The Carter Agency Scandal with Niké of Specs and Blazers (@specsandblazers)

[00:00:00] Jessy: Hi everyone. Welcome to the WIIM Podcast. Women in Influencer Marketing is the first of its exclusive networking group made up of inspirational women. This podcast is where we explore influencer marketing and get really with women in business.

Find us wherever you download your podacasts and of course you can always find us at iamwiim.com. That’s iamwiim.com.

You guys, oh my goodness. So this episode is equated doozy. I don’t even know where to begin. Well, I just finished recording this episode with Niké of Specs and Blazers and I think we recorded for about two and a half hours total in two different chunks. Because it is quite, the story that’s coming out she’s like discovering things in real time.

There’s very much a story that’s like evolving as we’re literally talking about it in real time. So it’s gonna be quite the long episode. I will warn you that ahead of time. But you absolutely need to listen to every single second of it. Share it with people as a warning and also just use it as a cautionary tale.

This is a wild story that there’s so many components. I don’t think we could have had a conversation about it for anything less than a couple hours because there’s so many twists and turns, there’s so much deception, deceit. It’s pretty unbelievable. So I’m gonna keep this intro today short.

I do hope that you listen to this episode with a very open mind and I would love to hear from you guys, anyone who’s also been affected by this story to please reach out.

 The information is gonna be in the show notes so that we can help Niké, we can help provide clarity to all the other influencers who have been sharing their stories publicly as well. Niké seems to just be one of many people who’ve been affected by the story. And the agency called the Carter Agency.

I know there have been rumblings about this in our Facebook group, probably for months at this point. And I really wanna be able to use this platform to spread this message, get the case story out there and hopefully to find the truth of what’s been going on and to prevent any of this, ridiculously nefarious behavior from occurring anymore.

 I know that this is important in a case, so I do wanna even bring this up. We talked about it offline. I don’t know that we actually recorded this specific component of her story, which is that she very specifically thinks that the Carter Agency has been targeting women of color. I know that she believes this, but I don’t believe we got this recorded. We have been speaking for the last, like 12 hours or so.

 But she does believe this to be true, which just takes this scam and this horrendous like behavior to an even worse level because not only is it just scamming anybody, but it’s like scamming a very specific, targeted group of people. So I do wanna put that element out there as something that I know I believe is important to her to get across.

And if you continue to look on TikTok, and that’s where the videos that I’ve seen thus far be released. But perhaps it’ll be on other platforms as well. Take a look at the influencers who are coming forward, the ones that were on this roster. The ones that I’ve seen are all women of color thus far. And Generally speaking, my friends who are women of color have agencies who also represent women of color cause they relate to them and it’s part of their MO and they really wanna advocate for them. It’s very important.

 Why are like one or multiple, you’ll say in the story, unclear white guys representing all these women of color. What’s in it for them? Like, why are they specifically representing these women? It doesn’t really make much sense to me and she feels very strongly about this. I don’t question it.

I think that it seems very clear that it has been. His target. And that’s disgusting. If that’s true, we have to say in this podcast that all of this stuff is alleged because nothing’s gone through the court system yet. It’s very, very early days of people like putting the pieces of this in order. So we have to say that all this is alleged, we will see as the days progress and I will certainly keep all of you guys posted mostly probably on our Instagram stories and share updates there.

 I might create some TikToks as well because a lot of the stuff is coming out on TikTok. So check the show notes, check our social media for updates to the story cause it’s very new. And we will go from there. So without more of an intro, I would love to introduce you to the absolutely lovely Niké from Specs and Blazers and this horrendous, very scary story of the Carter Agency.

I’m really, really happy to have you on the show today. And just to meet you cause we haven’t really met before we chatted on Instagram for a really short period of time. I do, of course, wish that it was under better circumstances, but I am really happy to have you here today. I know it’s all pretty fresh too.

So first and foremost, how are you feeling today?

[00:06:48] Nike: I am okay. As okay as it can be. I always say when you get big traders steal something from you as when cheats on you. It’s not the actual thing that is stole from you that hurts. Like it’s not the money. Money comes and go, it’s energy will always come back.

It’s the betrayal that hurts the trauma that comes from like, I thought I knew this person. You feel so violated, like how could I be so dumb? Me? How can I guess, scammed? I think those feelings are much bigger than the actual money they had stolen from you.

So it’s more like my brain is trying to fill in, how did I miss so much?

 Why didn’t I do my research? You just feel so stupid.

[00:07:39] Jessy: Well, I don’t want you to feel that way, but we’re gonna get into everything that happened. I know that before we started chatting today, like you said that your goal for coming on the show is just to get the story out there.

Tell us a little bit more about why you wanted to get your story out.

[00:08:01] Nike: I think it’s just part of who I am since I was a kid. I’ve always been a loner. I was a nerd in high school. I have always been a social justice warrior and I don’t like that term, you know, I worked with United Nations for a very long time.

I’ve always been the David to every Goliath institution I’ve ever been in. And I’m not afraid at all to speak up for myself and advocate for myself or other young girls. And so, when presented with something like this, it’s natural for me to feel like it’s my duty to speak up and say something. I’ve been like that my whole life .

My mom raised me like that in the face of injustice always speak up, risk everything to speak up and I’ve always been like this and so this is very personal, but even if it weren’t personal, if it were happening to someone else, I would’ve still used my platform to speak up.

[00:08:56] Jessy: Well, it’s definitely really admirable. Perhaps people who are cleaning in have seen maybe your TikTok or have heard rumblings in our Facebook group and our community about what’s going on. And again, we’re gonna get into all of that cause I think it’s important to just really, truly understand what happened, what’s currently happening, what has happened in the past.

But I think before we get into any of that, I want our listeners to learn more about you. So I wanna start by learning more about you, your brand. How did you come up as an influencer who has loyal followers, great brand deals, you have over 450,000 followers on TikTok, over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram.

 So talk to us a little bit about you got started and how you built the brand that you currently have.

[00:09:48] Nike: Oh, thank you. I’m sure this will come as no surprise. My parents’ dream for me was to always be a lawyer and it’s still something I am going to pursue in the near future. Especially after days.

 I’ve moved it up. My goal is to be a lawyer sooner than possible, but like, it is just part of who I am. I enjoy law. I enjoy justice. And so that was always my goal. Finish college, go to law school. But I always loved fashion as well in college. And so I came to LA for Los Angeles fashion.

I came back then almost a decade ago, I think eight plus years ago, and I just stayed. So that tells of my personality, I just stayed. I said, I love the city so much. I don’t know anyone. I checked into a host and the rest is history. And I built a fashion brand. I built a fashion blog back then when everyone was writing, I enjoyed writing so much and I built a very loyal following on my blog.

And then of course, we transitioned slowly into Instagram. I cut on the late stages of Instagram. I don’t mind being on the influencer, but I’ve never liked the culture of Instagram. And then I started moving into skincare and I fell in love with TikTok so much. I still love it.

It’s the greatest app of all time. It reminds me of Tumblr 2012, where you can be all of yourself. And so I have put all my focus on Tumblr. Sorry, that’s how much it reminds me of Tumblr. On TikTok I did back then to put all my focus on Tumblr. So I always look for, avenues where I can be all of myself. I have a very polarizing personality because I will speak up.

Always like that’s the one thing you can always guarantee that I will do.

[00:11:40] Jessy: Tell us, what year did you start blogging ,Tumblr? When did this all start for you?

[00:11:48] Nike: Well, Tumblr 2012 because I was a depressed millennial who didn’t know what to do with my life. And Tumlr allowed you to write. God, if anyone ever finds my writing on the Jesus Christ, like just write the most crazy inner thoughts and put it on the internet.

 Just like TikTok well yeah, you put a camera. But back then I loved writing so much and I would just write. So 2012 is when I started and I started moving the writing over to my actual blog when I, invested a lot of money from all the jobs that I had and I invested a lot of money a website and instead of putting the writings on there.

[00:12:30] Jessy: And when did you transition to becoming a full-time influencer? Like certainly not something on the side. You’re doing brand deals and you have other streams of revenue, but like this is your sole focus. When was that?

[00:12:43] Nike: 2017 with Adidas was my first contract.

[00:12:47] Jessy: Got it. And we know that Adidas has really generous agreements.

They have ambassadors. They don’t really do one off posts as much. So that’s fantastic. Could you name some of the other brand partnerships that you’ve had over time, you know we can scroll through your account of course but maybe some that stand out in your mind as like some of the better partners that you’ve had over the years.

[00:13:12] Nike: Nivea is my number one. They’re my heart. I’ve been with them for six years. They’re my bread and butter. I always say if I quit my job today, if I quit all my other brand deals, I can survive and survive my whole team on just Nivea. They’re so kind to me. They treat me so well. I actually find out all of this when I was in New York with them.

And then Clinic , I’ve been with them for a long time and I love, love, love, love working with them. But my newest partnership is with Nike which is just an alchemist. I have a video of where I was crying perhaps it would make sense when my personality is the way it is now.

I was bullied severely in high school. I had just transitioned from Africa here and kids were cruel. And to have a name like Nike just was so insane to kids, you know, like inner city kids, like why would a parent named their child after the shoes? But it’s not true, it’s the other way around.

The name has been around for a long time and I was bullied. I mean, it was severe. It wasn’t like a tiny little like, oh, picking on you. And I had to get pulled outta school many, many, many times. And so the goal was to always own that name. And I was just determined to work with Nike, that’s not even about the money. I remember saying to them like, You don’t have to pay me a penny.

I just wanna be associated with the brand. I just wanna own that name. You know my name. And it’s been great. They’re good people.

[00:14:41] Jessy: And let everyone know it’s pronounced Nique. Correct.

[00:14:45] Nike: Exactly. It’s not a hard name but for some reason, I guess it just cause it’s an accent on the E, but it throws people off.

[00:14:53] Jessy: It’s four letters and an accent mark. So I’ll tell you what, after this conversation today, people will know how to pronounce your name. You’ve worked with like great brands, I think more so than the brands, you have a really loyal following as well. And so things sort of start to pick up steam and your business becomes more in demand.

And in doing so, a lot of influencers are like, well, what’s the next step for me? There’s usually this inflection point where, they’ll hear chatter about, oh, you should get a manager, you should get a talent manager. Those listening to this podcast know, I’m a former talent manager.

I had my own agency. I’ve since sold it. But through Wiim of course we have a giant network of talent managers. So you were saying before, oh, like, coming up as an influencer, you had your dream brands that you wanted to work with. Others maybe are like, oh, I can’t wait till I get to the point where I can have a manager.

You had never had a manager prior to this management agency. So how did you feel about management prior to this experience?

[00:16:09] Nike: Well, there’s a saying, I’ve been in the Industry for almost 10 years. There’s a saying about me and knowing and if you hear the name Specs and Blazers, the managers in the industry would say, oh, she can’t be managed.

She does her own thing. It’s just me and my girls. I have a team of an assistant editor, photographer and they’re all beautiful, incredible girls who’ve been with me since they were in high school. I’ve watched them get married and grow up and surpassed me in life. And I love that for them. But there’s a saying, everyone knows specs and Blazers doesn’t have a manager. She can’t be managed. People say that like into my face, they will not manage me.

