Friday, February 8, 2019

The Swaggy vs Fessy Fundraiser


This blog's purpose is to document what is known about the Swaggy vs. Fessy Basketball Fundraiser event including its financial details and the ensuing argument on Twitter about the funds from the event given to Kevin Schlehuber and cancer charity.

The Event & its Origin

On January 5th, 2019, Swaggy and Fessy participated in a one-on-one basketball game held at the TNT Elite Hoops gym at 1914 Edgewater Drive in Orlando, Florida, between 3pm-6pm. It was viewed in person by people purchasing regular & VIP tickets, as well as online by many people paying a streaming fee. The game was something Swaggy and Fessy first talked about while they were still inside the Big Brother house.

The event was originally marketed as Swaggy C vs Fessy Basketball Head-to-Head and tickets were put up for sale on eventbrite. Online streaming access was later also sold through cleeng at the end of December. The event pages (and other pages below) can be viewed by clicking on the links.

The event ticket prices are listed here:

 And the event also had an Afterparty, with prices listed here:

Streaming access on Cleeng was sold for $15:

Enter Kevin

Kevin Schlehuber from BB19 announced that he had prostate cancer on Oct. 22, 2018.

Shortly afterward, Swaggy & Fessy decided to add Kevin to the event and call it the Swaggy vs Fessy Head to Head Basketball Fundraiser.

Swaggy also announced that there was a donation portal on the site for the event where people that just wanted to donate for charity could do so. The event page included a section about the event being a fundraiser for Kevin and asked people to "BET" ON KEVIN.

A video with details on the event was also posted at this time here. Swaggy mentions that there is a $1000 bet on the line between him and Fessy for the game. In Swaggy's tweet about the video, he says "we're doing it for Kevin", and a day later said the majority (of the proceeds) would be going to Kevin:


In late November, Swaggy tweeted that the Hive would be staying at an Airbnb location in Orlando, most likely this one, as it matches the photos Swaggy tweeted. Swaggy would later say that Kevin also stayed at this location for the trip.

Kevin's Recovery and ZERO

On December 7th, 2018 Kevin announced that he was currently cancer-free and in recovery from his surgery.

Swaggy would later say (in the video linked below where he responds to Kevin's family's accusations) that this was a problem for his fundraiser event, and that Swaggy & Kevin agreed to split the fundraiser proceeds going to Kevin between him and a prostate cancer charity. The chosen charity was ZERO (

Event Publicity

On December 21, BMX announced it would not stream the event and that people should support it through the event website, after Swaggy asked them not to, saying that the majority of the proceeds were going toward Kevin's medical bills & ZERO.

On January 3rd, Fessy did interviews on WESH and WKMG news stations in Orlando to promote the event as a fundraiser for Kevin, ZERO, and cancer research.

A Successful Event

The basketball event took place January 5th. In attendance were Swaggy & the Hive (a Big Brother alliance from season 20): Fessy, Bayleigh, Haleigh, Scottie, and Rockstar. Other BB alum in attendance included Jason Guy, Evel Dick and Sindy with an S.

The official video of the event is here. The crowd lined up for the event can be seen here. Additional footage of the event can be seen here and here. Fan reaction seemed mostly positive and the event was well-received. Kevin got a standing ovation and the crowd chanted his name.

Fessy's post after the event included a statement that there were over 300 in attendance and almost 1000 people online:

Swaggy tweeted afterward that it was his event and that the event was sold out as well as the after-party, with PPV watched all over the world:

Swaggy also tweeted that a basketball from the event would be up for sale. One reply said they would pay $500 for it.

Kevin's Family Tweets

On January 28th, 2019, Kevin's daughter posted a thread of tweets about the event:

Almost a week later on February 3rd, Kevin's daughter tweeted a follow-up saying that Kevin had tried to contact someone in charge of the event (likely Swaggy) but had still had no response. This tweet got much more notice from the BB Twitter community, and Kevin's daughter said Kevin finally got a text response about it.

