not worry at all that you smuggling books could somehow jeopardize the challenge? Or did you believe that Jimmy would not cancel the challenge or anything for you smuggling books?

• 25:46Speaker 02

  So I was definitely scared about it. Like there was more things we could have done in the video that I could have got away with from a content perspective. But then like me who has been to prison is like, I don't want to get in trouble for this. Like I don't want to break the rules that were break the game. They would always say. It's your sandbox, do whatever, but don't break the game. So I didn't know if that classified as breaking the game. For example, when we turned down the kitchen, they had to dump all that stuff out of the kitchen to like to to remove all the stuff that they filled in there. And it was like sitting in the rec yard one day, they had it on a cart. And I was gonna steal it all. And I was like, I don't want to get in trouble. And I later found out that they would have used it as content. Like, I wouldn't have gotten in trouble for it. So their definition of breaking the game is like if we're smashing windows or prying something apart. But the books, they let me roll with it. They didn't yell

• 26:30Speaker 02

  at me at that. I mean, that happened on day 30, and we didn't see Jimmy day 40. The boys came for commissary. And then we got scolded for the books on day 50. But he let it rock. And they said afterwards that they wanted a reason to use solitary.

• 26:46Jack Selby?

  So how often were you interacting with people other than the cop?

• 26:52Speaker 02

  It's very rarely. I mean, on day one, when you're filming the intro, everyone's around, Jimmy's around, then he comes in two days later, that's all real. Then every 10 days, he comes in to film with you. That's all real. But then you have the production team that was dressed as cop or as guards, as correctional officers. So when they would deliver the food, these are the guys that are making notes while they're watching your camera, the cameras, because someone has to physically watch the set, take notes if something happens, change your mics. And then they would feed us. So they would get the keys and they would come down the correctional officer outfit. So you got to talk to them there, too. And then they had like the God mic hanging above, where we would like, we gave them all names, all the guards. So we would call them like LT or shot caller, we'd

• 27:36Speaker 02

  come up with names. And sometimes they would banter back. But for the 90% of the time, you're alone. Throughout the process, though, Jimmy would come through on tours, like he brought the Make-A-Wish Foundation through, all the streamers that leaked clips from the video came through at different various points. He did a lot of tours.

• 27:53Jack Selby?

  That's really interesting.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, so people would get to see it. And we didn't think any of that stuff was coming out. But I guess they want them to leak it.

• 28:02Jack Selby?

  What about like the, the video cameras and the audio equipment? Like how, I feel like, you know, for us, like we have to swap the batteries. We gotta do all of that. I imagine if you're recording 24/7 for 100 days, there's gonna be a lot of production issues. Were there any like leaks there that you saw?

• 28:17Speaker 02

  No, so they have like a full-time production team that's on it. And remember, he had three sets going on at the same time. He had the plane, he had the gym. We would literally yell across the match.

• 28:27Jack Selby?

  You would?

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, we would. And his video at the 21 minute mark, you see us yelling, "Ayo!" across the field to him.

• 28:34Jack Selby?

  Wow.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  So you see that in, in his video. And then he came to us on day 80, day 90, and day 100, uh, because he had gone out by that point. So there's that. And then we saw them like setting up the whole crane for him to do the hanging challenge, like when they lifted him up and whatnot. But they would have production guys come in, change out cameras, change wires. They're always like doing stuff because they built this whole prison in two months. So there were some like tweaks that they had to work on. But other than that, everything's, you know, very legit. We had our vlog cameras, we had our microphones, and, and that was it.

• 29:04Jack Selby?

  How much do you think it cost to make that video?

• 29:07Speaker 02

  I'd say with like talent, production, the prison, everything, probably like 3 million bucks. That's what I think.

• 29:15Graham Stephan?

  Makes sense because if he's running it a lot, so a lot of these videos, he probably loses a little bit on this video, but makes it back with Feastables or just brand recognition.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  And over time, like, what do the estimates on those apps say? Like that video's at 80 million views right now and it's made like 400 or 500K in revenue. I don't know how that all works because I don't have numbers like that. But overall, you know, I'm sure long-term he'll make that money back on the video. And it's all about cash flow and, and getting the revenue in and more views and, you know, and he's got Feastables and he's got everything else too.

• 29:48Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  And merch and sponsorships.

• 29:51Graham Stephan?

  Is there anything in the video he didn't want the audience to know?

• 29:53Speaker 02

  They don't do any, like, they take such good care of you. Even when we're in solitary, they made sure we had the AC units in there. Like you see in the video, me laying on the floor, the AC units there. They installed AC right away when they realized there was no AC in the building. And they had to get AC put in, uh, because it was in winter when we started, but then the springtime happened. They're so good about care. Like they're not gonna let you get physically hurt or anything like that. They wanna make sure you're good. They're checking in on you all the time that between casting, or they had a doctor come every 30 days, um, to weigh us, make sure we're good food-wise and everything like that. So they're so- Professional in that regard.

• 30:29Graham Stephan?

  Makes me think, speaking of getting hurt, Jimmy should do a Survivor episode of Creators. Get 20 creators together on an island and literally recreate Survivor.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  That would be great.

• 30:41Graham Stephan?

  For a million dollars.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  He should have all that, his old contestants, kinda like what Barstool is doing now with like the Barstool thing or whatever, the beach thing. But he just put out a post saying he wanted to do a Hunger Games version, like obviously no one dying, but there was like a trending post talking about the Hunger Games.

• 30:56Graham Stephan?

  I don't know, I think Survivor is making a comeback.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:59Graham Stephan?

  So I think a lot of people would prefer Survivor.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  I think it would be good. I mean, he has got so many.

• 31:03Graham Stephan?

  The drama between people.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's got so many different angles he could, he could do about it.

• 31:07Graham Stephan?

  But have them get hurt.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  I don't know about physically.

• 31:11Jack Selby?

  I would love it as a viewer, but I think that it would cause a lot of controversy.

• 31:15Graham Stephan?

  For creators, you just know what you're getting into. If you understand you're going to an island and you're gonna have to eat bugs and coconuts, you know what you're getting into. And if you get hurt, it's part of the challenge.

• 31:25Jack Selby?

  If you're listening to this, Jimmy, I would win. I would win. Put me in any challenge, I'll win. I'm curious, what was your first impression of Jimmy?

• 31:31Speaker 02

  So I, I didn't really know what to expect with him. I was definitely very intimidated by him and nervous about him on day one. I didn't know how he would be. I just, I, I watched his Diary of a CEO interview with him before, the night before I went in. And when I met him, he's like a, just a really nice, good dude. Like he'll make jokes like a normal person. He'll, he played chess with me. He, we played basketball with him. He cares so much, especially about the people in his videos. Like he, some of like his directors would come and say, hey Jimmy, I wanted to make sure like, you're generally okay, cause I was always complaining about the phone call or things like that. And I'm like, yeah, it's just, it's like, it's content, you know, I get it.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  So he's just, he cares a lot and he's just a really nice dude, but he's extremely busy. So when you're there for 2,400 hours, we probably maybe spent all together two hours with him out of all that time. You know, he's flying for different videos. He's recorded all these videos while we were there and it's really cool to see the videos he worked on, like while we were in there and what he would tell us about. But he's just a good dude. You gotta respect the hustle and I. Appreciate the opportunity you gave me.

• 32:39Jack Selby?

  What was it like going without your phone?

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Dude, at first it was hard because I was always on my phone. Then it's so peaceful. When are you ever going to get a chance in life to go 100 days without a phone? Or any piece of electronic? When we got access to the computer in the library, it only had Wikipedia on it. It had no games, nothing, just Wikipedia. So that was like the first electronic thing. But it's refreshing, but it's also hard at the same time. But it's also nice to not have to owe anyone an answer. I think it would have been harder if I had like a wife or kids or anything at home at the time. I think that was definitely harder for Lenny.

• 33:14Jack Selby?

  How was it going on your phone for the first time after 100 days of not having it?

• 33:17Speaker 02

  So I got on my phone like right away just to look at all of my data and stats and stuff. And there's like this clip of me freaking out because I had finally passed like 100,000 followers on Instagram. And I was so curious about how my YouTube was doing and everything. And I was just like consumed by that data and looking at it. So it was nice. And then we ended up all going out with the beast team that night. And I got drunk for the first time in like 100 days. We're at the bar.

• 33:40Jack Selby?

  For the first time in 100 days.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:42Jack Selby?

  Night before the challenge. You're getting drunk.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  The night before the challenge. It was like 105 days. But anyways, I go back to the hotel room. It's like 3am. And I'm trying to fall asleep and I couldn't fall asleep. So I just stayed up all night, worked and then, you know, got the tour of like his studio the next day and then flew home that night. But it was good to be back on the phone, connect with people, be back on social media, see what I missed. They would mess with us. Jimmy would be like, hey, did you see that aliens are real now? They just confirmed it. And then when you'd ask him about it, he walks away and never comes back. So there would be stuff like that. He would have streamers like give us like random stuff, random information that was like fake or whatever. He has fun with you. He would come by like 11 o'clock at night, some nights or all right. What was cool to see is that whole. What was it, that challenge?

• 34:31Speaker 02

  The viral post about the thug life stuff with the pictures? Where he was like, holding up cash? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was due, he did that at the prison. He did that while that was all going on and stuff. So that was cool to see.

• 34:43Graham Stephan?

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• 35:09Jack Selby?

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• 35:27Graham Stephan?

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• 35:47Jack Selby?

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• 35:56Graham Stephan?

  Huge thank you again to Pipe Drive for sponsoring this episode. And now let's get back to the podcast.

• 36:01Jack Selby?

  And how was it living with a complete stranger for 100 days?

