American singer/songwriter Tionne Watkins was huge in the 90s. She was the “T” in the famous girl band, TLC, who were huge in the early 1990s, and were about to make a big comeback years later until Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez sadly passed away.
This meant that Tionne was left jobless and without a steady income, which meant big trouble for the artist since she was already in a bad economic situation. Unfortunately, Watkins has filed for bankruptcy three times, unable to pay taxes and mortgage. In 2013, she tried to apply for a debt pardon but was denied after the judge considered the singer hadn’t learned her lesson and was not reliable when it came to paying on time. We hope things have gotten better for ‘T-Boz’!
Curt Schilling
Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling achieved worldwide fame when led the Red Sox to win the World Series after years of being the losing team. As we all know, sports icons receive quite the salary, and trying to be smart about his millions, Schilling decided to invest them. Sadly for him, none of them went well.
Being an avid video game player, the baseball player decided to open a video game studio and put $50 million into it. As if that weren't enough, he then invested another $75 million to keep the place from going under. Unfortunately, none of it worked, and he had to file for bankruptcy, at which point he had to pay $120 million to creditors. To make things worse, he had to pay a whopping $2.5 million in taxes to the state of Rhode Island. Poor guy!
Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds is another typical case of an actor that made millions and spent them unwisely. Very unwisely. During the 1980s, Reynolds made enough money to last him a lifetime, but then the insane spending spree happened. The actor bought a private jet and a 150-horse stable, invested in a restaurant chain that was bound to fail, and finally lost what he had left to alimony payments.
Reynolds filed for bankruptcy in 1996, as he was up to his neck in an $11 million debt. Recently, the actor admitted in a Vanity Fair interview that all of his money problems were completely his fault. At least he admits it!
Mekhi Phifer
The handsome Mekhi Phifer rose to fame in the mid-90s, playing a physician in the hit TV show 'ER'. He then went on to act in several films, such as '8 Mile', 'O', 'Clockers', 'Honey', and more. Obviously, he amassed quite a sum of money, but unfortunately for him, he had very weird and expensive tastes. Among them, a bed entirely made from leather and a huge amount of firearms.
He was spending more than he was making, and in 2014, Phifer had to file for bankruptcy. The actor owed more than $1 million and all he had to his name was a little over $60,000.
Teresa Giudice
The loud-mouthed Teresa Giudice became famous after starring in the popular reality show, 'The Real Housewives of New Jersey'. Unfortunately, she and her husband Joe had big legal problems in 2013 after they were charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud, bank fraud, and wire fraud. Teresa got 15 months of jail time, and her husband was sentenced to 41 months.
Needless to say, the couple had to pay a lot of money, a huge part of which was in back taxes. Now, with Joe Giudice still serving jail time, Teresa is trying to get back on her feet.