Next came an exchange of tweets between Bayleigh and Kevin's daughter.

After this, Bayleigh tweeted that she had talked to Kevin and that he was grateful and had been shown the accounting sheet. She added in a reply that her dad is an accountant and the family lawyer had looked over the paperwork for the event.

Kevin's daughter then tweeted a statement.

Swaggy posts a Video

Swaggy then tweeted that he was going to post a video about the argument and show receipts.
The video can be seen here.
In the video, Swaggy says that he had talked to both Kevin and his daughters on the phone, that Kevin's viewpoint was separate from his daughters, and that he would rather his daughters had called him directly. He said that Kevin's daughters were spreading lies and bashing the situation while Kevin wasn't.

Swaggy says that he and Fessy put on the event and that they had planned it inside the Big Brother house, to put it on for the fans and nobody else. Swaggy said that after a month or two they learned Kevin had cancer and they decided that since their event would be sponsored they would add Kevin to the event and give him a portion of the proceeds:

"When Kevin had cancer, we were gonna do it three ways. If not split it, we were gonna...we actually said, Kevin will probably get most of it, if not half. Here's the problem. Kevin became cancer-free." 
Swaggy says that he talked to Kevin about it and that Kevin was so happy that the cancer was gone that he agreed that as long as Swaggy paid for his flight & hotel anything else was just a bonus.
"Cool, boom. So at that point I was like ok, so it will go back to me & Fessy and we'll give some to Kevin. But then it was like you know what, no, we still wanna add somebody else. So me and Fessy, and this lady Michelle who helped plan the event, she said 'how do you feel about ZERO cancer?'"
Swaggy says that ZERO cancer said that even if they got $500, as long as they could use Kevin as an ambassador for prostate cancer they were happy.

Swaggy says he was then rejected by all potential sponsors & that he and Bayleigh had to put up all the money out-of-pocket to make the event happen. Swaggy was going to cancel the pay-per-view but Bayleigh spent thousands to keep it, and she also got the gym venue secure and got the rental car.

Swaggy says you don't get paid by Eventbrite until 10-15 days after the event ends and that Cleeng (PPV) doesn't pay you all at once, they pay you once a month on the 15th and take a percentage every month. Overall, the event made $19k according to Swaggy. He says they put in $8k, bringing the total down to around $11k (Bayleigh adds later $10.8k). Eventbrite & Cleeng together charged $3.5k as a fee, bringing the total to about $7.5k and that this was the total they had left to give out.

Swaggy says he paid himself $2k, Fessy $2k, Kevin $800, ZERO cancer $800, the event planner $250, a donation to Give Kids the World charity. Swaggy doesn't mention the amount for GKTW, but it later comes out that the amount was $200. He says a lot of people ordered Swaggy T-shirts for the game, but they didn't have them to give out and had to refund fans. He also mentions concessions and the editor for the footage of the game as additional costs.

Bayleigh adds that they sent a spreadsheet to Kevin and his daughters. Her family flew out to work the event as staff and were not paid at all. They did pay for Scottie & Rockstar's tickets. Scottie had an issue with his ticket on the way back and they had to pay $500 for his one-way ticket home. Bayleigh says Kevin received more than $500 and that lie needs to go. She says the information going around was false and that everything was resolved with Kevin.

Swaggy says that they don't like being lied on.

"It was a 60/40 process. Me & Fessy only got 2 grand, 40% of that is $800. That is where the 800 came in. Because we felt like, ok, if I get 2 grand, and Fessy get 2 grand, that's 60%...30% for me and 30% for him. And then, the 800 for Kevin and 800 for ZERO cancer is the 40%. That was the process we had, 60/40...out of the money we had for profit it was 60%/40%. I don't see the problem with that and Kevin doesn't see the problem with that."
Swaggy finishes by saying Kevin's daughters are bashing him and lying on the whole event, he doesn't know what their gain is from it, and this was the truth.

