Antoine Walker, a former NBA player, discusses how his desire to lead the same lifestyle as then-famous rappers resulted in him declaring bankruptcy, selling the majority of his possessions, and losing the majority of his NBA earnings.
Antoine Walker is one of those athletes who, after making more than $100 million throughout his career, filed for bankruptcy a few years after retiring.
He recently discussed what caused him to become bankrupt while earning crazy sums of money that most people can only imagine in an interview with the “I Am Athlete” podcast.
According to Walker, he was young, foolish, and heavily impacted by the hip-hop culture and the rappers showcasing their luxurious lifestyles. Walker wanted to be just like them, which eventually led to his financial troubles.
“It’s a cultural thing, and I like to speak for myself. When I came out, Jay-Z, Puffy, all the rappers, what they did is what I wanted to do. You see them with the big jewerly, the chains, nice cars, you see the videos. I am looking at all that and thinking when I get it, I am doing that. When I had a lot of money, I also had a lot of fetishes. I had a car fetish. I would have 8 to 10 cars at one time. I had a watch fetish. When I came out, Jacob the jeweler was the man; everyone shopped with Jacob. I used to get all the new watches. I had 15 to 20 watches at one time, and I couldn’t wear them all,” he said as quoted by Basketball Network.
Walker desired to have it all and care for his mother and other members of his family. As a result, he built her a home with everything she could ever want for with more than $4 million.
Even though he started out with good intentions, his excessive spending quickly caught up with him. He remembered that the lowest point in his life came when he had to sell the house he had bought for his mother.
“I built my mom a house from the ground up. I spent $4.1 million on that crib, 15.000 square feet with the indoor pool; everything you can ever imagine was in the house. When you go through the bankruptcy, you have a decision to make. At the time, I owned four homes. I asked my mom what she wanted to do, and that was the first time I broke down was when she said let the house go. I couldn’t believe it, and that was the lowest point because that is something you never want to do. You never want to see your mom work again and see your mom go through anything of that nature, so that was probably the lowest point,” he recounted as quoted by Basketball Network.
Walker has experienced ups and downs in his life, but he is now back on his feet and employed by FS1 as a basketball analyst.
Even though he no longer possesses the wealth he once did, he appears to be in a good mood and to be enjoying life, which is ultimately what matters the most.
In order to avoid making the same mistakes and to be more wise with their money, he also entreated younger players to learn from their failures.
Source: The Independent Ghana