{"id":69865,"date":"2025-04-17T14:37:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T18:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/?p=69865"},"modified":"2025-04-30T14:39:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T18:39:13","slug":"lil-wayne-breaks-his-silence-on-allegations-of-misusing-taxpayers-money-received-under-shuttered-venue-operations-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/lil-wayne-breaks-his-silence-on-allegations-of-misusing-taxpayers-money-received-under-shuttered-venue-operations-grant\/69865\/","title":{"rendered":"Lil Wayne breaks his silence on allegations of misusing taxpayers\u2019 money received under Shuttered Venue Operations Grant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lil Wayne is responding to accusations<\/strong> that he misused funds from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant<\/strong> (SVOG), a government program meant to help struggling arts and entertainment businesses during the pandemic. Some reports claimed that Wayne used the nearly $9 million<\/strong> he received from the grant for private jets, designer clothing, lavish parties, and vacations. However, when the rapper was questioned about the allegations, he appeared confused, simply saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know what that means.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with Rolling Stone<\/em>, Wayne\u2019s manager, Fabian Marasciullo<\/strong>, directly rejected the claims, stating, \u201cHe ain\u2019t got nothing to do with none of that s*it. It\u2019s not the way his money comes and goes.\u201d Marasciullo went on to clarify that Wayne\u2019s finances are \u201caudited and clean,\u201d implying that there\u2019s no truth to the allegations.<\/p>\n

A 2023 Business Insider report<\/strong> had claimed that Wayne received almost $9 million<\/strong> under the SVOG, but instead of using it to support his music business, he allegedly spent most of it on luxury hotels, designer clothes, and parties. The report also said that Wayne only paid $327,000<\/strong> to contractors for work related to his tours. Additionally, the report mentioned a controversial text message<\/strong> Wayne allegedly sent to reporter Katherine Long<\/strong> after she contacted him for comment on the story.<\/p>\n

While Wayne didn\u2019t deny sending the explicit message, he defended his response, saying, \u201cAny female that texts me is going to probably receive a sxual comment.\u201d He further explained, \u201cMy phone is a personal phone, so if you even got my number, that means you went out your way and doing too much, and if you texted me and I send you something you don\u2019t like, then s<\/em>ck my d*ck.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2023 report also mentioned other artists like Chris Brown<\/strong>, who allegedly received $10 million<\/strong> for his company CBE Touring<\/strong>, and Marshmello<\/strong>, who were both named in the investigation. It claimed that Chris Brown spent nearly $80,000<\/strong> on his extravagant birthday party and paid $5.1 million<\/strong> to himself.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lil Wayne is busy promoting his much-anticipated album, Tha Carter VI<\/em><\/strong>, set to release on June 6<\/strong>. The album marks his big return to the hip-hop scene and features collaborations with artists like Wyclef Jean<\/strong>, MGK<\/strong>, Miley Cyrus<\/strong>, and even opera legend Andrea Bocelli<\/strong>. Additionally, the album will include a special project with a New Orleans supergroup<\/strong>, The Gumbo<\/strong>, featuring artists like Jon Batiste<\/strong>, PJ Morton<\/strong>, Trombone Shorty<\/strong>, and Ledisi<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lil Wayne is responding to accusations that he misused funds from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG), a government program\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":69866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[16905],"class_list":["post-69865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-news","tag-lil-wayne"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}