• 36:04Speaker 02

  To me, it was fine because I did that before for three years. You know, think about all the random people I had to live with and adapt to and be in sales with. I did six months in real solitary at one point. So that was easy for me. It was, it was, it was fine to do that. Well, you said six months in real solitary? Yeah, so that was the other reason why I didn't like the Mr. B solitary because it's half the size of real solitary. It's bigger in real prison. Why were you in solitary? So the first time I was in solitary was because I got caught on a contraband phone. We all had contraband cell phones in prison, like there were like LG smartphones. And our room got raided and they got into the phone and there was a video of me getting choked out of us wrestling, like we were just messing around.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  And one of the guys in the room was like choking, like squealing on the floor and they raided the room, they see the video, they called me the lieutenant's office, they put the whole room under investigation, they put me in solitary for that, like under protective custody, I guess in a way, and they asked if I wanted to leave there. And I'm like, yeah, everyone's trying to extort me here and give me a hard time. And I was in New Jersey. I wanted to be at the Danbury Federal Prison, which is my hometown where I'm from, what Orange is the New Black is based on. Yeah. So I sat in the shoe there for like six weeks. They finally shipped me to Danbury, but on the way to Danbury, so New Jersey to Danbury is about an hour and a half drive, right? You know how long it took me to get by prison transport bus from New Jersey to Danbury? About a month and a half. Wow.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  So when I left, I did four dicks, they brought me to Philly. Well, first they brought me to Brooklyn, spent a night in Brooklyn, then I went to Philly. I was in solitary there for six weeks because if you travel from the shoe, whatever facility you're in, in transit, you have to go to the shoe. I sat there for six weeks. What do you mean, like the shoe? Solitary, it's called the shoe, the special housing unit or the box or. So what is it like in there? So it's like half the size of this room in width and double bunk bed, prison toilet, a desk, and that's it. You got one shower, three showers a week every other day, three meals a day, no commissary, you're on kind of restriction, rec yard five days a week for an hour. So that's kind of like where Jimmy got that theme from, that's more like

• 38:14Speaker 02

  solitary. When they come in to get you, both you and your cellmate have to handcuff yourself behind your back in the slot, and then they come in to get you and they move you out. So that's solitary. People could be there if they check in, that's called like checking in for protective custody, or if you got. Caught with a phone or under investigation, anything like that, you're in solitary. So I finally make it to Danbury and that's five minutes from where my parents lived. And I get on the yard and now I know about paperwork and how to maneuver and I knew people there and people knew me and they knew that I didn't snitch. Or I wasn't a defender and I'm on the yard for like 15 hours, didn't even meet my bunkmate yet. And the lieutenants call me to the lieutenants office and say, are you Ian Bick?

• 38:55Speaker 02

  I said, yes. They said, turn around, put your hands behind your back and they handcuffed me and they bring me to the solitary there. This solitary looks like Alcatraz, like with the three tiers and the actual bars on it, like you would think is what a prison looks like. I later found out that I had dated a guard's cousin and he reported a conflict of interest. Saying that because he worked there, you know, that could lead to a conflict of interest exposure. Like if I tried to get contraband from him or anything, it could put him in a compromising position. So I was in the shoe there for three or four months, waiting to get transferred. And then they finally brought me to a camp, but it was in Oxford, Wisconsin. They put me on Con Air, shipped me all the way out to Oxford, Wisconsin. And then I spent my last year in a prison camp.

• 39:39Graham Stephan?

  Now, when it comes to the challenge itself, did you have any strategy that you discussed with Lenny?

• 39:46Speaker 02

  So on day one, we kind of talked about not spending any money. And then we, good thing is like we, by day nine, we talked amongst ourselves of, hey, let's not, let's actually spend a little bit of money to get through this to help us. Because then on day 10, we got offered the $50,000 offer, $25,000 each to spend the money for the rec yard. So our strategy was overall, don't spend a lot of money, but then we realized you kind of have to in these videos. And they reward you for that by giving you options to make money like we saw with The Rock. And that's why I spent money on commissary too.

• 40:20Graham Stephan?

  What was the money best spent?

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Definitely the rec yard. I mean, being able to get fresh air for those 100 days was great. And it helps split out the time, having that hour, we picked our rec time at 5:00 PM. So it was, dinner was at eight, so meals were at 8:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM. So doing it at 5:00 PM kind of broke up the day.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  And then why we didn't take the kitchen was because we didn't want to give up the rec yard after just 10 days of having it. So that's why we turned it down on day 20. And honestly, how much did you trust him out of 10? I trusted him 100%. Like, I could tell he was a good, just a good guy. He was very religious. And I think throughout the whole thing, if anyone didn't trust anyone, it's him not trusting me just based on my past and that I'm branded as a criminal and everything like that. But I trusted him fully. You could tell he was just a good person. You ever just like meet that person and you just know they're like a good dude? That was him. It's just a really solid guy.

• 41:20Graham Stephan?

  Were there any topics you were afraid to talk about that were just on camera? Because you're constantly recorded. Like, sometimes Jack and I will be riffing back and forth and

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Some taboo topics.

• 41:30Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, maybe there's some jokes every now and then that we make where it's like, you know, there's no cameras around. So maybe you forget about like, we're being recorded.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  So we, like at 10pm when like we took our mics off to go to bed, we would always talk about, like, relationships or just whatever, like random stuff. But the one thing I never talked to him about was that at one point I had an OnlyFans when I was first getting started in podcasting. Cause he was like super against Only, like it came up in conversation about like OnlyFans and like it was despicable and like all of these things. So when I first started, when I quit my job, I had no money. I wasn't making money on the podcast or whatnot. So I was literally driving Uber, doing DoorDash, and I had an OnlyFans. And like, it was 90% men that subscribed to me. And I made like 10 grand in a month. In one month? Yeah, bro. I was selling feet pics, other pics. Yeah, dude, it was crazy. I still got guys to

• 42:23Speaker 02

  this day DM me and be like, hey, do you still have the OnlyFans?

• 42:26Graham Stephan?

  So you just put a link up and you made 10 grand in a month?

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, about a month and a half, but yeah.

• 42:30Graham Stephan?

  Is there a dollar amount where you would consider doing that again?

• 42:34Speaker 02

  I think now I would probably make serious money doing it because I might have a huge following now. It's way bigger. That was like when I first started in the early days. Are you worried about that stuff being recirculated? No, I mean, who cares? You know, like if it comes out, it comes out. What are you gonna do? You know, it's not the end of the world.

• 42:49Jack Selby?

  Why don't you do it, Graham? Graham, you know what Graham does? He loves doing this. It's like, hey, you should do this. You should do this. And Graham would be like, me? No, I would never do that. But you should do it.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  He's a business guy, though. He's looking at the dollars.

• 42:59Jack Selby?

  He's a business guy.

• 43:00Graham Stephan?

  Just saying, I want to help other people.

• 43:02Jack Selby?

  That's very nice of you.

• 43:03Graham Stephan?

  I'm thinking of someone else other than myself.

• 43:06Jack Selby?

  Sure. So if you are in desperate need of another $50,000 a month, then maybe you could do it. But I think that like if you're getting by and you're paying your bills, you know, you're doing, you're doing fine. You know, maybe if you really want to, by all means.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  No, I think that chapter is closed, especially after doing a Mr. Beast video and stuff.

• 43:23Jack Selby?

  I feel like that would be kind of like slapping him in the face.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't do that. I can't have any scandals or anything like that, you know? It's just not, I can't do it. But it's a part of the story, you know? I'm gonna own that. I'm not gonna hide that. Just a genuine part of the story. He'll probably watch this, but yeah, so it is what it is.

• 43:41Jack Selby?

  Would you say you ended up becoming really close friends with him after 100 days?

• 43:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're really close. I mean, a couple of weeks after, he came and we recorded the episode for my podcast with me and him. And then I did one for his podcast. We went to dinner. We talk almost every day. He's just, he's a good dude. He's curious about content. He learned a lot from me. I learned a lot from him. And we have a close relationship.

• 44:01Graham Stephan?

  What was it like winning $500,000?

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't technically win $500,000, but it was, I don't know.

• 44:10Speaker 00

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• 45:09Speaker 02

  I think that it's not what you would really expect. I mean, my take home was $240,000. But I had gotten a couple paydays like that in the last couple of years. So it didn't really hit me necessarily like as hard as you would expect. And I also gave $150,000 of that as soon as the wire came into restitution to bring that down. Because from my court case, I had about $500,000 restitution. Now my balance today is about $197,000.

• 45:36Jack Selby?

  Today?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Today, yeah. That's after Mr. Beast, after paying money from, you know, my business and everything like that. So that brings it down to that.

• 45:44Jack Selby?

  So how do restitution payments look? Let's say you fraud someone out of $500,000. You get $500,000 in restitution. Go to prison, you get out. Could you just file for bankruptcy? Like, how do you, how many payments do you need to make? How long of a term is it? Is it a certain percentage of your income? How does it look?

• 46:02Speaker 02

  So you can't file for bankruptcy on federal restitution. I'm not sure how it works in the state. You're sentencing, your judge is going to order a payment plan through the term of your supervised release. So for example, Wolf of Wall Street, during his supervised release was 50% of his income. Mine was $1,000 a month. Usually after that supervised release ends, it's called the Financial Litigation Unit. They're like the US Attorney team that goes after civil stuff because it becomes civil after. They kind of hold that, you know, payment plan to the standard or you'll negotiate with them or talk to them. The worst thing you could do is avoid them and not pay. So when I got off supervised release, I was paying the $1,000 a month once my business started or after I left Whole Foods.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  And I met with them and we agreed on the $1,000. A month, but when I get bigger chunks of money than I pay more towards it. I think the biggest thing is just showing trust because they can't go after you. Like if you're not paying, they can sanction you. They can levy your bank accounts and do things like that. What they say is that the judgment's good for 20 years. And then after that, it kind of falls off, but I'm going to at the rate I'm going. It's going to be paid before the 20 year mark. But you look at a guy like Jordan and he still owes like $98 million. And that case was, you know, 20 something years ago. I read somewhere that he's paying like 10 grand a month. So who do you mostly owe it to? Just investors that were a part of the case. There's about 12 people. Are they like your friends? Old friends, yeah, friends, parents of those friends.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  I had raised money for a concert business. Concert business is the worst business you could go get into. Overpromised, underdelivered, which was okay in the sense where if I had just been honest and said, I lost your money, it would have been okay. It would have been at best, maybe a civil thing, but it turned out to be I lied about those losses and said, I made money when I didn't. And in that sense, a Ponzi scheme kind of grew from that because I was taking loans from some people to pay off others, just to continue to lie and buy time to pay off their investments. Yeah, let's talk about that. How did you get into doing this? So my dad is a caterer and I grew up like going to the Harry Potter premieres and going to like cool events in New York City because he would cater these events.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  And I always had a passion for that. And I had a passion for business at a young age. I would sell candy out of my backpack in middle school. And I would have lemonade stands and I was always like a hustler in that sense. Then where it really starts is my, beginning of sophomore year of high school. Me and my best friend foamed these cars in our neighborhood. We lived in this gated neighborhood where there's like a president and a vice president. And they said, you can't, you can't ride golf carts. And we had golf carts at the time and we felt like offended. So we took insulation foam, foam their cars at night and got caught for it and got sentenced to community service. And my community service project was, I came up with it to sell like these live strong.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  Bracelets for a dollar a piece and call it Fight for the Homeless. That kind of grew. I raised a couple thousand dollars for charity and I decided to make a school dance from it. And I made a school dance, organized it, rented the venue, did all these things just as a sophomore in high school and realized that if you could get 300 kids to pay 20 bucks to, you know, go to a school dance, this could be a business. Few months later, when I turned 16, I start renting out this local club in Danbury called Tuxedo Junction, doing teen parties. I called it like the Halloween rave, the Christmas rave, a paint party where we threw washable paint like a Day-Glo at kids. And I would make 10 or 15 grand a night, once a month, all in cash, doing these like teen parties, no alcohol and that type of thing.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  That's when I decided I wasn't going to go to college and then I had this business called myself This Is Where It's At Entertainment. Kind of like a play on words that this is where it's going to be at for the night. And got my first LLC like my junior year of high school. And then I thought the, the, the next step for club promotion was concerts. And the very first concert I ever booked was Big Sean in Danbury. And then after that, started booking other concerts.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Did he show up? He did, yeah. I only had one person not show up. That was Chief Keef. But you had, you had Big Sean show up and how much did you have to pay him to? That show was, he was 40 grand at the time. Forty thousand. This was in 2012, yeah. And how much, so how much did you make from that? That, we lost money. So the concert business is so tough, especially in the arenas. And you're also, it's not a brick and mortar location. So when you're a promoter and you're renting a location and you lose money, you don't even really have a brand to show for it, you know? At least if you are a brick and mortar, people are getting familiar with the space, with the event, you don't have to start over every time. Never had event insurance. We did everything wrong you could possibly do. I mean, we were kids, we were 18 years old, 17 years old. And you booked Big Sean? Yeah. Did you talk to him?