And when I first started becoming a buzz, cause it happened overnight for me, I had a documentary that was picked up by HBO and then it got dropped through Darleen and AR Real, And so I was like, poor, poor, poor, trying to make it and nothing was happening.

But I kept to work. I was working two or three jobs, pushing out content every day, had a full photographer. I mean, I wasn’t sleeping, it was crazy. And then I got picked up with this documentary, which was dropped, but the rumblings around it, the promos around it got my name out there.

 So then Wilhelmina reached out and they tried to manage me and I was sitting another paperwork, they’re like, oh, she can’t be managed. Because I think people want people who would just hand their lives over. Like, I get it from a management point of view, you want your talent to trust you.

And I’m not a trusting person which is why this is so painful for me because how did this happen? Like, well, let me not calling get me. So how did I list a random guy that has no social media get me? It’s the craziest thing. I haven’t slept in this cause I can’t wrap my head around it.

[00:18:03] Jessy: So what has been your professional goals as you’ve self managed, and just managed your own business?

You know, you could have a manager, but you’re still the CEO of your own business, right? So as CEO of your own business, what have been some of your professional goals in the past year in particular?

[00:18:25] Nike: You know, I’ve been working since I was 14. No one believes when I told the story, I had to grow up fast.

I don’t even remember my childhood. So I was 12 when I filled out the application to bring a family of five to America. Of course I didn’t pay for it but I would never forget just being in my dad’s studies and like filling this out. And so I’ve always been precautious. I’ve always had two or three jobs simultaneously.

 I’ve never experienced like a moment of, oh, lemme take up three months off from life and figure out my life. I’m a hustler. So it would just be nice to figure something out where I can have a much more… work is work and I know people think influences don’t work but it’s not a physically taxing job. It’s a very mentally taxing job. And so it would be lovely to find something where I can kind of have a more control over my income, you know? Cause when you’re an influencer, your income is based on everybody else. Brands liking you or not liking you?

[00:19:28] Jessy: So it sounds like you started being pursued by agencies as you were coming up and getting more traction with your social media.

Right. And probably agencies, management companies would see that you’re working with brands and they would be like, oh, maybe she’s somebody that I could help, that I could negotiate for, that I can help facilitate their deals. And for anyone who’s listening, not as familiar with that model. Typically, managers take between 15 and 20%.

Typically, managers will help negotiate brand deals and typically they will also procure some brand deals as well. Like they will get some that are not just inbounds, but that are part of their own professional network that they can then say, okay Niké is perfect for this brand that came to me as a manager.

I’m gonna present her to that brand and hopefully that’ll all wrap up and I can say, fantastic. Here’s an offer for Niké that I brought to the table as well. There have been lots of conversations of course, of the percentage at which are inbound versus outbound, et cetera, cetera, but it should be a blend. This is all typical. Nothing in the management realm is standard.

So you had explored working with a really well known agency. Well, it’s been around forever. Their influencer division. It’s only been around maybe for, I don’t know probably like eight ish years now. Sub 10. But the agency itself has been a mainstay in the modeling world for decades.

So really well known. Not new by any means. It didn’t work out with them. That’s okay. Did you guys sort of part on good terms? How do you feel like you guys ended things?

[00:21:20] Nike: Nothing started. I mean, she gave me advice. I was like… but of course, again, it’s something I’m willing to think about, but not right now. It’s not for me.

[00:21:35] Jessy: Got it. Did you guys ever get to the point that you were sort of freelancing with each other, or it was really just conversations you had with Wilhelmina?

[00:21:45] Nike: So she tried the girl, she’s not in this world at all anymore. I think she is a teacher now or something.

 She tried to negotiate one deal for me and I took over that negotiation and negotiate higher and which was shocking to the whole entire team. I didn’t go to business school. Like, I love that part of my job negotiation. Like I love the psychology behind it. I love the arts behind it. I love the dance behind it.

And so I took the negotiation. I’m like, let me jump on this email. Cause she was very transparent. I was on email and I negotiated it higher. I think it was at $3,000 higher. They didn’t like that. You know, of course. But I knew that I could do it. I know how to get money out of brands.

[00:22:40] Jessy: So, you know, means that you’re willing and able and comfortable advocating for yourself, which is certainly nothing to ever apologize for. It’s a fantastic quality. And a lot of women, a lot of men, wish they could advocate for themselves. It’s funny, my seven year old’s teacher we had like parent teacher conferences last week and one thing we had 15 minutes with the teacher.

It’s like the shortest amount of time. And one of the things she wanted to make sure to tell us that my daughter is like really good at is she’s great at advocating for herself. And we were like, okay. That’s nice to hear. She’s like, no, no, no. I want you to know there are so many kids and she’s like adults even who like don’t feel comfortable doing that and live their whole lives, not speaking up for themselves.

So what you’re saying, this is someone who’s in the educational system and she sees it even from an early age. Like just being able to infuse that into your self-confidence and into who you are as a human, it’s a really big deal. So I know you were talking earlier and giving all this credit to your mother and how she raised you to do that.

So it’s a really big deal and I think that it’s a reason that this circumstance that you’re currently in, which we’re gonna get into is coming to light because you are someone who will advocate for yourself, feels comfortable doing it, speaking up. You don’t need someone else to speak up on your behalf, like you will take care of your own business.

It sounds like you weren’t signed exclusively to anybody before. And so when did you first connect with the Carter Agency and how did that conversation go?

[00:24:31] Nike: I did, in the first video I set the scene, a young girl, beautiful girl, her name is, I think Abigael something she’s Nigerian. Reached out to me and said this person in Ben Carter reached out to her and said he represents me.

And he gets me all this incredible deals and he would like to sign her. She’s probably has like 5,000 followers. And I said, what? Who’s that? And she’s like, oh, his person. She sent me Carter Agency. And I said, Uhuh, I have never worked with them. So I emailed, said, hey, can you please call me? What’s going on?

We spoke on the phone and he’s like, oh, we were the one who got you Klo Skincare. It was through my PR agency apparently has a PR agency, which is now this Malibu Moonlight Mommy group, whatever. He’s like that was us, we were the one, and it was a lot of money. I think it was like $5,000.

And I was like, oh, that’s you? He’s like yeah. And we have many more like that. And I said, Oh, that’s incredible. Oh, lovely. He was so charming, you know? And now I’m so scared of that term. It happened so fast. Like I was going in to confront and I was sold. It was like all in, one conversation is all happening.

I just don’t know how I did it, how this happened. I was going in there in a very confrontational, , mood. And he was able to say, I didn’t mean like an agent. We are an agency. The word play was incredible. Like, you know, we have this PR we are an agency and you did skin care through us.

And I said, Wow. You guys can that kind of deal for one. I think I had like 150 K at the time for one video for $5,000. Like that’s the kind of stuff I can get myself close enough. So like, wow. And he’s like, well, let me tell you all the deals I can get you. He said, At least in all this brands that he can get me. And I said, really? And he’s like, Yeah, I can represent you. And again, I said, I would never sign to an agency that they should take that off the table.

And he’s like, no, no, no, not exclusive. Whatever I get you. I just take 20%. And I know everyone will say that I’m stupid for even allowing that. But who doesn’t like extra money?

I mean, that’s extra income. I’m not one of those influencers who still has a full-time job and all my income, a hundred percent of it comes from influencing, which is a very dangerous game to play. So I thought of that as a side hustle in my head that’s literally how I interpreted it in my head.

Or a side hustle. This guy brings me deals, I do it for him and I keep 80% of it. That’s incredible. Who doesn’t want that? And that’s how it started. I just thought I was doing a site hustle.

[00:27:14] Jessy: Got it. And so I wanna clarify those. So you were saying that originally he was telling you that not only was he a talent manager, but he was using all sorts of words.

You’re saying like wordplay, like he was like, oh, like I’m also an agency, I’m a manager, I’m a PR firm. Is that correct? Like he was sort of telling you that he was all of these things in one.

[00:27:39] Nike: Cause the PR firm is what got me the Klo Skincare. That’s how I started was Klo and then he used my ad, which by the way, Klo ran now I realize like he probably got made so much money from that because Klo ran my video. It was so well done. Cause I have such a team of girls who are just incredible human beings and they’re so good at it. They ran it as an ad, a national ad. That’s how good it was. Like that’s how good the commercial that I did for Klo for $5,000.

And so he was like, oh yeah, it was through us, through our PR agency. And I said, oh wow, this guy can have access to an Naomi Osaka. In my head, I thought he was Naomi Osaka’s PR firm or something only God knows how many other celebrities he has access to in his PR firm.

[00:28:30] Jessy: In hindsight, and you’re unraveling so many things, did he have anything to do with that deal?

Was it just not what he described it as or do you think that he had nothing to do with that deal? What was his involvement in that?

[00:28:46] Nike: I will never know. I mean, I turned a commercial over to him and Klo ran it as an ad.

[00:28:53] Jessy: So you were communicating with him? I was sort of thinking it was after the fact he was like, oh yeah, I was involved in that.

So during the process, the back and forth approval process of that content for that brand, you were communicating with him in real time?

[00:29:11] Nike: I was communicating cause he was through this PR agency in emails. I didn’t know Ben Carter and Ben Hopkins were the same person. I was communicating with Ben Carter through this PR firm.

And then Ben Hopkins was the person who I end up confronting and saying, why are you telling people that you’re my manager, my agent.

[00:29:34] Jessy: Got it. Okay. And so this communication, to start with this one brand, the first brand, was it all through email? Is that how the main way that you guys were communicating with each other?

[00:29:46] Nike: Yes, through emails.

[00:29:47] Jessy: Got it. And so when he was emailing, through that email, what was the email address ? Was it like Carter Agency, Carter PR. What was his signature? What was he identifying himself as? If you could jog your memory.

[00:30:04] Nike: Okay. This was my fault cause I clearly missed this. It was such a long time ago. Such a long time ago. It’s Carter Agency PR.

[00:30:16] Jessy: So Carter Agency PR. Interesting. Okay. Interesting. And so that deal finishes, it closes you make a good amount of money, a few thousand dollars you said? Was that one deal?

[00:30:32] Nike: 5k? Yeah, that was good money.

[00:30:34] Jessy: Okay. And did he take any percentage of that $5,000?

[00:30:41] Nike: We will never know because I thought I was speaking with someone from Klo. So I would never know. There’s no way to know more. I thought this represents Naomi Osaka.

[00:30:52] Jessy: Right. Okay. And so this is part of what I wanna dig into a little bit because I wanna sort of unravel and help unravel it because like I mentioned earlier, management companies typically take 20, 15, 20%.

But a PR firm typically will be on like either a retainer or they sort of get their money in a different way. It’s not usually a percentage of the fee that the influencer gets. So you get paid $5,000 for that deal. He does not take a percentage of that that you know of, right? Like you aren’t even understanding that your full fee is $5,000.

You get the full $5,000. Who are you paid from and how are you paid on that specific deal?

[00:31:40] Nike: I was paid through PayPal. It’s interesting cause I don’t get paid through PayPal. I was paid through PayPal, through Carter PR agency.

