Montell Jordan Opens Up About Going Bankrupt: I Made Some Bad Choices

Montell Jordan Opens Up About Past Money Woes: I Made Some Bad Choices With The People That Were Working With Me

Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It” is one of the biggest songs of the 90s (and maybe even all-time). It’s an anthem, to say the least, but that didn’t stop Montell Jordan from being hit with bankruptcy and a huge tax bill.

Now, the singer has opened up about his financial struggles. During a recent interview, he explained what went wrong, despite owning his music at one point.

“Uncle Sam came to get that.”

He said that it was the interest in unpaid taxes (that he said is 11 percent a day) that caused his debt to skyrocket.

“I made some bad choices with the people that were working with me. You know how they say have lawyers to watch your lawyers? I didn’t have lawyers watching my lawyers and something slipped through the cracks. Little $50,000 advance? I was supposed to pay $11,000. It didn’t get care of, it went into default, they allowed the interest to accrue, and then over a period of three years later they came back like, ‘Yo! You owe us $700,000.”

He added that he had to give away his publishing to pay the taxes, which he said were unjust.

As for his bounceback, he said he’s not certain that they are back to where they were financially. But he added that they learned a lesson that they really didn’t need it to begin with.

“It’s counterfeit. And counterfeit always comes before the real. I would go have clothes made for the Soul Train Awards. I spent $15,000 on a python jacket, stuff that I could only wear one time because they’ve seen it. It’s on the cover of JET magazine, you can’t show up to church wearing that next week. I had all these different things that I had acquired that seemed like they were cool things at the time, rather than spending $15,000 to buy some property or some land. Instead of investing into really, really wise things, I put it into shoes, and watches and stuff like that. And then one day we had a house fire and it all burned up. We lost everything. And all we had was each other.”

He said his church community had to help them with money for even small things like underwear and major things like somewhere to live.

“You can have everything in the world and not have God, and be bankrupt. Or you can have God and not have anything, and be the wealthiest person in the world.”

What are your thoughts on Montell Jordan’s perspective? Tell us in the comments!

[Karen Hunter Show]