• 50:50Speaker 02

  No, that day I met him, but not to book him. But yeah, I met him that day, got a picture with him, dealt with his tour manager. I booked 21 Savage, Chief Keef. How much was 21 Savage? 21 Savage, I gave 24,000 to. And Chief Keef, how much was he? He was 25,000 at the time. Didn't show up though. What happens if they just don't show up? In a case like that, it's tough because you're going through a management team, they're hidden by a different LLCs. You're going to spend more money than. You know what it takes. Why pay them upfront or why not pay half now and half later? We paid half upfront, um, the 12.5, but then you have the, where we lost money was, uh, security, the venue. He literally sent out a tweet. So first his manage, the show's at 8:00 PM.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  The manager calls us at seven saying, you missed his flight. He'll be on the next one. Then an hour later goes by, we can't find him. We don't hear from them till the next day where they, he sends out a tweet saying, sorry, Connecticut, wasn't the promoter's fault. That was it. Never got that money back. I booked the Chain Smokers, Steve Ioki, uh, Adventure Club. How much were the Chain Smokers? For that night, it was a Thanksgiving Eve party. This is right after they dropped Selfie, but before they dropped, Don't Let Me Down, uh, November 2014, I gave him 25 grand. What about Steve Ioki? Steve Ioki, I wasn't the personal one booking him, but I think he got like 75 grand for that club because that was a smaller capacity. It was at my club though. Did you, did you ever make money from any concert?

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's plenty. I, you know who Blowers? I, I did him a couple of times, made money with him. Oh, Justin, right? Um, he lives down the street. Dude, no way. He knows who I am. Really? Yeah. Um, so he was the very first big DJ I booked. So a second DJ, I did GTA at Tuxedo Junction. So he was good friends with this company called Envy Concepts, um, that did a lot of shows with him. That's how I got all the big names. So I booked him twice at my venue. Um, and he, I put up like a post like before I got into content and he, he had responded back to it. Uh, but he's a really nice guy and stuff. So anyways, we did him on a Wednesday night, had like 2,000 people there. Packed out place. Like we have, I'll show you the pictures after. It's really cool. Um, he's like, his arms spread out. It was like a really, it was a small club and what we'd get these artists because they would play in Boston.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  Uh, then they would play at Shrine and Foxwoods and your, and Connecticut. Then they would hit Danbury, which is an hour away. And then they would go to New York City. And because we were an all ages club with no liquor, we could pretty much do any night. Where did things go wrong? Um, so things went wrong with my business before I owned the nightclub. Um, it was the concert promotion where I was taking money from investors, promising them a guaranteed profit. So say I went to you and I said, hey, man, um, give me 20 grand. I'm going to give you a guaranteed profit back because I was so confident these shows were going to work out. Um, and you'll get it back after the concert. Well, if the concerts all worked out, everything would have been great, but they failed miserably.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  Um, when I booked Tyga, um, for 40 grand at this arena show, uh, there was an incident. Remember Amsmacked? So it was a big college tour.

• 53:48Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there was an incident where they got like this bar shut down. The venue lost its liquor license, a whole big issue. And the dean of the campus at the University of Rhode Island didn't want buses from outside schools coming to the venue. So we lost like 2,000 ticket sales in the matter of days from kids from other schools. So I lost on this Tiger show, I paid a hundred grand for the whole show with production and everything. My wire transfer after the show was for $16,000. So I lost $84,000 that night in one night. So all of these things were piling up and simultaneously I had like this electronics business where we were buying like these Beats by Dre for like 50 bucks that turned out to be fake. So I was promising people a guaranteed profit.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  I'd say, hey, give me $20,000 as a loan and I'll give you a 50% return on that. I didn't know that 50% was extremely high. I was just basing it off of what we could sell the product for. Beats by Dre, 50 bucks, selling it for 400 bucks. You could afford that. So it pretty soon quickly turned into that business getting defunct and I'm borrowing from one person, paying off another. I didn't have credit at the time. I'm thinking, okay, this is a loan. I could use one loan to pay off another loan. Like you borrow from one bank to pay off another bank or get a loan for another loan. And then the whole thing collapses after a few months. All the concerts failed. The electronics business failed and I'm like 1.2 million in debt with the interest with all like the promised payments.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  And this was in January of 2014 or of 2013 or December of 2013.

• 55:22Graham Stephan?

  What was it like having all that money come in your bank account, though?

• 55:25Speaker 02

  I remember I was 18 years old. It was July 2013, two months after graduation and I had like $600,000 in my bank account, my business bank account. Knew nothing about accounting. I'm this kid, I would wear suit and tie to high school, thinking I was like this business guy with a briefcase and just, I have a baby face now, so imagine me back then, walking into a Wells Fargo, depositing all this money, like no one really batted an eye. It was just an interesting scene and you know, we did stupid things with it, like we bought a pair of jet skis, thinking it was like a company car, but company jet skis. We did like a couple of trips with like other investors and dinners and stuff and clothes. But for the most part, it was just a lot of stupid decisions that should not have been made.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  And we just didn't know how to run the business.

• 56:12Graham Stephan?

  How did you get caught?

• 56:15Speaker 02

  All of this happens, I'd hire, get a lawyer, a lawyer friend in December 2013. Keep in mind, this lasted six months, this whole thing. And he sends out letters to all the investors, like 15 of them, 12 or 15 of them, saying, hey, the company, we called ourselves WB Investments at the time, is like basically bankrupt and we're going to analyze to see what you owe. And his logic, or what you're owed, and his logic was, don't give anyone a profit, just give them their out of pocket back. So say you invested $20,000, you had gotten back $10,000 in payments, you're really only out of pocket $10,000. But as the investor, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a minute. I was promised like all of this interest. So you think you're owed $50,000.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  So everyone got pissed and they went to the local police department. I went in with the lawyer, met with the local police department, they were kind of fishing around, they escalated it to the Department of Banking where they subpoenaed me. I didn't know we had a Department of Banking and I thought this whole thing just needed to be cleared up. So I went there without a lawyer, testified for like five hours. This is when I was 18 years old in 2014 in April. After that meeting, they say there's two gentlemen there waiting to meet with you. And I'm sitting in this room, smaller than this room in like a closet, and two guys in, you know, old suits come out and they show me their IDs and they say they're postal inspectors. And they start asking me questions and I didn't know that they had listened into the whole interview and that they had very targeted questions towards me.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  At the end of the interview, they served me a target letter from the FBI saying you're under a federal investigation for wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, a bunch of things. And at that point, that's when I got a federal attorney, a criminal defense attorney. Couple of months after that, I'm 19 now, we met with the US Attorney's Office for this thing called a reverse proffer. A proffer is where you give the government information about like the case or co-defendants. A reverse proffer is where they say what they have on you to kind of, you know, look at what the case is. And I'm in this big room at the US Attorney's Office in Connecticut with FBI agents, US attorneys, interns from the US Attorney's Office and IRS agents, because the IRS was on the case too. And they laid out this whole case and... Basically, I was an and I didn't budge.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  That was actually the night I had the Blau show and I said, hey, I got a sold out show with Blau tonight. This doesn't really matter and I was just very arrogant and cocky and, and, and, and, and that kind of started the whole war. And then in January 2015, I got indicted. Five o'clock in the morning, FBI agents, IRS, the state troopers, local police department, banging on my door at my parents' house at 5:00 AM. I had just gotten back from the casino because I had a little gambling habit at the time. And they woke me up. I'm in my boxers and they haul me out of the house in handcuffs and in cowboy boots because they needed me to be in shoes without laces. And I was in the high school musicals throughout high school, so I had those in my closet.

• 59:13Graham Stephan?

  Did you have any contracts with the people who gave you money? Or was it all just word of mouth?

• 59:18Speaker 02

  I had contracts. I had these, I actually went, that was one of our defenses at trial. I went to an attorney, told them exactly what we were doing and he wrote me this one page contract saying, I waived the right to usury, like usury claims and that these were loans, just loans for business purposes. One page document and that was it.

• 59:37Graham Stephan?

  So in hindsight, had you just said nothing when they started probing you? Would you have gone to jail?

• 59:44Speaker 02

  I don't think so because I made their whole case for them. I gave them all the documents, all, everything. I put it all together, names, phone numbers. But even before that, all I had to do was just say, I lost your money and there wouldn't have been any fraud. I just started lying profusely because I didn't want to let anyone down.

• 1:00:00Graham Stephan?

  Do you feel bad for what you did? Or do you think that the punishment didn't really fit the crime?

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  I, I definitely felt bad about losing everyone's money. I would have pled guilty right then and there if there was no jail time. I went to trial because my plea deal was for like four years. It was ridiculous. I was 18 and they wanted to send me to prison for four years over a very relatively small amount compared to what they normally prosecute.

• 1:00:23Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, that's the part that was confusing because it seems like the, the amount of resources that they went after for the amount of loss that's there, like they would spend more money on your case than would cost just to put you to work and have you pay these people back.

• 1:00:38Jack Selby?

  The cost to keep you and send you to prison for that long could have just paid the restitution.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  Oh, the cost of the trial. I mean, keep in mind, this is a month, one month's trial. They were flying out people from all over the country because everyone was at college at this point. Agents, there was a task for it. Like, it didn't make sense. I think they thought it was bigger than what it was. I think they thought it was in the millions because normally with these fraud cases, it, there's always more to be discovered and there wasn't. And it was a very quick period of time. And I think they thought I was going to take a plea deal, which I would have if it was no jail time. So that's what kind of got them pissed off. And what pissed them off even more is that while my whole case is going on, I opened up this club, Tuxedo Junction, that had now went out of business from the old owners. I take it over and I'm doing all these concerts like with Blau and

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Zed's Dead and the Chainsmokers and all while on bond and on bail and, you know, taking the government to trial. Were you making good money during that period of time? It was hit or miss because the problem was I had a, this new business, which was completely underfunded. I mean, literally there would be nights where I was taking ticket money and running next door to the dollar store to get sodas to fill up the bar, to sell it. I was so underfunded and the problem was, is that it was a brand new business and I had some early losses, like as in any new business. Losses early on, like a couple of concerts failed miserably. So say I made 10 grand with Blau and then I would do another show that would lose 15. I'm already in a deficit from the past. I'm underfunded. I have no funding and I'm taking on more debt.