[00:31:49] Jessy: Got it. And so he was the middle person even in terms of payment. So throughout that entire deal, that one deal. Did you ever speak with anybody else that represented the brand?

[00:32:06] Nike: No. It was Ben, I’m guessing, but I spoke to Klo in my dms and they were just so happy. I mean, it was so seamless and I think they were so happy with the work that I did. Right. As an ad. We spoke through dms. I was like, I’m so proud of Naomi Osaka.

 This is so incredible that she, this young girl now has her own skincare line. The whole time I thought I was talking to the, like, he represents them, which now makes sense. That’s what he’s doing to me now. He would tell brands that he represents me and use his PR to tell me that he represents the brand.

But yeah, I thought I was talking to the brand. So I spoke to them through dms. It was very lovely. They’re still very lovely. They still follow me, I think. I literally thought he represented Naomi Osaka’s Klo Skin.

[00:33:03] Jessy: Got it. So you are talking to the brand through dm, but do you have any reason to think that he’s like operating their social account like do you think that you were talking, you know, but like if you’re talking to a brand account, you don’t ever really know who’s on the other side.

So how were they identifying themselves through dm? Were they sort of signing their DM in any way? So you sort of had a sense of who you were speaking with on the other side?

[00:33:33] Nike: No, they were so happy with the ad and no I didn’t, to be honest, up until the young girl reached out to me and said, hey, can you give me any advice about Carter Agency?

I was just so happy to be associated with Naomi Osaka . You know, she’s a young black girl who came from nothing and became the next Serena Williams overnight and immediately pivot into skincare. So I was just so happy to be associated with her and I was just so honored and I remember one of the things I said to him was like, thank you so much.

The fact that you’ll think of me, to do Naomi Osaka’s first ad for Klo skin is crazy. And please to her, I said thank you.

[00:34:14] Jessy: Got it. And that makes sense. I mean, you’re excited to work with this brand. You’re trying to do what you’ve done throughout your entire career, which is network and build relationships.

And so, we’re gonna continue to get into what’s currently happening, but very few people assume that others are nefarious. And you’ve said yourself there, like, I was skeptical. I wasn’t trusting, but this person got you a deal. And so you’re also excited by working with this brand.

So things seem at the beginning, like it’s on the up and up. What were some of the next few deals that he was able to work on for you? Were any of them inbound deals that you passed to him in the beginning? Or they were all things that he procured for you and paint us a picture of just like the first few deals so we can get a really good sense of what they looked like.

[00:35:21] Nike: So I wanna make this very clear that after the Klo, he and I weren’t speaking. Everything was like, oh my God, he this deal, this guy works for a Klo skin care. This is incredible.

And then the young girl reached out to me and I can read it to you verbatim. You know what’s so funny? I’m usually the type to delete everything, but for some reason I kept everything. I don’t know why. I guess it’s like, God, the universe wanted me to make sure that I’m…

She says” Hi Niké. I’m April probably wants this message, but I wanted to ask you a question about the Carter agency”. ” I see that you’re signed with them. They reached out to me and I’m thinking of signing with them as well”. “What’s your experience like since signing with them?” And my response like, “What?!” With a bunch Of ts you know, “I’m not signed to anyone at all”.

“Where is this coming from? Who is this? I wrote my own business by myself. Could you please call me?” That was the beginning of the mess.

[00:36:19] Jessy: Got it. And that was the next interaction that you had about the Carter Agency. Between that first deal and this conversation, were there any other brand deals or even conversations that you had with that agency or this person?

[00:36:36] Nike: What I’m guessing now is that, a bunch of random PR companies would just reach out to influencers and what I’m guessing now is that how I caught all of this is what he was doing. So in between that and the door reaching out to me, he was probably using PR emails, different PR emails to reach out to.

So get me brand deals and then I work with only God knows how many brands I work with for him in between that. And then he pocketed the money only God knows. We will never know. That’s the only thing I’m guessing. I could be wrong, but I didn’t have any communication with him until this young girl gave me information because he knew that I would never sign.

Everyone knows I said this publicly, I hate management, I hate talent managers. You’re incredible. I said that all the time. So I think he knew not to pitch me that right up front. So we never spoke about management. I almost felt like I caused my own trap when I called him and confronted him and he sold me.

 He sold me right there and then and I bought it. I bought it Hoodwink and Woodly Sinker.

[00:37:49] Jessy: So he hadn’t gotten you any additional deals even after that first one, between then and between when this influencer reached out because she had seen that you were theoretically represented by him.

That’s right.

[00:38:06] Nike: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:07] Jessy: Okay, got it.

[00:38:08] Nike: I know of physically. Yes.

[00:38:10] Jessy: Okay. Got it. And so he’s not working with you in terms of hiring you from his PR firm or managing you. There’s nothing besides that one brand deal and then he is presenting you as if you are represented by him. So when you hop on a call with this woman who reaches out, that’s very typical practice also, like influencers are approached by a management company. They do digging. They try to do their due diligence to see who else is represented by this agency, how are they in relation to my brand and what’s been their experience?

So she does that. She reaches out to you and you guys hop on a call because your reaction is of course, shocked because you were not represented, you had a business relationship.

But it sounds like a very, very minimal one. But there were no paper signed. Nothing in terms of I am officially represented by this agency. So you guys hop on a phone call and does she say where your name was , how is me presenting you as being a client of his, What did she say?

[00:39:27] Nike: Yes. It’s all coming back full circle. It’s almost like it’s repeating everything that happened back then, which was almost a year ago. She called me, she goes, please whatever you do not tell him that I spoke to you. Please keep this between us. I don’t know what, everyone’s terrified of this guy.

I don’t get it except for me. I don’t know. Because what you’re not going to do is try to silence me. So she’s younger, I think she’s like 19. Please, whatever you do. But here’s a screenshot. It’s exactly like the same email that Susan Yara, which was the whistleblower on this situation from Naturium, she’s an incredible woman.

I guess she wasn’t afraid of him. She’s in her forties. She has a brilliant business, copy and paste. He uses my name to pitch people and I understand and it’s not to be arrogant, but I understand why it looks good to use my name. So he, it’s an email he sends all these young girls, he posts all these young girls from TikTok and says, I am Specs and Blazer’s manager.

Here’s our roster and Specs and Blazers on the list. So he will use my name to picture these young girls to hook them into the agency and then use my name to hook brands to come in. So he just using my name my name.

[00:40:34] Jessy: Got it. Okay. So I saw that part of the many screenshots that you shared in your TikTok. So I saw that he included your name and a lot of other influencers names.

And so it was an email pitch to another influencer to say, I’d like to represent you. Here’s a little bit about me and why you should sign with me, including here are some of the other influencers that I also represent to make himself sound more credible. I ask also because if you currently go on his website, the company’s website, which I’ll link in the show notes.

So who knows what it will be when this episode goes live and what it will look like. But presently there is a section on the website where there are a handful of other influencers who are giving testimonials, about what it is to work with his agency. And the assumption being is that they are exclusively represented by him.

So do you have any belief that your name, likeness, photo, anything was on his website or it doesn’t sound like he has any social media.

[00:41:51] Nike: No. All the lists of the companies he says he works for are me companies I work for.

[00:41:57] Jessy: And were those ever companies that you guys worked on together in…

[00:42:02] Nike: No!

[00:42:03] Jessy: Pr. He’s a management company. Is there any link there or this is just your deals separate of him?

[00:42:13] Nike: Yes. He just wants to be associated with the name Specs and Blazers, which is now his ruin. It’s like a double X sword. You wanna be associating with Specs and Blazers. You have to be careful because I will do my research. Eventually things will come to light.

So he took me out to dinner. This band cutter recently, before I dumped him. He took me out to dinner and I knew it. So I called my assistant, my assistant doing it for six years. I literally raised her, I’m her mom at this point. , I raised her. I got her spicy tuna and I’m on the phone, I’m driving to this dinner.

I said, I don’t think this me has anything to do with me. I think this guy’s trying to get an email out of me because I was in the middle of discussing a deal with Spotify. And within three minutes of sitting down can I get that Spotify email.

[00:43:00] Jessy: So you think that he is basically just trying to use you for your contacts contact?

[00:43:08] Nike: And again, it’s not to be arrogant people to cut this off. In almost every section of the industry, you know who the most. I guess, coveted influencer would be right in that little corner of it. So like for example, if you were to go to like high fashion Asian influencers, you would think of Cor Lane because she is just a queen in that realm. Like I could never touch what she does.

And I tried so hard to get to the point where I sat from row in Milan, New York. I did all of that, but I plateaued. I could not move forward. So I made a little nook for myself, which was skincare and discussing world topics on my TikTok and I became really good in that little nook, right?

And I made a name for myself in that nook. And so he just wants people to say like he couldn’t say out loud that he is, using my name all the way. But if he were to say like, oh, put Spotify, Nike, Adidas on his website, people would automatically think Specs And blazers. If you look at his roster and see the the brands that he works with, you would think, oh, he got her those deals.

Does that make sense? It makes sense. Like it literally makes sense because he get those deals himself. And those are currently brands I’m working with. So you would think he was the one who did them for me. He’d be going his side. Oh, he has Specs and Blazers in his roster. I see Nike, Adidas and Spotify. Everything makes sense. He’s the one getting her Nike, Adidas and Spotify

[00:44:44] Jessy: Absolutely, of course. And there are a few managers that work freelance. Most of them work exclusively, for a lot of different reasons. I would say that it would make sense that there is an assumption and you tell me if you agree or disagree, that if this person is using your name in an email even if he doesn’t say, I explicitly represent her exclusively, I exclusively represent her.

If maybe he doesn’t even say that. Maybe he has, I’ve worked with Specs and Blazers or on his website, he says the same thing. As a influencer who he’s pitching and if I saw that, I think it’s fair to say that the assumption would be that not just he’s worked on one deal with you. I would make the assumption that he’s working exclusively with you and has been for a good amount of time in order to put that on his website in an email, things like that.

Do you agree, disagree. That’s what he’s trying to get across. Right?

[00:45:52] Nike: He did it. It’s loose enough to not get sued, but enough to be up to anyone. A three year old would see Specs and Blazers and see Nike’s, Spotify, Adidas as on you and go, oh. Even I saw when I went on and I saw Nike and I go oh, he’s telling people that he’s the one who got me those deals. That makes every sense.

 He doesn’t want me on his roster to help me in any way. He wants me on a roster to say, I’m associated with Specs and Blazers and all the cool things she’s doing.

[00:46:30] Jessy: Well, cause then he can target other influencers who are not the size or the success that you’ve had and they see you as a success story of his right.

And so they can then go ahead and say, oh my gosh, the amount of doors that he would be able to open for me if I see that all that he’s done for Specs and Blazers. So that makes total sense. So we’ve had this one deal that we’re talking about, and then you have a conversation, with this other influencer who’s under the assumption that you are represented by them.

You guys speak on the phone, and she probably shows you screenshots. Perhaps you get your hands on these emails. So that’s how he is presenting you as his client. So what do you do next at that point having that information?

