Not that I wish bad upon anybody or anybody's family, but I was kind of hoping eventually I'd be able "report" on the struggles of Big Pun's family as new developments surfaced...
Now we all know Big Pun's wife was probably left with a fair sum of money when Pun died, as well she also made 160k from that one posthumous compilation album that was put out back in 2001 which was released with the clear purpose to help support her and the three children she bore to Pun. But evidently all that money she ended up getting from that deal was not enough to maintain the lifestyle she had grown so accustomed to when Pun was bringing in the dough, collecting a few hundred thousand in insurance policy money [1] and cashing checks from his platinum album sales. So she went through whatever Fat Joe managed to get out to her, then had to resort to selling Pun's Terror Squad chain on eBay for a mere $9,600, which I imagine wasn't only a way to make some money, but also a way to spite Fat Joe. Because Liza Rios (Big Pun's wife) thinks somehow the weight of supporting her and Pun's three children now falls on Fat Joe because how of much he profited from being in cohorts with Pun. Which of course is ridiculous, but I'm sure she had more than enough money left to her to go on living a comfortable middle class lifestyle, she just didn't know how to manage her finances well. Plus, she got too used to sitting on her ass all day, so it's not like she went out to get a job after Pun died. She was fully expecting that she'd be set for life after being married to a platinum selling rapper like Big Pun, and she probably thought she deserved to be set for life too, if only because she stuck it out when Pun got into his fits of rage and decided to take out on her by pistol whipping her in the face.
Unfortunately for her, that's simply not the way life works.
I just looked up Fat Joe and Liza Rios in Google, and according to TMZ, in a story reported on September 18th of this year, Liza Rios had filed a $1,000,000 lawsuit against Fat Joe. Meanwhile the world keeps turning.
If you want a better breakdown of the finances of Liza Rios, I recommend reading this article written by Combat Jack that I just found in which he explains some of the ins and outs of Pun's financial affairs.
While his mom was complaining about not having enough money, Big Pun's son, Chris Rivers, has been trying to make it in the rap game, putting out his own underground mixtapes and making guest appearances on songs by obscure rappers. Which sadly wasn't bringing in quite enough for his grandmother (Big Pun's mom) to not resort to robbing banks, George Clooney in Out of Sight style.
I figure there's some silver lining here, and this story of people blowing all their money that was made off of rap kind of relates back to this other story I did about Coolio on Medium. But that Combat Jack article opened my eyes a bit to the realities of how much rappers were actually making back in the '90s - not as much as one might initially think. Though Coolio probably made a lot more money than Pun, I feel the point still stands here that many rappers and their enablers simply don't have the proper mindset to manage large sums of money when they come into some. Thus I deduce that for as long as those in dire states of poverty keep mismanaging their funds after they strike it rich, there'll always be those poorly taken care of grandmothers who'll have to go robbing TD Banks just to get by. This is as good of a point I draw from all this right now. Forgive me, I'm coming off a wearisome weekend (hence the lazy writing and not posting this till 3 in the afternoon).
[1] Perhaps a little known fact, one that I picked up from watching some cheaply put together Big Pun documentary or other, was that he got a lot of money in inheritance before he actually struck it big as a rapper. I couldn't find any articles on the web to validate this, but there are pictures out there of him as a thinner, younger man wearing gold chains and suits and stuff. Where do you think he got the money to buy that stuff? Selling drugs? Pshaw!
Now we all know Big Pun's wife was probably left with a fair sum of money when Pun died, as well she also made 160k from that one posthumous compilation album that was put out back in 2001 which was released with the clear purpose to help support her and the three children she bore to Pun. But evidently all that money she ended up getting from that deal was not enough to maintain the lifestyle she had grown so accustomed to when Pun was bringing in the dough, collecting a few hundred thousand in insurance policy money [1] and cashing checks from his platinum album sales. So she went through whatever Fat Joe managed to get out to her, then had to resort to selling Pun's Terror Squad chain on eBay for a mere $9,600, which I imagine wasn't only a way to make some money, but also a way to spite Fat Joe. Because Liza Rios (Big Pun's wife) thinks somehow the weight of supporting her and Pun's three children now falls on Fat Joe because how of much he profited from being in cohorts with Pun. Which of course is ridiculous, but I'm sure she had more than enough money left to her to go on living a comfortable middle class lifestyle, she just didn't know how to manage her finances well. Plus, she got too used to sitting on her ass all day, so it's not like she went out to get a job after Pun died. She was fully expecting that she'd be set for life after being married to a platinum selling rapper like Big Pun, and she probably thought she deserved to be set for life too, if only because she stuck it out when Pun got into his fits of rage and decided to take out on her by pistol whipping her in the face.
Unfortunately for her, that's simply not the way life works.
I just looked up Fat Joe and Liza Rios in Google, and according to TMZ, in a story reported on September 18th of this year, Liza Rios had filed a $1,000,000 lawsuit against Fat Joe. Meanwhile the world keeps turning.
If you want a better breakdown of the finances of Liza Rios, I recommend reading this article written by Combat Jack that I just found in which he explains some of the ins and outs of Pun's financial affairs.
While his mom was complaining about not having enough money, Big Pun's son, Chris Rivers, has been trying to make it in the rap game, putting out his own underground mixtapes and making guest appearances on songs by obscure rappers. Which sadly wasn't bringing in quite enough for his grandmother (Big Pun's mom) to not resort to robbing banks, George Clooney in Out of Sight style.
I figure there's some silver lining here, and this story of people blowing all their money that was made off of rap kind of relates back to this other story I did about Coolio on Medium. But that Combat Jack article opened my eyes a bit to the realities of how much rappers were actually making back in the '90s - not as much as one might initially think. Though Coolio probably made a lot more money than Pun, I feel the point still stands here that many rappers and their enablers simply don't have the proper mindset to manage large sums of money when they come into some. Thus I deduce that for as long as those in dire states of poverty keep mismanaging their funds after they strike it rich, there'll always be those poorly taken care of grandmothers who'll have to go robbing TD Banks just to get by. This is as good of a point I draw from all this right now. Forgive me, I'm coming off a wearisome weekend (hence the lazy writing and not posting this till 3 in the afternoon).
[1] Perhaps a little known fact, one that I picked up from watching some cheaply put together Big Pun documentary or other, was that he got a lot of money in inheritance before he actually struck it big as a rapper. I couldn't find any articles on the web to validate this, but there are pictures out there of him as a thinner, younger man wearing gold chains and suits and stuff. Where do you think he got the money to buy that stuff? Selling drugs? Pshaw!