Kenan Thompson Recalls Discovering His Nickelodeon Checks Were Stolen by Accountant While Trying to Buy First Home
In the Demi Lovato-directed documentary 'Child Star,' Thompson recounted being exploited as a child actor by someone who claimed to be an accountant. "It’s crazy going from rags to riches and back to rags," he said.
As a Nickelodeon child star, Kenan Thompson said was exploited by a person who claimed to be an accountant.
The topic was discussed in the new Demi Lovato-directed documentary, Child Star, when Thompson sat down with Lovato to again revisit his past financial circumstances.
At 12, the Saturday Night Live player was paid $800 for a commercial role, which "might as well have been a million dollars" as it was early in his career.
According to Thompson, he was scammed by a person who was an acquaintance of his mother. The actor and comedian pointed to an absence of Florida child labor laws, where the young Nickelodeon entertainers filmed in the 1990s.
“My mom met this dude somewhere through the community—either like church or neighborhood shit, through a book club or something, who claimed to be a good kind of tax accountant, will get you out of your tax problems for the cheap," Thompson told Lovato.
"He was basically a con artist and like ran away with my entire, my biggest earnings up until that point," he continued. "By the time that was discovered, that was toward the end of that Nickelodeon tenure and the end of the job-to-job existence I had up until that point, and it was devastating because I discovered it in front of others."
The news about the false accountant was even more shattering since Thompson was in the process of buying his first home in Atlanta.
"He didn’t show up with the fucking check," Thompson shared. "I’m with the real estate people at the office waiting to sign this paperwork, and he doesn’t bring the check. It’s crazy going from rags to riches and back to rags. It’s a motherfucker."
While visiting radio program The Breakfast Club in February, Thompson shared that he "never saw" roughly $1.5 million that he made from his time on Nickelodeon because of the "dirty" accountant.
"I had a bad accountant, and it came to the light around '99, around 2000, which was really bad timing 'cause that's when I left my consistent gig," Thompson said, referring to his Nickelodeon departure around the 9:30 mark of the video below. "So then I went into being an adult actor for hire, and that is very hit and miss, so there was some good jobs like I did 'Felicity.' That was cool, and I got to meet J.J. Abrams when he was young, and that's like a priceless kind of friendship, I would say, because he's grown to become such a major force in the industry. But it was like six months until Love Don't Cost a Thing."
He continued, "That was fun, but we was still broke, like just money enough for the rent kind of thing, and that accountant was dirty. I ended up not letting that be the end all be all of what my life was going to be, so I just moved back to Cali and continued hustling."