[00:47:27] Nike: I emailed and said I need to hop on the phone with you immediately. I don’t want to call you a scammer, but why are you telling people that you’re my agent? I don’t have an agent, I don’t have a manager. I’ve never had an agent. My slogan with my business Specs and Blazers can’t be managed. So who are you? And he’s like, yeah, he was so fast. Let’s get on the call right now.

Let’s do it. Like they’re New Yorker. And I remember my assistant goes, oh my God, he’s very aggressive. I like that. Yeah, let’s go on the phone. Let’s get on right now. Right now. So we get on the phone and I had it on speaker and he sold me like Iced to an Eskimo. I mean, I couldn’t even get the confrontation out.

He just… I was like, Why you telling people that your my manager, you know, I got you Klo skincare .Lemme tell you what else can get you. We don’t have to be exclusive. You sign your paperwork. I got all these deals. I’m from New York. I make .Now I found out he lives at home in, Connecticut with his parents. I have all these other companies that I work for. Don’t worry. I know this person. I know Kanye, I know Beyonce. I know those people.

 I have this on like on speaker and my girls are listening to this and you know, they’re young girls impress impression and they’re looking at me like, oh my God, maybe he can turn you from an influencer to a celebrity.

 Why not explore when I meet up with him and explore this? So I never even got the confrontation out. I never even got it all. There was a moment of like, tell me the truth. I went from confronting him to like maybe we can talk , you know what I mean and I cannot believe…

[00:49:07] Jessy: So he is talking so fast and dropping like, did he literally say that he knows Beyonce and Kanye West.

[00:49:17] Nike: He knows Kanye West, he knows Beyonce. He lives in New York. Da da da. I don’t even know today if it was Ben or Josh I was talking to on the phone. But like, you know, I’m from New York. You know how when New Yorkers are like, I’m very good at business. I went to business school, da da.

Just giving me all his like ackerman resume over the phone. And I was just eating it up. I don’t know. Which is crazy to me because I am such a paranoid person and a very skeptical person. I just don’t know. And I remember even getting on the phone, I’m very, very spiritual and my assistant, her parents are pastors and so please don’t laugh at us.

We held hand and prayed over it. We prayed over me going to meet up with Ben. We’re like, let’s pray over it. This might take your career to the next level since the documentary didn’t work out and this guy knows a bunch of celebrities, maybe you will move out of the influencing world and move towards something even bigger.

And we held him right here in my loft and we prayed.

[00:50:19] Jessy: I’m envisioning this and this is helpful. So you first of all have witnesses to this conversation. How many of your team members were present when he was on speaker?

[00:50:29] Nike: My photographer and my assistant . Their childhood best friends. I’ve had the same girls around me since the beginning, the childhood best friends?

My assistant is Christina, but I call her spicy tuna. She also does my photography, my editing. She runs my TikTok, believe it or not, that’s not me doing my TikTok. I don’t even have the password to it. And then her best friend who just does things for me, gets my coffee, organize my apartment, make sure I’m okay, pretty much my therapist. Her name is MB and yeah, they’re, love of my life.

[00:51:02] Jessy: Amazing. And so you guys are holding hands prior to this conversation, listening to this conversation together. Correct me if any of this is wrong, but it sounds like he’s like more monopolizing the conversation. You don’t even get out what you originally intended to get out and the conversation never happened.

That’s so interesting. And so you brought up though, is this Josh or is this Ben, right?

[00:51:32] Nike: Yeah. I don’t know.

[00:51:33] Jessy: Okay. So can we get into that a little bit? Because I think that’s really important for people to understand because in your first TikTok about this. It’s like, this person is this person is this person.

[00:51:48] Nike: Yeah.

[00:51:48] Jessy: And trying to unravel this because there’s accusations of fraud impersonation and that’s sort of what escalates this in my mind is being more than just, a little bit of gray, like not to black and white, but you know, oh, we’re living in this gray, shady area. There’s impersonation happening and fraudulent things happening.

So could you walk us through and clarify a little bit about who these personas or people are and what’s your understanding currently about who they are?

[00:52:23] Nike: I found out that they’re brothers. Ben and Josh are brothers, so they are two different people. I found that out yesterday. And then I found out that Jessie Greenspan, the person who runs the PR, one of the many PRS, the PR that you know, caused this whistle blowing moment, is actually that person is their childhood best friend.

[00:52:50] Jessy: Okay. So there’s three people involved. Two brothers a best friend. And so you were communicating with all three of those men, right?

[00:53:02] Nike: Yes. But they all appeared to not be one entity in, throughout my conversations.

[00:53:09] Jessy: So what did they appear to be?

[00:53:12] Nike: Well, Josh Popkin apparently is the CEO of Carter Agency. But Josh Popkin plays Ben Cutter’s assistant. Okay. But he actually owns the company. So he will be the assistant of, I’m call my assistant right now. He has an assistant name, I think his name is Eric. Anyways, that is actually his older brother who owns the company. But Josh could not be in the forefront of the company because as he has an open case against him from N Y P D, from all the stuff he did in 2020, which he targeted ethnic women and men on trains and pranked them for social experiments and posted on TikTok.

And then inadvertently he got banned from every social media platform out there. He was arrested multiple times and one of the cases still hasn’t been dropped. It’s opened an open case and he’s facing, I think a couple years in prison for that. So he went into hiding well, he couldn’t help himself cause he was Ben from everywhere and then came back and opened Carter agency.

So he cannot use his own name unfortunately for him or for, unfortunately for us. So he has his brother Ben Carter, which is Ben Hopkins, be the face of the agency. And then Josh will play his assistant. And then Jesse, their best friend, plays their PR owner.

[00:54:36] Jessy: Got it. Okay. And so I’m trying to like wrap my head around all this.

So we have one person who, and I there’s a Buzzfeed article. You can just simply Google. Josh Hopkins.

[00:54:53] Nike: Yeah.

[00:54:53] Jessy: And like a MTA I think that was one of them because there was this famous, the MTA is the Metropolitan Transit Authority for any of it who’s not in New York, who runs the entire subway system of New York.

So it’s a organization, a company. And so they tweeted about this viral TikTok video where he dropped like a giant tub of cereal or something in a subway during the pandemic. And the MTA tweeted basically it’s like deplorable that like some kid would do this as like a prank and then have all the essential workers have to spend their time cleaning this up.

In fact, it wasn’t funny, It wasn’t just deplorable. There’s a suit against him about this specific topic. So in this instance.

[00:55:41] Nike: And the case is still open.

[00:55:44] Jessy: And that’s criminal cases related to that subway incident you’re saying?

[00:55:49] Nike: Yes. Yes. Because apparently someone was assaulted during this whole mess or something. So there’s a criminal case that’s still open. It’s not closed.

[00:55:59] Jessy: Got it. Okay. So there’s a criminal case for somebody who was impacted in this and I don’t know the details of that, but there’s a criminal case open against Josh Popkins, right?

[00:56:11] Nike: Yeah. The older brother to Ben Carter, if you do not know Carter is not a real name.

[00:56:19] Jessy: They’re brothers and they don’t have the same last name. So that’s peculiar, right?

[00:56:24] Nike: They all the stuff that should have made sense in my brain but did not make sense. But yes, everything makes sense now because he cannot use Josh Hopkins cannot be the face of the agency because, well he’s easy to find.

[00:56:37] Jessy: Because you can Google the other one you would find that he has some legal issues and people wouldn’t wanna be associated with that. Okay so you are getting emails from these people. Are you texting? Are you calling, are you meeting any of these people in person?

[00:56:57] Nike: Mm-hmm. . So what I realize now that he tries very hard, Ben Carter, Ben Hopkins, I dunno which name to go with, I’m sorry.

He tries very hard not to have email conversations traced. He’s upset. The first conversation I had with him, how he was like, get on the phone, let’s get on the phone right now. I realized talking to all the girls in my dms and myself, he prefers doing all his business, even the contract through text messages because it’s not professional and it’s not as traceable as there is email.

So yes, most of our conversation, believe it or not, is through text messages, which again, I know in retrospect you’re like, how can you be so stupid? I don’t do this with any brand. I don’t even take PayPal. I don’t take PayPal, payments before him. It feels like when you’ve been a good girl your whole life and you date good guys and then you meet that bad boy, you’re like, I’m wanted to break all the rules for him.

That’s truly how I feel because I don’t know how I broke all my professional roles just so I can work with this guy who was so smooth talking and so fast talking and anyway, I do want to say this. I did finally meet him in person because he asked, have a meeting with me when I was discussing with Spotify and Nike all in one week.

I was like, I had all these three big brands on me in one week and I felt overwhelmed. And he saw that and he’s like, oh, let’s meet up in person and the person on the phone and through text and the person I met with were two different people. And he hit me last night that it was Josh I was communicating with through emails.

 Because Josh can’t meet you in person because of his legal troubles, you will quickly find out because Ben in person was very meek, a very quiet and the voice wasn’t the same and he was afraid of me. And he was like this, like a mouse. And all he was there to do is to collect my emails for all these big brands.

And I said, no. And he was pulling out my chair and he was like shaking like a little feather. And I said, I guess it will have two different personalities on, your business and in person, but this person looks like a child and he’s very afraid. He was so meek. He was like, you could tell that my, you know, I have a big personality.

I see. I take up space. And you could tell that he was like, he felt so small in my presence, but I was like the person that was like, I’m a New Yorker and I Beyonce. I was that person that translating to the person in front of me. And Josh is the one with the big personality, the one who got banned from the one who’s facing criminal charges because if you go watch his videos, you can tell that was Josh on all our phone calls.

Because, he’s intense. And his brother is like, you know…

[00:59:54] Jessy: So we’re saying that Josh is the one with the bigger personality, the one who had the TikTok account. The one that has some sort of legal issues . I think it’s important to distinguish them and then we think Ben, who we think is their brothers, Ben is the one who you meet in person and he identifies himself as Ben, or he identifies himself as Josh.

[01:00:21] Nike: Ben, I guess they’re using the name Ben overall for everything because Josh is too easy to find. But Josh does all the phone call, all the text messages, all the threats. All the threats. This girls get all these PR girls. Cause they all get threatened. That’s all Josh. Clearly. But he says he’s Ben, but then Ben shows up in person to meet up with you.

But now you meet Ben in person and Ben talks like this.” Hi, how are you? Yeah, thank you so much for meeting up with me”. It doesn’t add up. That can’t be the same person. And then you go and watch Josh’s. I just wanna quickly. Three seconds. I know I’m probably driving you crazy this is the person I clearly.

“What’s up guys? Uh, so a lot of, you know me probably by my other channel, my Joshy stuff. And, um, that’s kind of like my, uh, like, uh, you know, goofier side”. “But I wanted to make a new TikTok channel to basically start showing the other side of who I am and basically what I’m doing with my life”.” Uh, Josh is kind of like the crazy stuff that you’ve seen, but Pop is really, um, just kind of the relentless work ethic and just the journey I’ve had getting to the point of being TikTok famous and then also just the journey in, you know, everything in my life”.

“Um, so yeah, just wanted to start a new page”.” This page is not for clout, not for views”.” I’m not gonna be doing anything that’s, I don’t care if anybody watches this”.” This page is honestly gonna be for me to watch when I’m just like, kind of down about life and I just need some motivation. So…”

This is the person I talk to, that’s the voice that I’ve been talking to on the phone as Ben.

