Lil Wayne, Chris Brown and Marshmello Allegedly Misused Pandemic Grants to Pay Themselves or Throw Lavish Parties

variety.com:

Steven J. Horowitz Senior Music Writer Lil Wayne, Chris Brown and Marshmello are just a few of the musicians who applied for and received payouts as part of the Shuttered Venue Operations Grant, a government program meant to aid independent venues and arts groups struggling during the pandemic.

But according to a new report, they allegedly used the money to instead pay themselves or throw lavish parties at the cost of taxpayers.

In a detailed report from Business Insider, the musicians who received the grants — also including Alice in Chains, Shinedown, Rae Sremmerd and Steve Aoki — applied for assistance after the grant was signed into law by Donald Trump in 2020.

The artists were eligible to receive up to $10 million to spend on “ordinary and necessary” expenses earmarked for their loan-out companies, and were required to make a good-faith statement to the Small Business Administration and show their companies had lost revenue of at least 25 percent between one quarter in 2019 and the same quarter in 2020.