• 1:02:05Speaker 02

  So there would be periods of time, like the Chainsmokers, I owed them 20 grand for like six months. And I'm like going to the casino to gamble to win money to pay their agents so I didn't get blacklisted. I was selling equipment at the club. I was doing whatever I had to do to make that happen. What was your game of choice? I'd play a baccarat. I know I'm pronouncing it wrong. Baccarat. Baccarat. It was elect, so this is what ultimately sent me to prison. I would go to this casino called Empire City in Yonkers. And it was electronic table because I wasn't 21 yet. So I couldn't go to the Connecticut casino. And I would take like 500 bucks and play this electronic machine and I would ride the streaks. So when it's going all player, all banker, I would just continuously double down on that. You can only bet up to two grand, but I would just keep putting that, that, that and doubling it down.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  There'd be days I'd make 500, turn 500 into $30,000. That's how I was funding the club in the later days. So lucky because you could lose that, like just. I mean, you could say that about how did I get cast in Mr. Beast and how did I do everything I've been able to accomplish? You know, over that luck is a big part of it. There's no rhyme or reason to it. There's no skill. It was just a part of my, I guess, destiny. The way I look at it, but one of the conditions of my supervised release for bail, I had a 500,000 or $250,000 bail. Was that I couldn't go out of state without permission. So what ends up happening is they find out because one of the guys that was working for me snitched on me and wanted to take the club from me.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  And they told the FBI after I got convicted at trial that I was going out of state to gamble. So they did an investigation a month before sentencing, the judge revoked my bond. That's what really pissed the judge off and sent me to federal prison. He told me the party's over. It was a whole press release on it and I got put in a detention center a month before sentencing.

• 1:03:48Graham Stephan?

  Do you think you needed that to happen to like, put you in place or to like, teach you a lesson? Like, could you have been where you are today had that not happened?

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  So I think mentally, um, I could have done it probably in half the time to like, really figure life out.

• 1:04:04Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:04Speaker 02

  But I think those three years are the best thing that could ever happen to me because it gave me the prison story that helped me build the platform I have. Because my prison experience was just crazy from all the different prisons I was in to all the incidents that happened to every little thing. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I got in like a year and a day, or my dad and I were talking about this the other day. If I had just gotten house arrest or probation, me and you wouldn't be here today. My whole story came from prison. I always thought my story, like I remember being in prison, trying to write a book, trying to be Jordan Balfour, the Wolf of Wall Street, getting my story option and stuff. Thinking how cool it was that an 18 year old owned a nightclub and booked all these acts. But then it's like Billy McFarland kind of already did that, you know?

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  He had that story, the Fire Fest thing and whatnot. And, uh, it just, it wasn't it, it wasn't hitting. It was the second when I started talking about prison from my perspective that everything changed. So I needed that. That was the best thing that could ever happen to me.

• 1:04:59Graham Stephan?

  What happened to the Fire Festival? Do you have sympathy towards Billy and his failed Fire Festival, knowing what you know about the entertainment industry?

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  No, I think Billy's kind of a piece of shit, honestly. Like, I've talked to him on Twitter and he gave me the runaround. Like, when I first started, I wanted to have him on my show.

• 1:05:16Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  He was too good for me, like, sent me to his manager, who sent me to another manager, that sent me to another manager. Like, just very sketchy. Then, like, funny enough, he called me, or his manager called me last year because they wanted me to do that karate fight thing against him, but they didn't want to pay me for it. And it was just like a silly thing, and my following's bigger than Billy's, and he had all this press. I just think he's not that likeable. Like, I'm just not a fan of him. And the Fire Fest thing, like, people compare me to him, and it's like I was able to actually do the shows. He never produced a successful show. But I guess in some ways, like, I feel for him about how the shows ended up, but you gotta, you can't, like,

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  in some sense of your mind, you gotta be like, you're selling tickets, how is no one figuring this out logistically? Because this could have all been avoided. I mean, the concert could have happened.

• 1:06:08Jack Selby?

  Remember that doctor's appointment you were supposed to make a while ago? The one that's been sitting on your to-do list for weeks, maybe months? Maybe it's just that overdue annual checkup, that weird rash you keep Googling, Graham? Or your dentist reminding you that it's been two years since your last cleaning? Trust me, we've all been there. Booking a doctor's appointment can feel like such a hassle, until now.

• 1:06:26Graham Stephan?

  That's where our sponsor, Zocdoc, comes in. For those unaware, Zocdoc is a free app and website that allows you to search and compare high-quality, in-network doctors and book an appointment on the spot. You could also filter by location, insurance, medical specialty, even look at verified patient reviews, so you know exactly what you're walking into. And then, once you find the right doctor, you could see their real-time availability and instantly book an appointment that works for your schedule.

• 1:06:51Jack Selby?

  And appointments made through Zocdoc happen fast, typically within just 24 to 72 hours of booking, and you can even score same-day appointments. So seriously, guys, stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com/ice to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. zocdoc.com/ice, Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com. Don't forget the slash iced. Or there's a link down below in the description, you can just click it right there. Thank you so much to Zocdoc for sponsoring this episode.

• 1:07:18Graham Stephan?

  Although really quick, I just want to say that when Jack and I first started the Ice Coffee Hour, we had to figure out everything ourselves. From the best cameras to use, the best editing equipment, how to get guests. Every single day was a brand new challenge. That's why if you're growing your own business, you know how valuable today's sponsor is, and that would be Shopify.

• 1:07:35Jack Selby?

  Shopify is basically your all-in-one business partner. They power millions of businesses worldwide, from major brands like Mattel and Jimm Shark to entrepreneurs just getting started. And here's a fun fact, if you've shopped online in the US, there's a really good chance it was through Shopify because they handle about 10% of all American e-commerce.

• 1:07:52Graham Stephan?

  What's great about Shopify is that they give you access to a complete design studio with hundreds of ready-to-use templates to build a beautiful online store that perfectly matches your brand. There's no coding needed, and their AI tools help you write product descriptions and even enhance your product photos.

• 1:08:08Jack Selby?

  Shopify also makes marketing extremely easy with simple email and social campaigns to reach customers wherever they're scrolling. Plus, they handle literally everything from inventory to shipping to returns. Basically, all of the complicated stuff you do not want to deal with.

• 1:08:21Graham Stephan?

  So if you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business ideas into...

• 1:08:26Jack Selby?

  So sign up for a $1 per month trial at Shopify.com/ICH. Guys, it is literally $1 to try it out for a month. You can create your own store, make millions of dollars, like plenty of people that have came on this show. They've had Shopify stores, they've done incredibly well. I've had a Shopify store, Graham's had a Shopify store, and you can too, for $1 for the first month at Shopify.com/ICH. There's also a link down below in the description, you can just click it right there. Thank you so much to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. I don't understand how you were making as much as you were, and you had probably very little expenses living with your parents. Like, how could you not have just shifted some money around to slowly pay back investors? And also, like, are these relationships with these investors destroyed now? If they were like your friends growing up, and you were borrowing money from them, borrowing money from their parents, you're paying them off

• 1:09:11Jack Selby?

  now, but like, how are those relationships?

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  Well, I couldn't pay them back when I started the club, like Tuxedo Junction, because there would be losses at the club. Like, if I made some money, I would lose on another show, and then you have the bills, you have the overhead, you have staff. It was never... The goal with Tuxedo Junction, the club that I owned after the case during the trial, was to build up a big enough name where I could sell it and pay everyone back. And it never got to that point. My bond ends up getting... You know, revoked and I don't accomplish that. The relationships now, I mean, some people have reached out and, you know, made amends with the guy that was actually owed half of the money, 250,000, passed away from an overdose. Um, a few years ago when I got out of prison, uh, he had won a big lawsuit with a gym, lost vision in his eye when he was 18, uh, got a bunch of money. That's how he had the money.

• 1:09:58Speaker 02

  So there's that. I've talked to like his, uh, the mother of his child. Um, but other than that, some people have reached out. I think people are just happy that they're getting the money. I think that's all it really comes down to.

• 1:10:10Jack Selby?

  I'm curious also, like, I see you're wearing a necklace. The chain.

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  It's a chain.

• 1:10:15Jack Selby?

  I see you're wearing a chain. That looks pretty nice.

• 1:10:16Speaker 02

  Oh, this was a gift.

• 1:10:18Jack Selby?

  That was a gift.

• 1:10:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:18Jack Selby?

  So like, what do these people think if you're still owing them money in restitution? And you go and you spend your money on like, nice things. I mean, you didn't buy the chain, but like, if you're buying a new car, you're buying a new this, new that, like, has that ever came to the mix? Do you ever think about that?

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  I mean, I, maybe it comes to the mix, but I pay so much in restitution. I mean, I gave up, the last year I paid like 60 or 70,000 dollars. This year I paid almost, it'll be over 160,000 dollars with the monthly payments and everything. I mean, if you think about it, the average person in my position that owes way more than me pays pennies on the dollar. Um, I'll give you a great example. I saw Matt Cox was on your show. He owes millions of dollars. He makes way more money than me on YouTube. I wonder how much he's paying towards restitution.

• 1:11:04Jack Selby?

  Who is he paying restitution to?

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  All the victims that are a part of him, uh, that, that got defrauded through him. And he'll go out and say that his thing was a con, you know? I gotta, I give him credit for, you know, doing that. He's, he's very opposite of me. But, yeah, but to answer your question, like, the majority of my money goes to restitution. And once I get a book deal, that'll all go towards restitution too. I mean, 197,000 dollars of restitution left is not that much money.

• 1:11:31Jack Selby?

  No.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  That's gonna be paid off in a year, tops.

• 1:11:34Jack Selby?

  Why didn't you just go to these people and say, hey, I'm really sorry, I messed up? Before, like, the police got involved? Just apologize and say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna spend the next four years of my life paying you back and...

• 1:11:48Graham Stephan?

  You know, just have like a heart to heart. Do you think that would have alleviated?

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. If I was just honest with everyone from the get go, instead I would just avoid it. Like when people would call me about money, I would turn off my phone or block them. Or I just didn't know how to be aggressive and come clean and tell everyone the truth. And by the time I was ready to tell people the truth, no one believed me.