[01:02:04] Jessy: As Ben. And isn’t it interesting that even during, that’s a TikTok post, I guess.

[01:02:10] Nike: Yes. You could feel that swagger that like, blah, blah, blah. That is the person I’ve always talked to this person with a very intense, like, you know, but I like that broad voice. And then when I met Ben in person, Ben was like, this. “Would you be okay giving us a Spotify email?”

And I was like, No.

[01:02:37] Jessy: So this person that you just showed us the video of, I do find it interesting that he’s like, this isn’t Josh, this is Popkin. He’s already sort of like disassociating himself in like two different personas, right?

[01:02:52] Nike: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:53] Jessy: So that’s kind of interesting that we like have a record of that with him. So the premise of this meeting, cause I mean that’s pretty key that you met someone associated with this company in person. The premise of this was there is a short period of time where you are being pursued by a bunch of really big brands, theoretically, bigger deals, overwhelmed by it because it happens at like very similar short period of time.

[01:03:23] Nike: Within a week.

[01:03:24] Jessy: Within a week. And so the Carter Agency offers to help you and they’re gonna meet you in person. And so what’s the premise of this meeting? What is the premise of this meeting? How does it go?

[01:03:37] Nike: They offer to meet up and buy me dinner and just have a conversation, say thank you on the great

campaign I did for Klo and Melee, which are the two big campaign that he did for me and just wants to pick my brain on other things. And I said, why not? I’m, I never turned down a meeting and Honey and he was like serving me, like pouring my water, cutting up my stick. How you pulling out my chair?

He went to go park my car. We ran up on Third and Beverly, he went to go park my car for me. And I remember I was with my boyfriend, I was telling him, I’m Muslim, it’s Ramadan, I just have to break my fast. I could see that he did not like Muslims, but whatever I said, I have to break my fast.

And he’s like, what do I get you? He was like, just catered to. You know what’s so funny? I think about it, if Josh had showed up as Ben, I probably would’ve signed over my Nike and Spotify because that’s how smooth talker the ben on the phone , is clearly this other person, or the person who I met up with was like just smooth talking me.

But he was so nervous, like he was short like five three and holding his hand together and just so…. Do you want some more water? Do you want some and I was like, yeah, I have the Spotify, Nike and this deal I have to turn from Adidas and I don’t know what to do.

He’s like, well, just give us the email. And then I remember I got home. I said, no, I don’t think I’m gonna do that. And I got home and he texted me again, Is it okay if I have that Spotify Email? I said, I think I can handle it. And I could tell he was pissed. He did not like that because that conversation went back to Josh, I’m sure he went home and told his brother, oh, I couldn’t get the emails out of her.

[01:05:24] Jessy: And so to be clear, when you’re telling me this story, my interpretation is he’s trying to get a, a piece of this deal. And what we’re realizing is he’s not just taking what would be a reasonable and like normal piece of a deal, which would be about 15 to 20%. The issue, one of the biggest issues of your story and your interaction with this company is they’re taking what percentage?

[01:05:52] Nike: 75.

[01:05:53] Jessy: 75%. So he hears these big brand names. He’s like Spotify and all these other companies and he’s like, these are gonna be big deals. We’re not talking about 15% of those deals. We’re talking about a potential of 75% of these deals. Plus my interpretation of this is he wants these contacts to be able to then pitch maybe some other people too and be able to do additional business with,

[01:06:20] Nike: Well, guess what? Since he couldn’t get the money or the deals. Guess what he did after I get the deal the next week, he opted his website. To those companies that he’s working with those companies. It’s still there. He didn’t say that. He got it through Specs and Blazers.

When Specs and Blazers started working with them automatically, his website got updated to working with them as well.

[01:06:44] Jessy: So. Wow. So this meeting, how long would you say that meeting lasted that you had with your work?

[01:06:51] Nike: 30 minutes cause I was fasting. It was Ramadan and so this was April, it was Ramadan. So I was like, I gotta get home. I’m tired. I’ve been fasting all day, like I’m tired. And plus he wasn’t talking, he was terrified of me. He was like shaking, I remember texting, he’s terrified of me. Like this person on the phone and the person that made, he’s scared of me.

And I’m a very intense person. My personality’s very big. I showed up, been all white. I pulled up in my rover and he was like, can I park your car? Can I get you water. And I said, he’s scared of you. Why is he scared of me?

[01:07:31] Jessy: And you’re probably expecting this big personality that you had heard over the phone.

So it was probably really surprising to you to see this person in person and have that be who his personality is all about. So you guys had a relatively short meeting because you’re fasting and you’re like, okay, well, I mean, if you’re just gonna be meekly sitting here, I don’t know what else there is to talk about.

 We’re not gonna sit here for hours. If you could summarize like his main objective during that meeting. Was it simply to just like get those contacts and essentially get looped into those conversations? Was he also trying to pursue you still to be an exclusive client, to work with you more? Like what was his main objective?

[01:08:16] Nike: He stopped… I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I have so much to say. Cause the more that you and I talk so far, you’ve been the one that’s been most detailed with me. So it’s like I’m putting this information together myself in my head as we’re talking because I just wanna quickly say this is the first time.

 When this all thing, this boiling point happened a few days ago was the first time Josh expressed himself as Josh because he emailed me and said, you’re terminated from this conversation through Jesse Greenspan’s email and he signed it, Josh Hopkins. So I just remember that that just clicked in my head.

Anyway, sorry. So yes, he, they wanted me to look them into this emails and of course I was like, these are my friends. I don’t think so. They won’t even be okay with doing that. So no, the answer is no. And then when I got home, the text went back to the aggressive voice, the person I was talking to in person, and the text would be like, can we get that email?

Why did we need that email? Trust me, who can get you bigger deals? And I said, I think I can do it myself. I’m okay. I said, wow. He went right back to being aggressive. Good for him.

[01:09:25] Jessy: So those are all coming to you after the meeting, after the in person meeting with this timid person who you feel like the objective of that meeting was just to get those contacts in their hands to like loop you in to get those, that was the main objective.

Okay. And so then you go home from that meeting and how soon after were you being bombarded by these aggressive text message follow ups?

[01:09:53] Nike: I didn’t make it home. I was in on the drive there.

[01:09:58] Jessy: So interesting. This timid person leaves and suddenly he turns into this aggressive person who now is texting you and what exactly is he saying in those texts?

[01:10:13] Nike: Lemme see if I can just read it if that’s okay.

[01:10:15] Jessy: Yeah, of course.

[01:10:17] Nike: Okay. So I left the dinner and I said, Oh, it was so kind. It was a good to meet you. Whatever says, Thank you so much. And 15 minutes later, hey, I was hoping we could make that introduction between me and Spotify, we will get you that partnership.

Are you able to set that up. It doesn’t sound like the person I just had a meeting where, because why would you ask me the same thing again? Through text message. And I said the partnership is off the table and if anything changes, I think I would just handle it myself. And then he went quiet.

And I got a call again and said, hey, we would love for you to help you get this deal. And I said, Okay, I’ll let you know. And then two days later I received a box of chocolate and a arrangement on my doorstep from Ben.

[01:11:09] Jessy: So that’s interesting. So he is having…

[01:11:16] Nike: It’s like dating a bad boy or something. Yeah

[01:11:18] Jessy: It sounds like it. What you’re telling me on the phone, let’s say, let’s like suspend or disbelief, and let’s say it is the same person, which you have many reasons to think that they’re separate people, but like even if it was the same person, then that would be totaled gaslighting if like he’s just not hearing you and just being like, Oh yes, you’re gonna gimme those contacts.

Right. And you. Like I just, no, I told you multiple times that I wasn’t gonna give you those contacts. And then you say no again for another time, yet another time to just reaffirm your point of view. And he goes quiet. He doesn’t acknowledge that. And in fact he goes a set beyond to now send you an edible arrangement.

 If you could bring yourself back to that moment when you received this edible arrangement, you get the package, you’re like someone, an edible arrangement. Who is this from? What was your, what were you thinking when you got that package?

[01:12:20] Nike: Well, I was going through a breakup with my boyfriend and we had the most beautiful relationship, but it didn’t work out cause our family wasn’t getting involved and he was still like will text me and tell me how much she loves me.

And I was with my assistants and my photographer we’re all. Cause we worked for my loft and , I heard a ring on the bell and I said, oh, it’s Adam. He sent me a gift. It was huge flowers and chocolates and fruits. And I said, It’s Adam, it’s Adam. And I opened it and it says from Ben,

I said, does he like me like that? Like he must have a girl. Maybe he likes me like that. I mean, like, not to be pompous. That’s what I thought, because I was like it’s a very romantic gesture for a manager or whatever. He is someone that wants to help you. Like if I thought maybe he had a crush from our meeting. Maybe that’s why he was so shy.

Because he, maybe he likes me in like a, like a romantic way, but Okay. And I just say thank you so much. I received your beautiful, beautiful gift. I don’t know how to pay you back. It’s very extra. And thank you. It’s, I’m sure it’s delicious. And thanks for the flowers.

[01:13:37] Jessy: And what was his response to your message thanking him? How did he respond to that?

[01:13:45] Nike: Enjoy. I’m so glad you like it. I really appreciate the hard work you do. Thanks again.

[01:13:50] Jessy: And so for someone, okay, so at this point, beyond the two partnerships, the two really big partnerships, did you have any other business deals presently going on with him at this point?

[01:14:08] Nike: That’s the screenshot that I posted yesterday. It’s a brand called Every Man Jack. And they needed a man to be in, in, they reach out to me directly, by the way, first through a wheeler. So this is where Wheeler comes into play. They saw my boyfriend. Okay, let’s take this back. Sax fifth Avenue reached out to me because this, my boyfriend at the time was very hot.

He was a model. So they reached out to me and said, we want Adam to model with you for our, you know, spring campaign for Sax fifth Avenue. I’ve been wanting to work with Sax Fifth Avenue for years. Years. I could not get to them. And they saw my boyfriend and jumped on it. And then they went ghost.

They went ghost. Which was my fault because I said, I mean this is such a big company that maybe Ben can, you know, he’s very aggressive. Maybe he can get a lot of money out of them for me and I can 20% I was to Adam by was like, yeah, do it. Get Ben to do it. You know, I don’t, Adam doesn’t speak English and they need a man.

I don’t speak English and you’ve never worked with them before. And this guy apparently knows Beyonce and Kanye and all this stuff. And it a Sax fifth Avenue. Get him to do it. And sax ghosted me.

[01:15:21] Jessy: So Sax ghosted him too. Or Sax ghosted to just you.

[01:15:26] Nike: All of us. All of them both. I found out last week, sax, well I put that screenshot up, said once we started talking to him, we said, we want no part of this and we can’t see another person who’s afraid to say much.

We can’t see much. But within three conversations we knew we were dealing with something really bad and we had to ab, it sucks. It sucks. They’re not gonna risk their. And we exited the, the partnership immediately. So then Waller reached out to me and needed a man to saw Adam and said, we need a man for Every Man Jack, can we borrow your boyfriend?

