Actor Kevin Bacon says he isn’t jaded after losing money in former financier Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, but it still stings all these years later.
Bacon discussed the incident during a recent interview with Esquire, nearly two decades after Madoff’s criminal operation crumbled.
Madoff, founder of an eponymous Wall Street firm, received a 150-year prison sentence in 2009 for leading “history’s largest Ponzi scheme,” according to the FBI.
Authorities arrested Madoff in December 2008 for securities fraud amounting to $64 billion. In 2021, Madoff died in federal prison at age 82.
Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, were among those Madoff defrauded. It’s unclear how much money the couple lost, but Bacon told the “SmartLess” podcast in 2022 that they kept “most” of their money with Madoff.
During his interview with Esquire, Bacon said the memory of Madoff still lingers nearly two decades later.
“I go to this gym. It has a few machines and only a handful of people there at any given time. There’s no showers, it’s very bare bones. But there’s a leg press machine. A leg press can be brutal. You’re on your back, and you’re going like this,” Bacon said. “The machine is right next to a window, and when I look out that window, I’m looking right at the building where Madoff was.”
Bacon said the view of Madoff’s old building is motivational.
“I’m in excruciating pain, doing the leg press, staring out that window. It’s perfect, in a funny way, because I also have to think, ‘I can get through this.’ And that’s how we felt about Madoff,” Bacon said. “It sucked, and we were certainly angry and all the things. But then we woke up the next day and said, ‘What do we got? We love each other. We love our children. We’re healthy. No one took away our ability to make a living.’ So we got back to work.”
Those affected by the Ponzi scheme have received compensation through the Madoff Victim Fund. In December 2024, the Justice Department said the Madoff Victim Fund had paid $131.4 million, a fraction of what was lost, to about 23,400 victims.
Representatives for Kevin Bacon did not immediately respond to Business Insider.
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