More Tweets

After the video was posted, Swaggy, Bayleigh and Kevin's daughter added some tweets, with Swaggy & Bayleigh commenting about Kevin's airfare. Bayleigh says there was a "processing error" with the flight they had booked for Kevin and he had to use an ATM and pay his own way, but that Swaggy would reimburse him. Kevin's daughter saying it was never reimbursed.

Kevin Comments

The next morning, Kevin tweeted about the controversy, asking Swaggy to stop talking about his family and said that what he originally wanted was for Swaggy to reimburse his flight and he got no response until his daughter had tweeted about it.

Hive Discord

After Kevin's comments Faysal apologized for any miscommunication and said he had no control over the costs or logistics, which angered Bayleigh and resulted in some unfollowing on Twitter. Scottie and Rockstar added tweets of their own. Faysal seems to have offered $2k to Kevin's family on venmo but it was returned and he was asked to "pay it forward".


It seems likely that Fessy got the number of people attending the event from Swaggy, and if this claim posted above from Fessy is true (300 in person, 1000 online), then the ticket revenue can be calculated. 

In the video there appear to be over 50 people in the VIP section. At $45 a ticket, if we say 50 people, that comes to $2250. If the rest of the people there (250) bought general admission at $25, this comes to $6250 for a total of $8500 for in-person ticket sales. Online streaming sales to 1000 people at $15 each is $15000.

This gives total ticket & streaming income of $23,500. So Swaggy's claim that the event brought in $19k requires further explanation. This also does not include any concessions or merchandise sales at the event, such as the basketball included above. And it also does not include any 
Afterparty ticket sales at $10 for general admission and $25 VIP. It's not adding up.

There is also the matter of donations to Kevin from people not buying tickets. Swaggy and Bayleigh mention in their video that this money went to Kevin, but there is no amount discussed and no confirmation from Kevin that he received this amount.

Bayleigh claims that Kevin received more than $500 and that his daughter was lying, but the contention from Kevin's side is not that he didn't receive the $800 check, rather that this amount included his compensation for his flight, reducing his total down to ~$500. Swaggy's post of the texts with Kevin and Bayleigh's explanation of the processing error for his flight doesn't do much to refute this claim because they never say they sent a separate reimbursement to Kevin for the flight.

Swaggy included a screenshot of his text with the camera crew director saying he was going to have to cancel for lack of funds. In that text he says he has sponsors paying 6-7 grand after the event.

So was Swaggy lying to the videographer guy while cancelling them the day before and after they had spent money on crew and rentals? Or is he lying to us when he says there were no sponsors? Either way he was caught in a lie here that he has not yet owned up to at all.

Swaggy included the charity Give Kids the World in his list of costs, but didn't specify an amount. It was revealed on Twitter that his contact from GKTW, Omar, said the amount was $200. Why not say this in the video? Likely Swaggy wanted it to look like he was spending more on charity than he did. Why not just be transparent if you are giving us the "truth"?

There are many reasons here to be skeptical of what Swaggy is saying, with him being caught in a lie and giving only a total of $1500 to Kevin & the charities ($800 to zerocancer, $500 to Kevin, $200 to GKTW) from an event billed as a "Fundraiser" & that brought in what he says is $19k and may be more. 

Why write yourself a $2000 check when the man recovering from cancer surgery that was part of the marketing for the event received a quarter of that? The claim that Swaggy needed to get paid falls flat when this event brought a lot of publicity for him and his brand & served as his trial experience in running an that he billed as a Fundraiser. Why is there no receipt of Swaggy separately reimbursing Kevin for airfare? How did expenses add up to $8k exactly? Why, when confronted with questions from many fans that aren't hating on him but just asking questions about where their money went, are Swaggy and Bayleigh so defensive? What exactly did Kevin's daughter lie about, since nothing's been proven false so far?

How about some more answers, Swaggy?

Apparently not...