You know, like I said, Absolutely. And the Ad is still up. And they were like, We’ll pay $10,000. And I was like, oh, I’ll take that money apparently. And I said, Ben, could you help Adam negotiate this rate? He doesn’t speak English. He’s from Russia. He doesn’t speak English. Could you help him? You know, he’s like, Oh yeah, sure, I’ll help him.

They talk. And apparently Wheeler paid him $17,000 for that. He said, because I wasn’t included completely in it. I think he paid me with that in clinic. So 30,000 altogether, he paid me 8,900. So for Every Man Jack, he only paid me $6,000 out of 17,000.

[01:16:47] Jessy: 6,000 out of 17,000. 6,000 out of 17,000. So I’m terrible at math, but that is…

[01:16:55] Nike: Is 11,000 is what he kept.

[01:16:57] Jessy: And but I’m just even thinking percentages, like let’s just, I mean that’s what like, it’s

[01:17:03] Nike: like 80%.

[01:17:04] Jessy: About 80%. Yeah.

[01:17:07] Nike: So that was going on. That was all going on. That’s why he felt comfortable enough. So ask me to abate and to discuss spotify. Cause the Spotify, Nikes were my, it had nothing to do with Adam, my boyfriend.

It was just like my deals, you know? And so he is like, well I’m in with her boyfriend. Let me see if I can get all the way in with her. And so I was like, oh, maybe he romantically likes me. He doesn’t think Adam is good enough for me. You know, maybe he likes me like that. Maybe that’s why he’s gonna me.

Cause you know, Adam and I were still talking and we were like not broken up yet. And even Adam was very territorial. I was like, why would man send you, why is this guy sending you box of chocolates and flowers? That’s disrespectful. He knows you have a boyfriend. And I was like, I mean, I dunno may be he likes me like that.

[01:17:56] Jessy: Yeah, I mean, that’s a good point. And I think that’s why I’m trying to get at like, did you have other deals going on? Like cause so it sounds every man. So this every man. Okay, so question about that one before we move on. Like that deal it was with the agency Waller. Did that come to you first or did that go to him first?

[01:18:21] Nike: The email came, so it was clinic and Everyman Jack Clinic was for me. Everyman Jack was for Adam. It came in to my email and then I got locked out of my Wheeler account.

[01:18:34] Jessy: So I wanna clarify this. So what I know about Waller, which I don’t know that everyone’s aware of, they have sort of their own campaign platform in which you’ll communicate, between about the brand deal, via their platform for negotiations, the approval process, et cetera, et cetera.

That platform you will have a login for. And I assume that notifications of like when a new message is in there, you’ll be notified that in your email. And so that’s how you know that there’s something to reply to. Is that my, Is that correct understanding?

[01:19:10] Nike: Mm-hmm.

[01:19:10] Jessy: Okay.

[01:19:11] Nike: I received that first one and because Adam was dealing with, you know, Ben, for Every Man Jack, he locked me out of, I, it took, I just got into my wheeler again.

He locked me out of my Wheeler account. It took over my Wheeler account. That’s why I couldn’t see the deals.

[01:19:29] Jessy: So, Okay. Wow. Okay. I’m like, this is wild. Okay, so you get locked out of your account, so like you, And when did that happen? Like when exactly did you get locked out of your wheeler account? And what did you do to try to recover the account?

Cause you, if it was just like a pack, could you password, could you reset your password? What happened there?

[01:19:52] Nike: So this was in April and I reached out immediately to Wheeler and they weren’t responding to me.

[01:20:00] Jessy: They weren’t responding to you. Okay.

[01:20:02] Nike: That’s cause he threatened her, that he would get her fired.

[01:20:08] Jessy: If you got access to your own account.

[01:20:13] Nike: Of his own client.

[01:20:15] Jessy: Right. Okay. All right. At what point in the, the campaign were you locked outta your account? Like how many emails went through to, like, how many emails do you.

[01:20:30] Nike: One email went through, I saw the email, it says 10,000. I freaked out for Adam. I said, Adam, you’ve made it. And then I was locked out.

[01:20:39] Jessy: And then you were locked out. And again, it’s interesting, right? Cause it, the deal was technically for your boyfriend at the time.

[01:20:46] Nike: Mm-hmm.

[01:20:47] Jessy: But the premise of that, and you’ve completed the deal. So it was a photo of him, but it was posted on your social media platform, correct?

[01:20:57] Nike: Mm-hmm.

[01:20:59] Jessy: Does he have an Instagram account or any social media that it was also posted you? No.

[01:21:04] Nike: No, he doesn’t, this doesn’t speak English. Like he doesn’t do social media, nothing. It’s just what I loved about him. Like he was a good looking guy who did not care about social media at all. But the one that I posted him, Brent, were all over him.

You know, like got the pictures together. He goes, Can we use him for this? Can we use him for that? And I said, You know, these guys an immigrant. He needs the money. Why not? You know, I’m not like, I want everyone around me to be successful. But I can’t do his deals for him. And he’s a Russian man. He trusts another member that he trusts me.

So I was like, I know this guy who can help you, you know, and help you get really good money. I remember, I would never forget, he was, you know, he had just, he’s from Russia, he’s only been in the country for a couple years, speak barely any English, and he’s working like a really crappy job. Long hours. And I called him, I said, come home, go pack yourself.

You’re about to be famous. Ben is gonna get you a lot of money, Don’t worry. You know, like, I got him so excited. And…

[01:21:58] Jessy: What I wanna really clarify here is the fact that yes, he was in the image and you were not in the image, I believe. Correct?

[01:22:06] Nike: I was.

[01:22:07] Jessy: You were. Okay.

[01:22:08] Nike: So we need two videos. One, he was by himself. One I was completing. The one I’m in is still on my page because I still love him. It’s still, and it’s still running and it’s still there.

[01:22:18] Jessy: Okay. So you’re both in the content, but it’s on your account. This is your own platform and so you get one message basically saying, we have an offer for you.

This is the offer. But for those who don’t know who might be listening, if you have a manager or not, it’s very typical you take that first offer and you negotiate it. It’s like a first offer at a job. It’s a first offer.

[01:22:44] Nike: Mm-hmm.

[01:22:45] Jessy: It’s meant to be negotiated. Have you personally negotiated with Wheeler before?

[01:22:54] Nike: Well, with Wheeler, I have, I think we have such a, what, we had such a strong relationship that they kind of know my rates for. For example, the, pretty much the only brand I work with them until then for six years consistently was Clinic. So Clinic will come to them as Specs and Blazers, Specs and Blazers, Specs and Blazers.

You know, so it’s been the same rate. Like they know, like almost any clinic, there’s no clinic can debt that’s on Wheeler’s platform that I wouldn’t be part of. It’s a guarantee of my, part of my salary. Like I calculate clinic coming through Wheeler, part of my Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 for the last six years.

That’s how consistent they’ve been with paying me. So I don’t negotiate it because I trust Clinic, I trust Wheeler. I put the number in there and they pay it, you know? And so that’s what the, one of the things that happened was, first of all, every man Jack sent me $10,000. He negotiated the rate down. So I was so confused.

It’s like, well, we have to do a different body, body of work and da, da da. And then all of a sudden I was offered 6,900 or something. And I said, How do we go from 10? How did you negotiate down now? Uh, I’m so confused. But I was like, you know what, It’s not my money. It’s, uh, Adam’s money. Any money is Adam.

He’s working on his green card. He needs the money. Any money is good money for him right now. Just he needs to get paid, you know? And then, he came to me and said, oh, Wheeler offered you 1900 for two clinic campaigns. And that was when I said, Something’s off. You’re crazy that you should have never used that word.

And I said, Clinic, because I know my rates with Clinic. Clinic knows my rates, you know? And I said, Oh no, something’s off.

[01:24:42] Jessy: Well, that’s really good to understand. So if you could estimate, like between the first time you worked with Clinic, for example to the most recent time, would you say it was like five times you’ve worked with them 10 times, 20, 30.

How many times have you done, how many campaigns have you done with Clinic?

[01:24:59] Nike: At least 15.

[01:25:01] Jessy: Okay. 15. So that’s really helpful context, right? Cause you’re saying like, no, I wouldn’t have necessarily negotiated with them, but it’s because you did in the beginning and you’ve worked with them so consistently that like after, you know, the 10th campaign, the 12th campaign, like they just, you don’t need to negotiate, renegotiate every single time so they understand what your rates are.

So, okay, so they come to you and they offer you this amount of money, and at what point do you realize that you’re locked outta your account though?

[01:25:33] Nike: When I tried to go see how much Clinic was saying, the conversation with Clinic and Wheeler in the message, I could not get in because on Clinic, on Wheeler’s page, my set for Clinic is 6,000.

It’s been like that for a year and a half. And maybe I should negotiate more with the Clinic. For me, long term relationships are much more important than one of, and so if I could keep my rate at six K for every campaign with clinic, then why not for at least two, three years? And then I’ll, maybe in the future I’ll go to eight K, but like I do it like that.

Okay, six k for two years, six k for three years, then I’ll move up with them as they move up. You know, more than the every, within the 17 K of every man, Jack, I don’t know why the Clinic won hurt the most, in particular because in the text to Ben when I could not get into my Wheeler account, I have the text and I sent it to my assistant and she’s the one who put it in the, I said, in all honesty, this doesn’t make sense because Clinic would never offer me anything less than $6,000.

That’s my rate. That doesn’t make sense. That way. They would offer me two videos for 1,902, not one, two for 1900. And he’s like, well, that’s what they offered. They offered that, that’s that. And yesterday on the phone with Ariel, as I was driving to the airport, I had it, I don’t even know how much kind car, she said, 17 K for everman Jack.

I said, Okay, that’s painful. That’s painful give it Clinic. And she goes, It’s six k. And I, I just wailed. I don’t know why. Like I just, because I was, it’s almost like when you get gas light because with every, these are new companies, Everyman and Jack, you know, it’s like what Clinic? I know them and I know these girls, you know, And they couldn’t give me a number.

When I first confronted them, I said, you guys, why would you guys offer me two videos for 1900? And they were like, Oh, we. We sign it confidentially it clause with Wheeler and him. And we don’t want any trouble. We don’t want any trouble. So we can’t give you the exact number that we offered you, but we didn’t offer you 1900, I promise you that.

But we don’t want any trouble. We don’t want any trouble. So this was months ago and I said, Okay, you know what, it’s fine. And then out of everything, out of every number that has an add up, that one, because it’s almost like, you know, I know in my heart that they would never offer me anything less than six k.

I know it in my heart. And to be gaslight so much and to say no, that’s what they offer. You just typically, they offer you, they offer that it’s add. This is a favorite thing. It’s additional income into your money. It’s going into your bank account, but doesn’t matter matter. It’s gonna what doesnt matter.

And when she said, yeah, we paid you what we’ve always paid you at 6k, I screamed, I think I must have busted out her eardrums. Cause I said I knew it. I knew it.

[01:28:17] Jessy: It wasn’t another, it was your exact rate that you knew it wasn’t a penny more or a penny less. It was exactly the rate that you had always had, always worked and partnered with.

