Larry David Won’t Take the Fall for That Sketchy Crypto Scheme
The series finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm found Larry David beating the charges against him in a highly-publicized court case, unlike the Seinfeld crew. And while Larry was on trial for handing out bottled water to Georgia voters, and not for taking large sums of money to hawk a dodgy crypto company, David’s real life took a somewhat similar turn this week.
As we’ve mentioned before, back in 2022, David starred in a Super Bowl commercial for the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The ad showed Larry casually dismissing FTX, the “safe and easy way to get into crypto” after we’ve just witnessed generations of Larrys doing the same to important historical inventions, including the wheel, the light bulb and the toilet.
Unfortunately, the toilet turned out to be a more apt comparison than everyone realized at the time. Later that year, FTX collapsed, costing its customers billions of dollars. The company’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted on “seven charges of fraud and conspiracy” and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In a twist befitting of a jaunty tuba music cue, this soon came back to bite David in the ass. In late 2022, Larry David — or rather “Lawrence Gene David” — was named as a defendant in a class-action lawsuit filed by investors against Bankman-Fried. The defendants included other celebrities such as Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Steph Curry and Shaquille O’Neal who were allegedly all complicit in the company’s “false representations and deceptive conduct.”
The court filing even included an image from David’s ad, explaining that “the legendary comedian and creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David, created an ad for the FTX Entities called ‘Don’t Miss Out on Crypto,’ which aired during the 2022 Super Bowl, making FTX one of the most retweeted brands during the Super Bowl, and winning the ‘Most Comical’ honorific from USA Today‘s Ad Meter.”
When asked about the lawsuit, David suggested that he wanted to switch sides and be “part of” the class-action lawsuit because some of his reported $13 million salary was paid in crypto and he “lost a lot of money.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, most of the charges against the celebrity defendants, including David, were dismissed this week. U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore “concluded that the endorsers aren’t liable for investor losses because they didn’t have prior knowledge of FTX’s fraud,” and therefore, they can’t be found liable for “merely receiving payments and other monetary benefits in exchange for their promotional content.” Although he did note that these celebs were “uninformed, negligent or even reckless.”
That doesn’t mean that David is totally out of the woods. As The Verge noted, “The celebrities still face claims for violating state securities laws in Florida and Oklahoma,” and the judge’s ruling will allow the plaintiffs to “amend their complaint” if they can provide more evidence.
Still, it’s pretty preetttty good news for Larry David.