• 1:12:09Graham Stephan?

  Why do you think it was so difficult to do that?

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  I think I just had this, you know, I was popular, I guess, in high school from the parties and throwing house parties and building. I was successful in high school and I think I wanted to keep up that image. And I felt bad about losing everyone's money and I thought I could eventually make it back. Um, and I, I couldn't, um, but I should have just been honest with everyone.

• 1:12:32Graham Stephan?

  What was it like the first day in jail?

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 1:12:35Graham Stephan?

  What's the process like? Do, do, do they shave your head? Do they like put you in a, like an orange?

• 1:12:41Jack Selby?

  Shave your head, right?

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  No, they don't shave your head.

• 1:12:45Jack Selby?

  Do they tattoo some numbers in your arm?

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  It's not like boot camp.

• 1:12:48Graham Stephan?

  No.

• 1:12:49Jack Selby?

  I thought they, I thought they shaved your head, no?

• 1:12:51Speaker 02

  It's not like military boot camp.

• 1:12:53Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. Maybe I'm confusing the two. I thought you just get there, they shave your head and they put you in an orange.

• 1:12:57Speaker 02

  No, but um, my first day, like when I got my bond revoked, I was chained and shackled.

• 1:13:01Jack Selby?

  They put a ball and chain on your ankle?

• 1:13:04Graham Stephan?

  Um, could be, uh, yeah.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  My first day, I was chained and shackled and put in a van where I had to go in this van with like six other inmates to Rhode Island, where the detention center was and you, everything's so slow. Like when you go through processing, it's like two hours long, um, three hours long. Everything just takes forever, going through the paperwork, going through, yeah, the one phone call, going through fingerprints. And you're fed like a tray of cold food from whatever was left in the chow hall. And, um, I just remember getting put in that cell, it was like a solitary cell, cell that first night. And I was in there for 48 hours, uh, because I have to do your TB shot. And you can't go out into general population until that passes. Um, but I just remember that feeling of being locked in there that first night, you know, not your, all your freedoms taken away.

• 1:13:49Speaker 02

  And that's, I think, a feeling that came to me when I was doing the Mr. Beast video. I like you, and it was even harder during the Mr. Beast video because I could leave whenever I wanted, but there was so much at stake.

• 1:14:00Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:00Jack Selby?

  Was it surreal? When did the reality set in being in jail?

• 1:14:04Speaker 02

  I would say after all the appeals got exhausted, like I always had hope that I was gonna get bail pending appeal, or I was gonna win the appeal and go home. So that got me through like the first, I'd say, seven, eight months. And then when everything got exhausted, you're kinda already adjusted to it. And you're like, okay, this, um, this is gonna be okay.

• 1:14:24Graham Stephan?

  What was your first night like?

• 1:14:26Speaker 02

  First night, I had a bunkmate that was like, he was a, like a crack head or a crack addict, who was detoxing, itching himself all night long, pacing the cell. I wasn't hungry and I couldn't sleep, so he ate my tray of food. And he was telling me all these things about what to do in prison, what not to do in prison, all of it completely false. But just kinda like bouncing around the cell.

• 1:14:49Graham Stephan?

  Advice?

• 1:14:49Speaker 02

  He was just like, oh, make sure you're, you know, you're sitting with, um, just the white people and, you know, you don't do this, don't do that. This is how you take a shower and...

• 1:14:57Graham Stephan?

  Were you trusting of him at the time? Or were you like, ah, there's no way that what this guy's saying is true?

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  I honestly, I was kinda scared of him because you're put into a cell locked. There's not like an emergency button or anything when you're in the cell. You go, this guy me or something, no one would find out like right then and there to save me.

• 1:15:12Graham Stephan?

  Couldn't you have talked to a guard and said, hey, this guy's like on something or he's coming down?

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  This guy's on something. He's not on something. He's clearly off something.

• 1:15:19Graham Stephan?

  But it's just like, I don't feel safe.

• 1:15:21Speaker 02

  I guess you could have, but I was just, man, I was just in, in a fog. Like, my, at one minute, I'm out, free, running the club. And then the next minute, my bond's revoked. And, you know, I went in that courtroom, not going home, you know? I went there a free person and walked out in handcuffs.

• 1:15:40Graham Stephan?

  What was the food like in jail?

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  Um, at the detention centers, that sucked. There's like no seconds. That's like a tray of food. Um, wasn't the best. All the federal prisons have like a set menu, like a school lunch program that changes like quarterly. Um, like cheeseburger Wednesdays or hamburger Wednesdays. Every Thursday was chicken day. It's like a broiled burger. But depending on where they make it, like the food sounds get on the menu. If you pulled up the prison menu, which is available online, sounds great. But depending on the location that they make it. So say you're at a low security prison where they're feeding 2,500 guys. Food quality is gonna suck. They're building or they're cooking in a batch. But then when you get to the camp and there's 100 guys, the food was excellent. Bigger portions, it was well seasoned. We had a scratch bakery. I got to work in the bakery too,

• 1:16:26Speaker 02

  where we're having like fresh danishes and bagels and donuts and pizza. And then inmates cook their own food too, like make their own commissary items. Then there's the whole smuggling food. I mean, there'd be nights that we smuggled in Chicago deep dish pizza and Wisconsin sushi, chicken, burritos, everything like that. So how was smuggling in prison? So smuggling, I had just seen at first inmates like have cell phones and, and like Chinese food and stuff, like through the guards at the lows. A lot of that comes through the guards. Now there's drones and everything that fly it over. But when I, I got to the opportunity to personally smuggle in items was at the camp. And I saw guys running through the woods, because there's no fence at the camp and there's only one guard. Before count or after count, because they count you throughout the day.

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  These guys would run across the field, run through the woods and go to the local motel. Have their wife, wife or girlfriend pick them up, go to the motel and hook up with them. And they'd have someone at the camp keeping guard to make sure they don't call an, an emergency count or anything. And then they'd sneak back in. I would do that sometimes. I, I never left the actual grounds. I'd just run through the woods to the border and I'd pick up bags. People would pay me to pick up the bags. That would have cell phones, that would have food, that would have sneakers, weight equipment, anything. And then you'd just run it back. How do people go to a camp versus a prison? So camp is, it's set by point level. So if you have like 11 points or under, then you could go to a camp

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  and you can't have a dangerous crime. You can't be a offender. Age plays a factor. How many years you can't have more than I think 10 years to go to a camp. It's like, that's why they call it club fed. That's the make off of a club ned, but it's club fed. It's a lot of, I would say, white collar criminals or low level drug offenses. And it goes by a point system based on your criminal history, your schooling, everything like that. So what part of prison out of everything was the hardest? Um, I had a male prison guard almost

• 1:18:25Graham Stephan?

  For this episode that you're watching here, we had to probably cut out thirty plus minutes of it for the main release because we talked about a lot of, Jack mentioned a lot of stuff here.

• 1:18:35Jack Selby?

  What about dating in prison?

• 1:18:37Speaker 02

  There?

• 1:18:37Jack Selby?

  Your white knuckling, like grabbing the soap? Do you like movies about gladiators?

• 1:18:42Graham Stephan?

  We just can't put it out on YouTube because we know if we did, the whole episode is going to get shadow banned. That's why we have a membership. So if you want to see this entire video uncensored and Jack asking all of his questions that were a little weird, you could join the membership, see the full thing.

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  There we go. Okay.

• 1:18:59Graham Stephan?

  What about the saying where if you go to jail, like you're supposed to beat up a guy? You know?

• 1:19:05Speaker 02

  You have to prove yourself ever?

• 1:19:06Graham Stephan?

  Right. It's like find the biggest guy and just kick his

• 1:19:09Speaker 02

  Well, I clearly didn't do that at the chow hall that day. That was my moment to do that, you know? And I should have stood up for myself, but I didn't. But there are guys that do that. I hear those stories all the time and I mean, it's a very real thing.

• 1:19:20Jack Selby?

  Should you have stood up for yourself?

• 1:19:21Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 1:19:22Jack Selby?

  In the chow hall?

• 1:19:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I caused all my, I should have swung at the guy or not.

• 1:19:26Graham Stephan?

  Actually?

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, because my paperwork was fine. I wasn't in the wrong.

• 1:19:29Graham Stephan?

  You should have hit him?

• 1:19:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I should have, I should have hit him right there.

• 1:19:32Jack Selby?

  Why? But I feel like he would have beat you up.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  It doesn't matter. It's just you're proving that you have it in you. From there, I was looked at as like, kind of like a in a way, if you think about it.

• 1:19:40Jack Selby?

  And were there repercussions of being the B word? Were there like things that happened?

• 1:19:45Speaker 02

  Um, guys just trying to extort me. Like I was the white kid running around that didn't really run with anyone. So they're not gangs in like the lows. It's called a car. Um, and the car is like who you're riding with and that goes by the state. So there's like the New England car where it's like Connecticut, Massachusetts. There's a New York car. There's a New Jersey car. Um, and I never ran with anyone. I was like just by myself. I didn't know how these politics worked. So when I started gambling, like playing dice and playing spades and I had a contraband cell phone, these guys that have worked their way down from maxes or medium security prisons are like, who's this white boy? Running around without anyone thinking like he's hot. And I just didn't, I didn't think I was hot shit. I just didn't really know what I was doing. I was just having fun. So

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  they looked at me as like fresh meat as prey.

• 1:20:32Jack Selby?

  What was the most fun thing in prison?

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

  Fun thing, definitely sports are they like, people are very into the sports. There would be sports teams like basketball league, softball league. I love playing softball at the camp or basketball and also spades, which is the card game that we play in prison or CLO, four, five, six dice. We would play that all night for hours. That was a lot of fun. Did you ever get used to the lack of privacy? Um, I think in the detention center is where you have the least amount of privacy because you have the group showers, um, where, you know, like you're literally showering. Like it's like a YMCA type thing. Um, and then also in solitary where you're literally peeing and pooping into the same toilet, you know, as right next to your bunkmate.

• 1:21:15Speaker 02

  Um, so you would have to make like a makeshift curtain sometimes, or, um, you have no privacy in solitary. But then at like the camps in the lows, there's actual stalls or shower stalls or shower curtains. You have way more privacy, um, in those scenarios. Was that uncomfortable? A hundred percent. There would be days like I would like, if I like really had to go to the bathroom, I would hold it in all night for them to pop the doors for breakfast. And my cellmate would walk out to go get breakfast. I would skip breakfast and use the bathroom. Um, then there's this whole thing about like how to use the toilets properly in a cell, like sitting to pee. I didn't realize you have to sit to pee to not be disrespectful. Like if you stand up and pee the, cause there's no toilet seats, the pee could hit the, the toilet

• 1:21:58Speaker 02

  that you also sit on and hit the guy's bed, whoever's on the bottom bunk. So you avoid that by either kneeling to pee and just, you know, peeing like while kneeling or sitting to pee. Um, so the first time I ever was standing up, cause I thought that was normal. I got yelled at by my bunkmate. He's like, you can't do this in here. This isn't how we do it. Also, another thing that's big is you can't spit in the sink. Like when you're brushing your teeth, they want you to spit in the toilet, uh, your bunk bit, because sometimes they'll wash their clothes, um, in the sink, which that doesn't make sense. They'll wash their boxers in the sink, but you can't spit in it. Um, just all these little simple things. Another big one is at the chow hall, you have to knock on the table before you get up after you eat. And I didn't know why everyone was doing that, but it's a sign of respect that you're finished

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  your meal, peace be upon the table, and someone could take your seat after. So you always knock after you finish your meal.