[01:28:33] Nike: I think more importantly, he ruined my relationship with Clinic. Like I was the first friend that ever paid me my rate and didn’t negotiate with. You wouldn’t, I don’t know if they’ll ever take me back, if I can start this relationship again one day. I don’t know. But apparently he threatened them. He threatened them, when they dmd me, when I dmd them and I talked to the girls and I said, Why would you guys do this?

And I said to him, I said, they didn’t give me an exact number, but those, my, they’re my friends. They won’t lie to me. And they stopped talking to me. They all had a birthday party. They didn’t invite me. And I mean, I know sometimes sounds so petulant and childish, but you know, apparently he threatened them and said it was gonna sue them and make them lose their job and come for their life and ruined my relationship with Clinic.

[01:29:31] Jessy: So I wanna talk about that because that is yet another layer to this and it, it takes it up even a more of a notch. So there have been allegations that I’ve heard about his agency, him and again, there’s like multiple people involved and who’s who, but people being threatened in terms of the situation.

What have you heard? Because this is hearsay, right? This is other people who’ve told you unless you were threatened and which I think it would be most beneficial to hear just because it’s firsthand information. But what are you privy of in terms of how he’s threatened people and what’s actually been said that you’re aware of?

[01:30:20] Nike: Well, I mean, look at it. No one is speaking, everyone’s afraid. We have all the information, we have all the paperwork, we have all the invoices, but no one will come forward. So clearly he’s threatened something. They will say something and they will freak out on themselves. So then I freak out. So I’m guessing he said something, however, he knows how to threaten me cuz I hate to be threatened again.

He messed with the wrong person. He chose the wrong person to scam. I always say, feel free to threaten me, just make sure it’s not, you don’t use legal verbiage when you do it. The closest he’s gotten to threatened me was this very last email. Cause when I, when everything came to a boiling point and I found.

That this PR company that claims they work for Susan is Ben and Josh and Jessie, who is, I will read you the email and I also send it to you. Of course. I would like to read you the email though, that is the closest. So he’s ever, And I, I sent him back and I said, Are you serious? Is that a threat? Knowing that I have all the paperwork.

You can be serious, right? Cause I just, I’m, I’m not like these other girls. I’m just gonna laugh at you or you dumb. So she, he sends this email to me, Danny, which he always gets my, he, he gives me a different surname every two minutes. By the way, he just picks it. He Googles Nigerians last name and just find one and throws it in there.

 And management team, which is funny because he’s supposed to be my manager. So he’s writing Josh. This is Josh. This is the first time Josh has ever written me, ever. So, so I’m guessing Josh is the one who threatens people, right? So it says from Josh from Austin, Texas, like, management team. How are you addressing my management team?

But you have my manager. I’m so confused. And he says the letter is, so he’s trying to, Josh is addressing Ben Carter, who’s his brother. Crazy. And it’s crazy to you. His letter is to inform you that after careful consideration, we have decided to terminate our argument with you, effective immediately. The agreement of our term is referring to the title of Influencer Marketing Agreement with not Susan.

This agreement has been terminated to, due to your failure to comply with schedule A services, lack of professionalism and harassment of Malibu Most wanted group employees, effective immediately you and your management team, Carter Agency you just see ,his brother. This is crazy. I’m sorry, I’m losing my minds’.

Already did this, you and your management team brother. His brother . I’m so confused. I’m so confused. I’m losing my mind. Yeah. Wouldn’t as I’m to, I’m processing more like I’m going through like five stages of grape. Simultaneously. You and your management team, his brother, are no longer a part of this social media campaign and are restricted from contacting Susan Yara, my friend , who’s the whistleblower and her employees and the Malibu Most wanted group third parties in connection with them.

 Contact methods include for elemented to phone calls, texts, emails, voicemails and especially any social media posts because he knew I was about to make my first video. Or any direct messages in accordance with section eight of our agreement or information. Cause on this campaign shall remain confidential or else your, or else you’ll be violating the terms and it will.

Failure to comply of any of these classes or any Mabu almost wanted to pursue legal action against you. So that’s the closest he’s ever gotten to threaten me and I just respond back. I wish you would, I wish you would sue me. So I’m guessing he’s sending the same thing to all

these girls. I don’t know.

[01:34:10] Jessy: And so, okay, I have so many questions, but one question is, did I hear you correctly in that part of that email is saying that you are infringing upon an agreement like there’s some infringement upon some agreement, but what agreement or agreement do you have with him?

[01:34:34] Nike: Of the cam. So go with me here. This is gonna be a doozy. I have off, I’m sorry. Because as I’m talking to you, it’s clicking in my, the agreement is with Susan, so Josh Popkins is writing as Jesse Green Spas, Malibu Most wanted PR company. I’m just calling cause it’s Malibu something. I don’t know. Most wanted company. So he’s the boss of Jesse.

He’s pretending to be and he’s threatened me and his brother because we, me and my management group, his brother Ben Carter. But you know, he’s not using Ben and them are infringing. Breaking the agreement with Susan Yara, not my friend, because he can’t say I broke my management because he’s my manager.

So he’s saying that I, because obviously Susan Yara called immediate and said, If you ever use my name again, I will sue you and you guys are no longer allowed to contact me or call me. So she immediately cut ties with this Malibu Most Wanted group. So he emailed me and said, cause I guess he’s trying to fix it like you, you didn’t finish your …

Susan paid me right away. She like paid me my amount, she forward it to my account immediately. So sweet. And she’s like, you’re not allowed to contact her. I’m not allowed to contact my friend if I contact her again. They were sue me he didn’t want me to get information out of Susan. So the infringement is made contacting Jess’s client, which is Susan.

Get it?

[01:36:11] Jessy: Barely. But I, but I think I do. You know, there’s just so many pieces to this.

[01:36:15] Nike: Management company and there’s PR company, right? They have two and they’re all owned by Josh Popkins as we know. Josh Popkins never shows his face, never uses his name on anything. The first time he does was this email when he’s threatened illegal action for breaking my agreement by talking to Susan directly.

And he’s threatened me and my management company, Ben Carter, who’s Ben Popkins, who’s his brother.

[01:36:45] Jessy: Who else is CC’d or who else is on this email?

[01:36:48] Nike: Yes. The person, the owner of Malibu Mowan Group, which is their best friend who owns, who is helping them run this PR company. So the PR company, Okay.

This is how it works. The PR company will reach out to brands and say, hey, we can, they’re like a wheeler. We can help you get influencers, and it’ll come to influencers and say, we represent the brand. So like, I thought this company was Susan’s PR company. I thought they represent Susan’s. Like I thought the first PR company represented Naomi Osaka.

Get it?

[01:37:23] Jessy: Oh, I get it. I definitely, definitely get it. I’m just, I’m trying to keep this straight so that like Yeah, yeah.

[01:37:30] Nike: The first legal threat, the first time I ever spoke to a Josh Hopkins was this legal threat, this very last email, and he said, dear, and your management team, which is his brother, how gonna threaten your own brother?

I don’t get it. like Ben Carter, who’s not my manager, who’s never been my manager by any shape or form, but for the agreement was the fact that, I guess in his, you know, contracts from Susan Yara, who she never drew out the contract. She didn’t know who these people are. Was that you don’t, I don’t speak to the celebrity or the person who owns it directly.

I don’t speak to them directly because obviously if you talk to them directly, you’ll get all the information you need, you know?

[01:38:16] Jessy: Of course, of course, Of course.

[01:38:17] Nike: Apparently in the contract that I don’t contact them directly by any means, you know? And of course I did. So I just, just went back, laugh out loud,

[01:38:27] Jessy: And have you heard from anybody since?

[01:38:31] Nike: No, I dropped the video immediately after that. I was like, okay, it’s one thing to threaten me, but to threaten me legally is just crazy when I have all the information that I need. And to threaten me, knowing that I not know who you are is even crazier. So now I’m just gonna push out part one.

I said I’m gonna push out part one through 25 and I’m going to do it. I don’t like to be threatened. I just don’t like it. And you’re threatening me knowing like,re threatening me from contacting my own friend. My friend . That’s crazy when she can get on the phone, get on the camera and tell them that she didn’t know who you are, that you scammed her.

Cause technically his scammed her too. She didn’t know. These people are fake. They’re going around saying they represents her.

[01:39:18] Jessy: How many people would you estimate have been affected by this?

[01:39:22] Nike: Well, on the roster, at least 40 people. What would you consider the PRS and the brands.

That would be considered scam as well too, because they didn’t know, like it’s one thing if they knew that what they were getting themselves into, but they don’t know that these agencies are fake or like these PR agencies are not real. So I would consider girls, like clinic girls, I would consider them scammed as well.

Maybe they weren’t scammed out of money directly out of their pocket, but if they think they’re writing an influence, a $30,000 check and she’s only getting 7,000 out of it, that is a scam towards them. Maybe they don’t, maybe they’re not losing money physically, but they’re losing credibility and trust and…

[01:40:06] Jessy: Well they actually are because what I will say and we have to say this is all alleged, right?

Because there are two sides to every story and you have so much a mountain of evidence. You know, you have receipts, for days, but we have to say it right, because someone hasn’t gone through the court of law and like actually definitively had any judgment against them.

So like if this person is. If this is all really a fallacy, right? And if a PR firm, like a legit PR firm or a legit agency on behalf of a brand is working with them and saying, I want to pay this influencer $10,000, and the fake manager accepts the $10,000 and only pays out the influencer a thousand of that, like how aren’t they being deceived as well? But it’s an interesting question that I think really comes back to everybody’s actual agreement. And what I mean by that is like, does it explicitly say in the agreement between the brand and you that I owe Niké $10,000 or who is the contract between?

And you know, all of this will be clarified by literally looking through every single contract. They’re all different and it depends on what they all actually say. So a follow up question to you, because I wanna get so much specifics out of this cuz I think that the more that your story is like just crystal clear, like it’ll help you tremendously is like, who’s signing these agreements and … any of those agreements.

[01:42:09] Nike: So he sends this one page pander duck that you sign, which is like a scope of work, but it’s not a contract. And I knew that. I said why aren’t this contract? And he tried to gaslight me for it, but I don’t know. Should we say this off camera or should we say it on camera? You can cut it out later. I’m just gonna tell you, I told you, I think in the beginning, there’s a kid, he’s a gay boy, gentle kid who they hired, who was really good at.

Yeah, his poor kid forged all the signatures on our behalf. He admitted it to me and then he freaked out yesterday. I have his full name, I have the messages when he admitted it, everything. And then he freaked out. He said, please, please don’t tell anyone. Please don’t please delete the message. I should not have, I should not have admitted that I’m gonna go to jail.

My life is over. I mean, I guess in it is a big deal to forge signatures. He forged over 500 signatures. It is a big deal. But you know, he was like a kid. He didn’t know better. And I do wanna protect him, but I also, it would be lovely if we can get him to see it. Say I have it. I have the screenshot where he had needed it, but yeah.

So the real contract he gets . It’s sick.

[01:43:36] Jessy: I will say this. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I, there are a lot of people who are learning about this story, that this is so pivotal to it that they’re like, did she not read her own … I mean, blaming a victim blows my mind, and I literally hate it.

