In the months leading up to his much-anticipated fight with Conor McGregor, there were a couple reports that came out indicating that Floyd "Money" Mayweather was having money problems. One of those reports indicated that Mayweather needed to take the fight with McGregor because he got "scammed" out of a large amount of money. Another indicated that he was in trouble with the IRS and owed tens of millions of dollars to them.
Mayweather downplayed those reports, but it didn’t stop people from speculating about the possibility of him going broke. There are plenty of people out there who do not like Mayweather, and they would like nothing more than to see him squander away the hundreds of millions of dollars he has earned over the course of his legendary boxing career.
But in a wide-ranging new interview with Hollywood Unlocked, Mayweather claims that he’s doing just fine when it comes to money. Although he did seem to confirm that he had some issues with the IRS that he had to clear up by writing a $25 million check at some point, he said that his bank account is just as bloated as it’s ever been—and he doesn't expect that to change anytime soon.
"Listen, I’ll tell the world this, so the world will know: Get used to me," he said. "For 21 years, I’ve been here. Get used to me. I’m not going nowhere. I told them this 21 years ago. So 20 years from now, I’ll still be able to buy the same things every month—a nice house, nice car. And everybody knows, I got any kind of car you can name. I been to any country you can possibly name. And 30 years from now, I’ll still have probably a newer jet, still have top-flight cars, and my kids will just be running all my different businesses."
Mayweather also took things a step further and responded to those critics who don’t believe he’ll be able to continue to spend as much money as he has in the past now that he’s officially retired. He talked about how he makes "seven figures" every month off his investments alone, and he said those investments are the reason why it would be impossible for him to "fuck off" his money, even if he wanted to. Additionally, he said he plans on asking his four kids to keep those investments in the Mayweather family for years to come so that future generations can eat off them, too.
"Even if I did, just say that I wanted to fuck off all my money," he said, "I can’t. Because of the smart investments that I made. Even if I wanted to fuck off all my money, I can’t, because I learned how to work smarter, not harder. When I went to my billionaire buddies, I never said, 'Oh, I love your jet. I love your yacht. I love your house.' [I said], 'Show me how it’s done.' And there’s only three ways you can learn—hearing, seeing, and doing. 'Show me how it’s done. OK, now I got it.' And so, what I tell my children is, 'Listen, never get rid of this investment. You keep this and you give this to y’all grandchildren, and what y’all tell them is that when I’m gone, never get rid of this.'"
Although Mayweather probably won’t win over many of his haters with his most recent comments about money, it is interesting to hear him talk about it outside of the terms of just buying a new car or blowing $100,000 at a strip club. And it’s good to hear that, unlike a lot of celebrities who get rich and then seem to make it their mission to spend as much as they can, Mayweather is thinking about how his money can improve the lives of Mayweathers for years to come if he and his kids play their cards right.
Mayweather talks about all of this at around the 1:04:30 mark of the clip above. Elsewhere in the interview, he also discusses the build-up to his fight with McGregor, the anti-gay slur he used during one stop on the Mayweather/McGregor promotional tour, and more.