• 1:22:49Jack Selby?

  Was there like a kingpin at this prison?

• 1:22:51Speaker 02

  Plenty of kingpins, but the what you're thinking more like a shot caller.

• 1:22:55Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's like, they call them head of the cars or the shot caller of the car. Those are the guys that are like checking paperwork that are, you know, probably down for a while and they're running things. And yeah, they're all the time, but it's not like what you see in the movies in a like a low or a camp. It's more those what you what you're thinking of is more in like the mediums or the higher security prisons. Best prison movie ever is that movie called Shot Caller. You ever watch it? You gotta watch it. It's really good. That talks about a guy that went to prison for manslaughter that ultimately got life in prison after he teamed up with the Darian Brotherhood and stuff to protect his family because he was threatened. So it shows the whole evolution of becoming like a shot caller.

• 1:23:35Jack Selby?

  Did you ever see any acts of violence between prisoners?

• 1:23:39Speaker 02

  So my very first act of violence was when I was at the detention center after I got my bond revoked, sitting in line to get my tray for chow because in the detention centers, they bring a cart. They have all the trays. Another guy cuts this other guy in line, turns into a whole thing. You would think like, what's a big deal, you know, like we're not in high school or middle school just to dress it, whatever. And these two start swinging at each other, throwing punches, stuff like that happened. Then just normal fights, you know, like fistfights. And then guys at the low, especially like the Mexican guys and stuff, were all walking around with like steel rods that are like this long, just tucked in their pants. It's crazy.

• 1:24:17Jack Selby?

  And did the prison guards not think anything of that?

• 1:24:19Speaker 02

  They'll search you and stuff. And if you get caught with it's 100 series shot, which is like the worst infraction, you'll lose some good time. You could go with the shoe. Like if you get caught with the cell phone, you're going to the shoe. But most of the time, people will toss it where they're running around or you gotta keep in mind, there's at these facilities, there's one guard for 400 inmates. And at Fort Dix, like it's an old army barracks. So it's a giant building, three floors tall that has a staircase on either side. So when the guard's coming up one way, there's lookouts and everyone's running the other way down with the phones and the and the knives and whatnot.

• 1:24:50Jack Selby?

  How do you charge a phone?

• 1:24:52Speaker 02

  So this is why they didn't have iPhones because you can't take the battery out of an iPhone. They had these LG Samsungs and I'll tell you why Boost Mobile's still in business is because of prisoners. They would do the unlimited plan. Don't you have Boost? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I have the unlimited plan. So they're in business because of him and prisoners, but literally everyone has a phone plan. Cause at the time, I don't know if it's true now though, but you didn't, you could put a fake name and just pay it. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's doing that and everyone's using Cash App on the phone. Cash App is huge and Western Union is huge because people put money on your commissary through Western Union. So you're paying Boost Mobile for these phone plans, which aren't linked to you or traceable. And guys would pop the battery out and they would convert the MP3 player, a little sand disc that they sold on commissary,

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  into a charger where the battery plugs into the MP3 player, which plugs into either the light, like one of those fluorescent lights that you would have, one of the guys in the electrical department unscrew and hook up to make it look like it's, like it just in the light or whatnot, or you would plug it in at the computers because we had computers to email on. And you, but that was more risky because that's like next to the CEO's office. But you would just see batteries all the time because the logic is if a battery gets popped, it's only four or 500 bucks to replace. If a phone gets popped, that could cost you thousands. You would see some guys get a phone and lose two phones in a week. It's pretty crazy. And then guys would make little pouches in their, in their pants pocket. That would be a guy's hustle, making pouches for people.

• 1:26:16Speaker 02

  So if the guards padded you down, they would think it's just like your junk right there and not the actual phone. But if they have the wand on you, you're kind of screwed. And then there was the little pocket phones, like the little booty phones. Guys would shove up their butt or just walk around with it, like on their hat, like on their skull cap. And just do laps and have the headphones in. So how much is it to buy a cellphone in jail? So at a low security prison, at the time it was like 1,500 or two grand for an LG, like used Samsung, more if it's a little new. But at the camp it was 200 bucks. Now this is 2016, 2017, 2018. It's probably way more expensive now. It all has to do with the economy and how things are doing with like shakedowns and stuff.

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  Camps are obviously the easiest because there's no. There's no fence, it's easier to get in. But I mean, also now they have drones and stuff. You see videos on TikTok all the time of people dropping in drones and whatnot. It's crazy. What other things did you see smuggled into prison? Lot of food, like Chinese food, sushi, pizza, good meals. Like we had a whole Mexican buffet one time. It was pretty crazy. We're just sitting in the cell, eating this like tins of food, gym clothes, watches, jewelry. Pretty much anything from the street is considered like a, like a high commodity item. Protein powder was huge because we would empty the creamer. They didn't sell protein powder, just protein bars on commissary, but they sold creamer jars of creamer.

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  So you would empty the powder and stuff that with protein powder to hide it. So that was interesting. You get a lot of stuff on commissary though, too. And how would you make money in jail? Lot of hustle. So you have like the guys that rent the cell phone. So say you bought a cell phone for $2,000. There's guys that can make thousands and thousands of dollars off that $2,000. They'll sell, they'll rent phone time to people for say 30 bucks, 30 mackerels, fish pouches, or three books of stamps, because a book of stamps was $10 each. And you have this prison money. Say you have like 100 mackerels, you would then sell those 100 mackerels to say the bookie or to someone that is say wealthy and wants to use mackerels to pay for a haircut or their room cleaned or laundry.

• 1:28:26Speaker 02

  And they would send money onto your books, on your commissary account for say 90 bucks. So that's how you convert prison commissary into real money, like street money. And then other hustles were like room cleaning, pay some, everyone gets assigned to a job, but most people don't work their job. They just have someone else do the job for them. So you pay that to them. There's pretty much anything is a hustle. The barber, gambling, the bookie is probably the biggest source of income there. You ever see anything really clever?

• 1:28:56Jack Selby?

  Stitching pouches is kind of interesting.

• 1:28:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, pillows. We don't have pillows. So people making pillows. I think the most clever ones are the chargers, the phone chargers. What these guys could do. Also, if you get someone on the maintenance team, because inmates run everything, the faculty, the facilities and everything. You get someone on the maintenance team, you pay them like 200 bucks to come drill a hole in your wall or on the floor to hide your contraband or hide your phone or something like that. Where I had my phone was under my bunk. It was cinder block. We had the guy come in, drill a little slot and then put the rubber like mat right up against it. So it looked like it, the hole wasn't there.

• 1:29:28Jack Selby?

  Wow.

• 1:29:29Speaker 02

  Things like that.

• 1:29:29Jack Selby?

  Why don't you have pillows?

• 1:29:31Speaker 02

  I don't know. It's so weird. They don't have pillows. That's why I made a comment about the pillows in the beginning of the Mr. Beast video. No pillows. They have like in the mattress, they have like a slant type of pillow built in. But um, other than that, they don't have much of anything.

• 1:29:47Jack Selby?

  How would you improve the prison system, having been through it?

• 1:29:50Speaker 02

  I would divide the politics aspect of it, like gang members should not be mixed with non-gang members because then you have this whole issue of politics being created and more people getting recruited. I would kind of like cut the head off the snake, separate more of the violent offenders, because what they're doing is they're mixing, you've got a violent people with people that are there for nonviolent crimes. It doesn't make sense. And then also have more programs, more rehabilitation. There's no rehabilitation right now in the prison system.

• 1:30:17Jack Selby?

  Do you think the prison system is set up to rehabilitate people? Or do you think that it just continues to like perpetuate cycles of violence and crime?

• 1:30:24Speaker 02

  It's definitely not meant to rehabilitate people. I mean, you look at their halfway house program was a great example where you're supposed to be released in the community before the end of your sentence, help find work, um, help get on your feet. They just kind of set you out there to fend for yourself. There's a lot of under experienced staff or little to no staff. There's more rules. Like it didn't make any sense. When I got to the halfway house for three months after like I got. Out, there's all these petty rules about curfews and times and they make it so hard to find a job and you're not allowed to have a smartphone. You were, but it was 2016. How could you not have a smartphone? They want you to just have a little flip phone, but you're already released to the world. There was just all these little things that just didn't make sense. A lot of petty rules.

• 1:31:08Speaker 02

  When I got to prison, I thought that there was going to be programs, like you hear about these college courses. None of that's there. It's all just talked about, or they might have been there at some point, but they don't actually exist. I would say state prisons do a better job. Depending on the state than the federal system. The federal system's terrible.

• 1:31:25Jack Selby?

  What about dating in prison?

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  You ever hear the dating app Plenty of Fish?

• 1:31:31Speaker 02

  POF? So that's like the number one dating app used by inmates in prison.

• 1:31:35Jack Selby?

  Are you serious?

• 1:31:36Speaker 02

  People would make this a hustle. So you would see guys go on POF, swipe with people, match with people. And talk to them on the phone or do FaceTime dates and they would hustle these women and get them to send commissaries. So they, this guy would be on call with one woman, she'd send 50 bucks. Then he would go to another woman. They're all sending money and these guys are making hundreds of dollars doing it. Then on visiting day, he would have like three or four visits in the day because these women would come and visit him. There's like, I, I understand like there's this fascination with like serial, um, with women like sending fan mail and stuff. I saw that firsthand in prison with all of these individuals that these women obsess and latch on to, they've never met before.

• 1:32:18Speaker 02

  And take care of these guys, send them money, come visit them. Granted, there are some guys that stick with their wives or girlfriends for a long time, but most of the time. People are just meeting people organically, or they're also cheating on their wives or girlfriends by talking to other girls.

• 1:32:33Jack Selby?

  How do these guys have so much pull? Like, that's, that's game. My, my understanding is that you kind of, you know, when you, when you're dating, you kind of have to have something to offer to the other person. But if these guys are in prison for I don't know how long, you know, how can they, like, what do they have?

• 1:32:48Speaker 02

  It makes no sense.

