John Mulaney explained the reason for not having his planned opening act on Everybody’s Live Wednesday night was all thanks to a scammer’s betrayal.
“Motherf–ker, let me tell you about the week I had,” Mulaney said. He explained how his original plan for the episode was to have the hip hop group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony stop by to a sing a song.
“We reach out to a contact we find online for Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, and we schedule a Zoom with their manager,“ Mulaney explained. ”Three weeks ago, my writers and I get on the Zoom with just the manager. Let me be clear… Bizzy Bone, Layzie Bone, Krayzie Bone, Wish Bone, and Flesh-n-Bone, are not on the Zoom.”
The red flags only piled up from there. Mulaney detailed with outrage and bemusement how the manager strung him along. At one point, the manager convinced Mulaney to take $2,800 out of his personal bank account.
“The cash had to come from me, like I couldn’t pay it through the show budget, okay?” Mulaney explained. “So now I need to withdraw $2,800.”
Blushing a little, Mulaney elaborated: “Okay, a few years ago, in an effort to safeguard my sobriety, I set up certain measures, right? I set up a system where I cannot have, at any time, more than $300 cash unless I alert certain people.”
The comedian, who checked into rehab in December 2020, detailed this plan in Baby J, his first post-rehab stand-up special in 2023.
“So on Friday, I call my wife, Olivia [Munn], who is in New York, and I say, ‘Hi, how are you? … I need to get $2,800 cash, and I need it today.’ And she said, ‘What is it for?’ And I said, ‘It’s for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. Well, only four of them. $700 a bone.‘”
Munn seemed concerned that Mulaney may have relapsed again. As Mulaney recalled, “She’s like, ‘John, you know I love you. If you want to tell me something, you can tell me it.‘”
Luckily, the fake manager did not manage to get his hands on that $2,800. As Mulaney explained, the guy finally made the scam too obvious by suddenly demanding $100,000 at the last minute.
“I’m concerned now that I never had any direct contact with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony,” Mulaney mused. He put his show’s contact number on the screen for one of the band members to call, if they were watching.
Mulaney offered a message to the fake manager who’d lied to him for weeks:
“Sir, first off, credit where credit is due,” Mulaney said. “I do indeed look like someone you could hustle over a booking for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.”
“But you played this very wrong,” he continued. “Had you asked for $50,000 on Monday, and then had you asked for $25,000 on Tuesday, and then had you shown up today at our taping with any four men claiming to be Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and named any sum of money to walk out on our stage, oh, you would be a very rich man indeed.”
“Instead, you have nothing,” Mulaney said. “I, meanwhile, have $2,800 in cash that I have to return to my wife and then immediately alert my sponsor.”
