Dan Bilzerian is a man once dubbed the “King of Instagram” with over 32 million followers. Dan is best known for his role as a professional poker player, actor, and infamous millionaire playboy.
The 41-year-old millionaire’s Instagram is filled with images of supercars, yachts, mansions, extravagant parties, and luxurious travels, and of course, a bevy of beautiful women. Dan is famous for claiming that he has dated and slept with 17 models in one week, then replaced them all.
Dan stated that he made money since college by playing poker and later through business ventures. Some reports estimate that Dan currently has a net worth of $200 million. However, last year, Forbes published an article exposing the truth about Dan’s lifestyle.
Renting a House, Living Off Others’ Money
A lawsuit filed last year revealed that Dan does not own the luxurious mansion he lives in; in fact, he rents it. Even Dan’s expensive partying expenses are charged to a credit card… paid for by someone else. In other words, Dan does not use his own money to party.
Specifically, Dan rents a house in the upscale hills of Los Angeles for about $200,000 a month, but he is not the one paying this amount.
It turns out, the mansion and everything else like the planes, yachts… are all funded by Ignite International – the company Dan founded and serves as CEO and major shareholder. Curtis Heffernan, the chairman who was recently ousted from the company at that time, was the one who disclosed this information.
Paying the annual rent of $2.4 million and a slew of other expenses for Dan is one of the reasons Ignite reported a loss of $50 million in 2020.
Heffernan complained about Dan’s misuse of company funds and repeatedly opposed the deceptive tactics to cover those expenses. According to Heffernan’s lawsuit, these were the reasons he was fired.
For its part, Ignite did not respond to requests for comment on this issue. Dan, in a statement sent to TMZ, denied the allegations in Heffernan’s lawsuit.
However, anonymous former employees of Ignite confirmed that Heffernan’s allegations were true.
“Ignite pays for everything. Dan just parties and adds the Ignite logo, then suddenly, all of it becomes an expense that the company has to cover. Personal events that have nothing to do with business still get billed to the company,” one person stated.
In the lawsuit, Heffernan sought damages for defamation and breach of contract by Ignite.
The Person Behind the Lawsuit
Heffernan, a former senior director at Procter and Gamble, joined Ignite in March 2019. At that time, the company was trying to find a niche market. They were in the cannabis business and sought every opportunity to put their goat skull logo on anything they could.
Heffernan previously worked as vice president of sales for WeWork with a salary of $275,000 a year. He became chairman of Ignite in November 2019 after the departure of his predecessor, Jim McCormick.
Troubles arose in May 2020. Accountants doing the books to prepare the annual report for Ignite raised red flags about the company’s situation.
According to Heffernan’s lawsuit, they suspected that nearly $900,000 in company expenses was for Dan’s “personal activities.” These expenses included: yacht rental – half a million dollars, travel worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, two nights in London, a $65,000 “Star Wars” themed gun collection, a $75,000 painted football field, and a cash box worth $88,000, a $50,000 bed frame. This is just a few of the many expenses the company had to cover.
The company also paid $26,000 to increase Dan’s follower count on Instagram as well as travel expenses for the models who always accompanied Dan wherever he went.
Heffernan’s lawsuit stated that he was pressured by some senior executives and board members of Ignite to sign off on what were claimed to be legitimate business expenses. However, due to suspicions of fraud, he refused.
Heffernan even tried to convince Dan not to rent the mansion for $200,000 a month anymore since, after all, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Dan could not hold extravagant events and parties.
Dan responded by jumping in as the Chairman of the Board and said: “I will throw many pool parties and still use that mansion.” The next day, Dan accused Heffernan of drug use in a company meeting and used that as an excuse to fire him in June 2020.
Annual reports showed Ignite’s staggering losses. Some board members and shareholders even loaned the company cash to keep it afloat.
The “Fraudulent” Millionaire
Dan once claimed that he started his poker career in college, turning $750 into over $180,000. However, many people are skeptical of this information. Later, some reports revealed that Dan’s father was a businessman who owed the U.S. Federal Reserve $62 million due to financial fraud but deliberately did not repay.
He established family companies and ultimately, the money that should have gone to pay off the debt ended up in the pockets of his two sons. At that time, Dan received about $6 million. With his “business blood,” Dan used this money for business, money laundering, and enjoying life.
In addition to ‘deceiving’ everyone about his extravagant lifestyle, Dan has also encountered quite a few other troubles. A few years ago, during a trip with his brother and father to Armenia, Dan visited a shooting range in the “Republic of Artsakh” – a self-proclaimed state, and fired a gun there. Due to the complex dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan at that time, Azerbaijan sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. government requesting Dan’s arrest. Although he was not arrested, Dan remains on Azerbaijan’s international wanted list.
At the end of 2014, Dan was sued by a model who alleged that Dan kicked her in the face at a nightclub. However, by 2015, police stated they were no longer investigating the model’s allegations.
On another occasion, Dan faced a lawsuit seeking $85,000 in damages from a porn actress after Dan threw her from a balcony into a pool, resulting in her breaking her leg. She sought damages because it affected her photoshoots and income. In the end, Dan agreed to settle.
Another ‘scam’ by Dan was regarding his two-time participation in the Navy SEAL training program. Some reports revealed that this millionaire never attended that program and merely “boasted” about it.