• 1:32:51Speaker 00

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• 1:33:20Speaker 02

  People love it. It's a new era of like, you know, write a prisoner or pen pal or anything like that. People just are, they love doing it. They'll reach out to it. I mean, it's like, I look at like all the fan mail about like that Brian Koberger guy with Idaho and stuff. And it's just like, what goes through these people's minds to do this?

• 1:33:38Graham Stephan?

  Why do you think so many women are attracted to the guy in prison? Is it because there's like a mystique about them or like, oh, it's the bad boy? Or do you think it's, I could fix this person?

• 1:33:48Speaker 02

  I don't know about, I don't think it's fix. I think it's just like that attractive aspect of it. And it's also another great thing or great question is female prison guards sleeping with male inmates. You're literally risking your career, your life. You have the, all these options in the world and you're going after these guys that are in prison. And maybe it's an attention issue where these guys will obviously give the female CEOs so much attention. So maybe that applies to people in the street. These women are not getting the attention they want. And these guys, they know they're locked up. They know they're in one spot. They think they can't cheat on them, but they kind of really can. Maybe not physically, but you know, it's just, it's interesting.

• 1:34:31Graham Stephan?

  You didn't date around in prison though?

• 1:34:32Speaker 02

  No, I did make a Tinder and I did POF, but POF was too spammy. But then I made a Tinder and Snapchat, I would go live for my Snapchat. Girls would like send me nudes and stuff from my old Snapchat.

• 1:34:43Graham Stephan?

  In prison?

• 1:34:43Speaker 02

  In prison, they just like. People, it just doesn't make sense, you know? There's just like that mystique with it. And then like when I got out and got on a dating app because I had lost a bunch of weight and stuff, girls like knew who I was because it was a small town. They knew I had just got out of prison and they were interested in that, you know? Like when I was single, a lot of my DMs were from my target, like woman that would reach out to me was a single mom, like in her mid 30s, has kids, but no dad in the picture. And that's who would DM me.

• 1:35:14Jack Selby?

  So would you say then, if someone's out there right now and they're trying to find a partner, but they're struggling with it, what they should do is find a way to go to prison? And then create a Tinder or Plenty of Fish account to then find women to date once they get out in a few years? That's inefficient. You could just lie.

• 1:35:30Speaker 02

  Just set up like a pseudo jail cell behind you, getting out in a week. Yeah, something like that. Or send me some commissary money. The whole dating thing is just like so weird, like in today's culture, but I think there is definitely people like someone that I think they like the redemption arc of like someone going to prison, then coming out and getting their life together. I can't really speak for the people that are into the people that don't have their life together and are kind of like bums or have like six kids or something like that, but.

• 1:35:58Jack Selby?

  Did you make any really close friends while in prison?

• 1:36:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I met a few. Like I had my first bunkmate from Fort Dix. He watches my episodes and talks to me pretty often. I have another guy that was my bunkmate that worked with me in the kitchen that I talked to. We visit each other. He's in Chicago, but I've gone there. He's come to me. I've had like four of them on my show. And I stay in touch with quite a few of them. A lot I've reached out. So it was, it's interesting, those bonds, you know, just like my relationship with Lenny I've built with other people.

• 1:36:28Jack Selby?

  So of all of these things that you'd experience, such as lying to investors, going to court, going to trial, going to prison, and then doing the solitary, being in a Mr. Beast video for a hundred days, being in solitary there, what would you say out of all of those was the most difficult?

• 1:36:45Speaker 02

  I think owing money, like at that young age, being in that much debt. Failing to that level, um, when you experience success, I really genuinely thought like I had that success and I was going up and up and up and I was going to be like something big and I think to get kicked down and lose it all and, and really, I think that even beyond that is being portrayed as something that you're not. I think like, I think what really was the benefit of the beast video is it got to show my true character and intentions at heart. I mean, on day 99, I had the option to take all that money and I could have paid off the rest of tuition with that. And I didn't because of that bond I, I built with Lenny and a lot of my decisions throughout that video were to make sure that,

• 1:37:26Speaker 02

  you know, like Lenny didn't get hurt too. I had to think of both of us. And I think when I went through what I did at my age, the news blasted me. It was very one-sided. They'd never got the full perspective. And I always made even worse decisions trying to do the right thing, but it was just not the right way of doing things. But having that amount of pressure and hate and seeing all those comments from people that you went to school with and that you were close with and really just, you know, making you feel really lousy and miserable about yourself. And I'm not saying I didn't deserve that, but some of it was a little bit extreme too. And, uh, it was just definitely, that was the hardest aspect, I think of my whole journey.

• 1:38:04Jack Selby?

  Was it a difficult decision to not split the money?

• 1:38:08Speaker 02

  So I wanted to take all the money as it, in a sense where like I wanted to win the lottery, you know, it was that feeling of it would be great to win the lottery, but I know I'm not going to. So in that moment is I want to hit this button, take all the money, but I know I'm not going to, because that's not who I am. I'm not gonna, I'd be no different than what everyone has said about me in the past. If I took that money in that moment, because he earned that money. He did the hundred days with me. I granted it, it was, it was a show, it was a competition, but when you, everyone says like there, there's a lot of people in the comments are like, I would have taken the money. It sounds easy all said and done, just like saying you'll do a hundred days sounds easy, but when you're in the belly of the beast, it's a lot harder. But when you're living with someone for a hundred days, you form a connection, you know?

• 1:38:52Jack Selby?

  Did you know that he wouldn't take the money?

• 1:38:54Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 1:38:55Jack Selby?

  And did, did you think he thought you would or you wouldn't?

• 1:38:58Speaker 02

  I think a part of him thought, especially after seeing the video, how Jimmy was putting it in his head. Jimmy wanted me to take the money, uh, because that would have been great content for him. He even said to me in the cell, he's like, dude, I'd love for you to hit that button. Cause no one's done that before on one of his things, on one of these hundred day videos. It would have been great content. If I had hit the button, it was only because I didn't want to be in solitary because I had such a miserable experience. It was literally PTSD, like it was literally like a wave of emotions being back in there. But that 24 hours that last time felt way better than the four hours I was there the first time. Because it was the feeling of, I know I'm going home after this. There's not another 50 days I have to do. So that got me through it. Um, I got sick as a dog that night. I ate something bad or something. I was literally, because the toilets in there were like these little

• 1:39:42Speaker 02

  uh, plastic toilets and they give you a tent to put up in there. So I was shitting my brains out at 12 o'clock in the dark, putting my poop in a garbage bag and passing it through the door for the, for the, um, for the guard. Um, but if I, we, Lenny and I had talked about it, like if we were in a situation, we were kind of predicting something like that, we'd just send the money to each other. So I think he knew that even if I did hit the button, I would send him the money. Like his half, but it would also have painted-

• 1:40:06Jack Selby?

  Was that even legal? Cause we asked, uh, Jeff from Beast Games who won the money, you know, what's to stop you from just, you know, taking everything and then splitting it with someone?

• 1:40:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. So Lenny had brought that up too. I didn't read the contract. Like I just skimmed through it and signed it. I had like a couple of hours to sign it when I got it. Um, but I think Lenny said that, that you couldn't do that. I don't know all the specifics. I guess I could read it now, but I mean, I probably would have done it anyways, but I also knew that how they would have painted the picture-

• 1:40:34Jack Selby?

  Right.

• 1:40:34Speaker 02

  -of me. You know that wasn't going to make it at the video. Oh yeah. He sent the buddy to Letty, you know, afterwards. It was literally end with, I mean, look how they edited it. They did a really good job editing that to make it look like I left.

• 1:40:45Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:46Speaker 02

  And they wouldn't have put that in. They would have just said, Ian took all the money. That's it. And I would have, that would have destroyed everything I've worked for. I mean, the criminals would have loved me, but anyone new, you know, they wouldn't have been too kind to that.

• 1:40:59Jack Selby?

  What was it like watching the video back?

• 1:41:02Speaker 02

  So I actually got to watch a rough edit of it, like the week before, which I was surprised about, but they kind of showed it all. And we gave them like some feedback of, hey, do this or do that. Um, and, um, it was, it was interesting to see. I like watching the reaction videos from people. Um, uh, I've watched on the plane, I watched a couple of reaction videos that other creators did. Um, but I guess the sad part about it is like you, you do so much. I guess the sad part is you, you, you missed the moments that didn't make it in because you remember everything that happened over those 100 days. Like we did so much. There was so much that, you know, you're a hundred days of your life, but I feel like they did an overall good job of getting the good moments and I thought it was a, a really nicely done edit. I found it to be exciting. What are some of the opportunities you've gotten from that?

• 1:41:48Speaker 02

  So this goes back to like what we were talking about earlier about like why I wouldn't have taken it if I didn't have the episodes planned out. People, one of the things they sell you on, like when you're on the casting call, they're like, it's Mr. Beast. Like this is a big opportunity and this is how they can kind of, I guess, get away with the pressure of the timing, like giving you no time to prepare and it's boom, boom, boom, boom. And I get that he's a big content creator, like who's not going to want to work with him? But they kind of hold that on you like that it's this big thing. It could change your life. And when you think about it, right? If you look at my following after Beast compared to before, like there's comments saying, oh, you got all this because of Mr. Beast and that's not true.

• 1:42:28Speaker 02

  I had 1.2 million followers on Tik Tok before Mr. Beast and I think I went up like 20,000 on Tik Tok. Audio downloads and stuff, I'm up 20% since the release over the past week, which is cool. And my YouTube's up. I put on like 15,000 subscribers. But conversion wise, I went up like 3,000 Instagram followers. It's not as big for the exposure that it is. It doesn't really convert that well. I think Madge's video is the exception because he became one of them, like one of the boys. And he was physically posted. They don't tag you in anything. I'm not tagged in any of the posts. Any following I got was because we were working the channels all day, responding to comments, making posts, putting out clips, doing like the, the solo episode.

• 1:43:11Speaker 02

  Uh, like me interviewing Lenny and me talking about my experience solo and responding to as many comments on the Beast video. But they don't promote you in that sense. I mean, perfect example is a guy that won Beast Games. I think he's got 60,000 followers on Instagram. That was one of the most watched shows in what prime history? You would think that that would convert to a lot more on YouTube, on Instagram. It's just that following doesn't convert. Maybe it's the audience demographic or whatnot, but I look at it as if I tanked my YouTube channel for three and a half months to do this, would it have been worth it? And I think the answer is no.

• 1:43:43Jack Selby?

  I think it's probably also like attachment to the person in the video itself because Madge like lost all this weight. And so now people are curious to see like, how is that going to all play out? Whereas in this situation, or in Beast Games, it's more about like the competition itself and like other sorts of things. Also in Madge, like he had very high emotional swings, ups and downs and stuff like that. So you feel like a lot more of a connection with him.

• 1:44:06Speaker 02

  It's tied to the personality, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, I'm not complaining. I'm very happy. My, I think what I've built and having that flow, I think it helps me get in the door for new opportunities, like going on bigger podcasts and just kind of like stabilizes you with like, just in general, working with a creator like that and everything. I think it's good and that'll live there forever and it'll open the door to more things.

• 1:44:31Graham Stephan?

  How were the comments on your video? You said you were responding to people.

• 1:44:35Speaker 02

  So the comments were pretty interesting. Not so, there wasn't like too many negative comments. It was just a lot of people calling me like a fake criminal, like on the reposts, like on those big news article ones that dropped, like on WorldStar or like whatever those big, you know, pop culture ones were. People calling a fake criminal or how easy they could do it. Or how like everything's scripted or staged. People thought it was scripted or staged, which, you know, it wasn't. There was comments about how everyone, I think the biggest topic of conversation was the ending of, would they have taken the money or would they have screwed them over? And I know a lot of my new subscribers that came to my channel and watched the videos appreciated that I didn't screw them over and that they enjoyed watching my content after.

• 1:45:18Graham Stephan?

  So any advice you have for someone who's going to jail?

• 1:45:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, don't do what I did, which is, you know, definitely figure out kind of like the prison politics of it. Figure out who you need to kind of like associate with, who you need to, you know, be involved with and definitely don't gamble. Gambling gets you into a lot of trouble in prison. Even dealing with any type of contraband, doing stuff you're not supposed to do. And kind of just like observe the environment. And see, kind of watch and see before you jump into everything and know how to move around.

• 1:45:51Jack Selby?

  Do you have any prison habits you still practice today?

• 1:45:54Speaker 02

  Um, I guess one thing is maybe like food like I'll like I'll eat quicker like cause I'm I'm used to like eating quick and then like getting off off at the table cause the chow hall is so small and you're kind of trying to clear the room for the next guy or you're hovering over your food. I guess I I would do that. Um, definitely don't sit to pee anymore. It was weird going in the shower for the first time after prison uh because of flip flops. You use flip flops that whole time because the showers are gross. Even the Beast video, I use flip flops every shower for those 100 days. So being able to keep your feet in a regular shower was nice.

• 1:46:28Jack Selby?

  See, I would have no idea. What other little things like that do people not realize?

• 1:46:32Speaker 02

  So like the toothbrush, like Jimmy had us use a little baby toothbrush for the full 100 days. Normally in real prison, he would be able to, you get the state issued toothbrush toothpaste deodorant, which sucks like the Bob Barker smells terrible or has like no scent. We had to use it the whole 100 days because on commissary on day 40, he offered us like Colgate toothpaste for 10 grand with like um real deodorant, one toothbrush. What are we gonna do with one toothbrush? So obviously we didn't buy that. But we had to go the whole 100 days with that, which was really rough. Imagine using a thumb toothbrush for 100 days and like the little baby soap and everything. That was terrible, but there's things like that. Um, also, I guess, you know, living on a bunk bed, you can't like sleep on your back or on your stomach.

• 1:47:17Speaker 02

  My bunk bed would always like hit my bed when I was sleeping on my stomach because you would always say like the booty bandit would come and get you.

• 1:47:25Speaker 02

  Things like that. There's all those like

• 1:47:27Jack Selby?

  I said the same thing to Jack too.

• 1:47:28Speaker 02

  Don't sleep on your stomach.

• 1:47:30Jack Selby?

  If if you're in prison, is there just a general like air of distrust? Around like, like, like, how how difficult is it to just go up to someone and be like, hey, talk to me straight. Like, how's it going? Tell me about what's, what your life, this and that. Like, can you really connect with people? Is there always like this like little? Under under feeling of like distrust and and like and danger.

• 1:47:55Speaker 02

  I think there's always that feeling of distrust. I was too trusting of people. I thought everyone was my friend. And it's those same ones that are your friends that will slip a kite or plant a phone on you. Or steal out of your locker or anything like that or set you up.

• 1:48:11Speaker 02

  There's obviously a few genuine ones. I think those are the ones you keep the friendships with. The years later, like I've been able to, but the majority of people are just trained not to trust anyone. Can't blame them for that, you know, it's a lot of snakes in prison. There's a lot of scumbags. You see that with like these jailhouse lawyers. Just everything, you know, everyone's out for themselves. And I guess in an environment like that, you kind of have to be.

• 1:48:32Jack Selby?

  Does it help to have tattoos in in prison?

• 1:48:35Speaker 02

  Didn't help me.

• 1:48:36Jack Selby?

  It didn't help you?

• 1:48:37Speaker 02

  No, because I guess the way I look, like my face, my body doesn't really match my face. That's like a big comment on my social media. I guess for the most part, I guess it would help people, just not me in my situation.

• 1:48:47Jack Selby?

  Did you ever get into a prison fight?

• 1:48:49Speaker 02

  I just that time I got slapped. I didn't really fight back. And I got cornered like a couple of months later by a bunch of like the newer car guys because of that whole drama because I had hired. One of the guys in their car to do the protection over me and that caused drama and like prison politic type stuff. Never got a prison tattoo either. I was thinking about it, but I it kind of sketched me out. But prison tattoos are pretty legit. They would use like the guitar strings as needles. And they got like real ink smuggled in from the street, which was cool. And they would use like the radio to make a tattoo gun.

• 1:49:19Jack Selby?

  That's safe? These people sound smart. What's stopping these people from going out and having like productive careers where they're an entrepreneur or they're making money? You know, like, once they get out, is it just like, like these, this culture is just instilled in them to like, don't trust people, you know? Steal from people or whatever it is?

• 1:49:39Speaker 02

  These guys are so smart. I mean, you see a lot of these guys making hooch. This thing called the white lightning, which was like distilled honey or whatever into like vodka. They would do all of these things. And make thousands of dollars in there and send it. A lot of the Mexican people will send it home to their families. They'll do so well. And then when they get out. They just can't convert that in anything. A lot of the drug dealers I interview, like they're super successful, build like these empires, I guess you could say, go to prison and then they just can't figure it out after. It just doesn't click for them. Some do, don't get me wrong, some do, but a lot of them don't. And then that's when I think they're, I think the problem is that quick money. Once you experience that, that's kind of hard to, you know, go away from. I think that's really the biggest issue.

• 1:50:22Speaker 02

  I tell all the people that I talk to that ask me for advice or want to get into content right away. I say, go work a regular job first. Go work as a dishwasher in the kitchen. That's what I did for 15 bucks an hour, working at, at a hot bar at Whole Foods. And eventually I worked my way up to a manager where I was making 30 bucks an hour. But I was able to rebuild my life, build my credit, get a dog, get an apartment, get a car, do all of these things just off of a normal job and be a contributing member to society. And that was a very humbling experience. I think if I got out and if I got cast in the Beast video, the first week I got out or started making money on social media, my attitude would be completely different.

• 1:50:59Graham Stephan?

  Was there anyone you met in prison who was innocent?

• 1:51:02Speaker 02

  I, me personally, I haven't met anyone that was innocent, but I have interviewed people and talked to people that were actually genuinely innocent. And literally every guy you meet in prison, and I know I was one of them. That was like, I'm innocent. I don't deserve to be here. But I did get to witness like in 2016, the Obama pardons, where people literally serving 20 years got to go home that day. Cause he reduced it down to like 15 or 12, like the drug times. I think there's a lot of people that are over sentenced. Guys with 20, 30, 40 years, crazy sentences for a minimal amount of drugs. But truly innocent, I think that's a dime a dozen. I think you'll see that more in state prison because the feds are very thorough.

• 1:51:43Speaker 02

  I wasn't around too many, you know, and I think that's where the cases you see like those convictions on. But all the, I would say all the fraud guys, I'm innocent. It didn't go down this way or that. And when you read about them, when you get out. I don't know, it kind of makes sense, you know? But I get their perspective too. Like, I was one of them. And for the longest time, my whole thing was like, I didn't have the intent to do it, but I still did it. And people still lost money because of it. So it doesn't, just because I didn't have the criminal intent, doesn't mean it wasn't wrong. And became a crime in that. Because even if a crime's accidental, it doesn't take away from the fact that it's still a crime and you broke the law. So that was one thing I learned from that.

• 1:52:23Graham Stephan?

  Do you think there's any better system than prison? Like, maybe like a, you know, like a home sort of stay? Like, what do they call it?

• 1:52:33Speaker 02

  I think I've talked to a lot of people that were like, and the state system has really good work release programs where you're working. That's how it should be. Like, if I spent those three years working, paying a piece of it to restitution and a piece to like, maybe the government, like, for the funding of the monitoring or something. But I, it really should just, most people, I feel like, could be house arrest, good monitoring type system, like a GPS type thing, and just work. Work a job, you know? Monitor communications. There's got to be something with AI that could be even better at this. But the prison thing doesn't make any sense. For the really violent offenders, yes. But for the average amount of people, no. It doesn't make sense at all. That's why camps are the most pointless thing ever. I mean, granted, they are closing down a lot of camps right now. I know Trump's doing that, but it just, the camps are so silly.

• 1:53:18Speaker 02

  Imagine spending 10 years in a, like, an adult day camp, where you're just spending your time playing sports, doing bocce ball and, I don't know, just like, living the life, I guess, you know? But you owe $50 million to investors? It just doesn't make sense.

• 1:53:33Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. So it's more practical to have that person just work and, and... See, I think they should be, in those cases, working. All the money gets funneled into like, a federal-owned bank account. Money gets taken out from there automatically and they pay you like, a wage.

• 1:53:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you see a lot of, I speak in a lot of, like, these men's sober houses and stuff, and some county jails that have these programs, which are great, where... Guys are on a work release program. They get to work. They also get to pay some expenses to the facility, but they also have money to give their kids Christmas presents or birthday presents, or actually account for their money and have a card to like order stuff. But it's still structured. That's how I feel like it should be. I would have much rathered work those years, you know? It just makes way more sense. But what they, the current system doesn't really make sense at all.

• 1:54:24Graham Stephan?

  Thank you. I really appreciate you coming out here on short notice. A link to all of your info down below in the description. And also, if you guys haven't donated yet to Team Water, there is a link down below in the description. Come join us, donate. It's almost up. How much does he have left to raise? I feel like we're gonna, we're gonna hit it. Forty million dollars in the month of August. So if you want to be a part of that, highly recommend it. Link is down below, as with your information as well.

• 1:54:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you, guys. This was a lot of fun, man. Thanks for inviting me.

• 1:54:53Jack Selby?

  Thanks for coming on. That was a blast. Thank you, guys, so much for watching. As always, we can't do this without you, so it really means a lot. Thank you, guys, for watching.

• 1:55:01Graham Stephan?

  One more thing.

• 1:55:01Jack Selby?

  Okay.

• 1:55:01Graham Stephan?

  I'm kidding. Until next time. Bye.

• 1:55:13Speaker 06

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