But like people are saying, I saw Reddit thread about the story, and people are asking or saying, how did she not read her own contracts? Like how did that happen? And multiple times. But you are saying that someone who worked for that company got in touch with you and admitted that they just forged signatures.

[01:44:22] Nike: Oh my God. He disappeared from social media. What does it say? Maybe he blocked me. Oh, that threatened him.

[01:44:34] Jessy: What does the account say right now when you go to it? It doesn’t show up anymore.

[01:44:40] Nike: It doesn’t show up anymore. It just disappeared. I think he also deleted all his comments, but I have it. I screenshot it. I screenshot it. I have everything.

[01:44:52] Jessy: No, I see the same thing.

[01:44:54] Nike: He’s gone.

[01:44:56] Jessy: It’s like the image comes up and the profile, like at the top.

[01:45:00] Nike: I’m telling you this is, this is bigger than I’m telling you. All those girls, they’re all disappearing too. Nobody’s responding. Their accounts are going away. He’s doing something to people.

We gotta, this is bigger than just this interview. We gotta call the police or something. Gotta do the right thing. All those girls in my dms, nobody’s responding. Their accounts are gone. Like they’re not gone. Nobody. They’re those girls. They always post. They nobody’s posting. Something’s happening, something’s happening.

I’m sorry, I’m cause are young people. We have to do the right thing. We have, I don’t want this. All of them, nobody’s look all their accounts like nobody’s posting, they’re all going private and what’s going on. Just scared something is happening. He’s doing something to them. Please help me. Help them.

Please, I should I call? Should I go to the, what should I do?

[01:46:00] Jessy: I think that the main thing that’s so important right now, Niké is like, I think that you need to just document every single thing. And I know.

[01:46:12] Nike: Should I go to the police? I don’t know what to do. These girls, they’re young girls.

Look, oh, they’re accounts are just blank faces. Where are they? Where did they go?

[01:46:24] Jessy: Are these other influencers?

[01:46:26] Nike: Yes. All these little girls, they’re kids, they’re teenagers, and all these PR girls, clinic, all those girls, they just stop responding to me. If they’re afraid. I can’t imagine how these kids, how afraid these kids are.

What do you think he’s saying to them?

[01:46:44] Jessy: I don’t know, I don’t know.

[01:46:47] Nike: But I would you please get, I know I shouldn’t put, could you please get in touch with someone with way and see if he sends, if he’s sending some kind of legal threat that’s getting everybody afraid. What is, like, why are everyone, why is everyone so afraid?

Should I be afraid? I’m putting, I’m putting fearless, but now I’m, I’m like.

[01:47:08] Jessy: It’s a legitimate question. I will say that there are like people in this world that operate by like, intimidation, and I would just implore you that, don’t be afraid by it. You know what happened to you and you know that this is wrong and you know that you are also owed a shit ton of money.

[01:47:34] Nike: This is getting, this is getting bigger than money. These kids are disappearing from social media.

[01:47:39] Jessy: I wonder, I mean, I don’t know that they’re disappearing. That’s what I’m saying. I wonder if I, do you have another account that you can look?

[01:47:48] Nike: Name, right? Well, she went private immediately after giving me all this.

Should I, I don’t even know. Should I share with this? I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should not share what they’re saying. Maybe I shouldn’t. Should I, I don’t know. Should I protect them? I don’t know what to do.

[01:48:02] Jessy: I mean, here, give me like, what’s one of the, like I’m wondering if I looked on my account or if you have another account that you can look, cause it’s possible that maybe they, it’s possible that maybe like they blocked you or something like that.

[01:48:16] Nike: His best friend, he’s from high school, he messaged me and said, I would love to speak up for you. He’s been like this since high school. They’re bad kids. They’re horrible. They’ve been always scam. And then five minutes later he says, well, could you just be honest? He says, why did you save him as band manager?

Cause he said, Interrogated me. And then he just disappeared. Like he went private and in middle of the conversation he blocked me and unblocked me, disappeared. And this is his account. He just came back right now. This is his childhood best friend since they were in school.

[01:48:50] Jessy: How do you know this is this childhood best friend?

[01:48:53] Nike: Well, he said that to me. He said he tried to get him. He said this guy tried to shut down. Josh tried to shut down his company at one point, so he has beef with Josh and he would like to speak up on my behalf, and he wants to get on camera with me. I haven’t sicked out any of these people.

They come to me and say hey, I have information about him. And then they freak out immediately.

[01:49:17] Jessy: I would assume if I were you, I would assume that no one’s telling the truth. I would just assume that, I would assume that unless you, these people have to prove who they are. Even like you are girls.

 No one will fault you for asking, you know what I mean? No one will fault you for saying look, I’ve been through a lot right now. Can we do a FaceTime? Can we hop on a zoom call? Like I just, for all, I mean a childhood best friend. I question, right? Like maybe it’s just him popping up another account.

Like this is like a catfish sort of scenario where they’re pretending to be all sorts of stuff to like mix you up, to distract you maybe from what’s going on. If it’s someone that you’ve had a relationship with in the past say, can we hop on a FaceTime about this? Could we hop on a zoom call?

Whatever you feel comfortable with, like audio and video, I need to just like have a verifiable conversation with you. You know what I mean? But other than that, if you don’t know them, you should absolutely say, we gotta hop on a video call. So I can…

[01:50:32] Nike: But I’m very concerned about Josh. Josh is a real person.

We verify all the girls he’s worked with, verify his auntie and uncles are all on his page before he disappeared. I’m, he’s, he was like this, oh my God, I know. I did the wrong thing. I signed over 500 signatures.

[01:50:51] Jessy: And, and there’s, there’s a lot of responsibility that he has on that.

[01:50:57] Nike: He kid. He’s a kid.

[01:51:00] Jessy: How old is he?

[01:51:01] Nike: He looks like maybe 19.

[01:51:04] Jessy: Maybe. I mean, you know, this is definitely like a matter of opinion here, but like…

[01:51:11] Nike: I know.

[01:51:12] Jessy: You know what I mean? Like.

[01:51:13] Nike: He disappeared. I’m so scared for him.

[01:51:18] Jessy: I think like it’s, I think what you.

[01:51:20] Nike: He’s the one who’s the one who signed all of the…

[01:51:24] Jessy: Yeah, he was part of this, he was part of this whole thing against you.

[01:51:30] Nike: I know, but he’s a kid.

[01:51:34] Jessy: I think that what you were saying earlier when we were chatting from like the very beginning, you’re like, I need to just focus on myself and getting through this and reconciling it all, and like figuring out my end of this. You can compartmentalize that. You don’t have to just say like, I’m just gonna give up on this kid.

But in a couple weeks from now, a month from now, once you sort it out, like your own piece of this, if you still feel the same way that you really wanna help this kid or look into it more because you wanna give him more of the benefit of the doubt because you’re like, he’s a kid, do that, but do it in a month.

Like you have to prioritize yourself. It’s a felony. It’s a felony for real. Five. Yeah. And he made that decision that affected you. There’s a lot of other people that you could be empathetic against. I mean, you’re obviously getting a sense of how I feel about this, and that’s just my opinion. And you can disagree, but like this person was very much part of this.

[01:52:43] Nike: He knows he’s in trouble because he admitted it. Got a lawyer and then his lawyer said, don’t speak, don’t say anything further. He came back and said, can you please delete? Like, don’t say anything, can you? Please don’t tell anyone I said that, but I already screenshot it, you know, like, thank God. I was like, I’m just gonna, something told me to screenshot it right when he said it before he on said it. So I screenshot

[01:53:09] Jessy: It and that’s part of, and that’s when you’re doing the right thing because you need to build, it needs to be crystal clear. You need to cover yourself all of your bases. You need to take screenshots, you need to create evidence. Like you need to have receipts of everything. Like I said, I know it’s so much easier said than done, but I feel like you gotta just focus on yourself first.

[01:53:39] Nike: It just keeps getting bigger by the minute. It’s so weird. It’s like instead of have, it’s like, oh, I’m missing a little bit of money and it’s turning into this whole thing.

[01:53:49] Jessy: I think it’s a big issue. And thank God that you’re like speaking up and brave enough to do that. Because what you’re seeing is there’s a lot of people and we can’t exactly know why cause we’re not privy to exactly the conversations that they’re having, but they’re being intimidated by not speaking up.

And this could have continued if you hadn’t have spoken up and It’s like shocking. It’s shocking. Like the more that it becomes, like the more people that are affected, the more that, I mean, he’s, he can’t, like, he should not be able to do this to people anymore. This is insane. It’s insane. You know?

And then to like, I mean, it’s so manipulative. It’s beyond manipulative, it’s theft, it’s forgeries involved. That’s the only way that he could have gotten away with any of this. The fact that this has all been done. What, within a year?

[01:54:44] Nike: My head is like pounding.

[01:54:47] Jessy: I know. I just want you to take care of yourself.

 First and foremost, I like you’re a good human being, which is why you see that this kid disappeared and you’re worried about him instead of worried. I understand you’re a good human being. That’s why you’re worried.

[01:55:04] Nike: And just to just tell, he felt so much guilt when he was talking to me and just like, they just told me to do it.

I was coerced into doing it. Cause everyone’s like, Oh yeah, you’re right. Why didn’t, why didn’t these girls read their contracts? Because someone else signed our

[01:55:21] Jessy: contracts.

I like, I’ll tell you, as someone who’s obviously I’m like removed from the situation and I feel like I, I’m removed from the situation. He like this kid forged it wasn’t one signature, it wasn’t two signatures. You’re telling me he said that he’s forged over 500 signatures time and time and time again.

He got something out of this and maybe he feels remorseful. More than likely he’s trying to cover his ass cuz he got caught.

[01:56:02] Nike: But he admitted literally I didn’t force it outta his mouth.

[01:56:06] Jessy: That’s just cause he’s not good at not getting caught. Like he’s not good at covering his butt.

[01:56:10] Nike: He got a lawyer though, so he knows something bad might happen cuz he went and lawyered up right away.

Absolutely.

[01:56:18] Jessy: Which he should, If he was my kid, I’d tell him, get a lawyer. But that just means you’re represented by a lawyer. It doesn’t mean you’re not guilty. It doesn’t mean you’re not gonna get in trouble. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. But yeah, that’s the next best up for somebody who is getting is part of a really big scam and he should get a lawyer and his lawyer will protect him.

 I don’t like his lawyer will protect him. He has a lawyer. Great. He’s taken care of. I just want you to, you know what I mean?

[01:56:51] Nike: Maybe his lawyer told him to delete his social media.

[01:56:55] Jessy: I’m sure he did. I’m sure they did the fact that he deleted his social media. It’s something that a lawyer would tell you on the first second, get off of social media or delete your stuff.

That’s one of the first things that you know, and this is around social media, like the whole story is about social media influencers and what he’s doing online. Absolutely. I wonder if he deletes his account, like maybe his lawyer doesn’t know better and things like, oh, maybe that’ll delete your admission to other people in the dms or something like that.

But like, not if you take a screenshot. Cause we’re on the year 2022 and like things just don’t disappear. If there’s a digital trail, you can easily take a screenshot, which you did.

[01:57:37] Nike: It’s just getting bigger by the second. It was supposed to be like a small little, someone scam me out of money, but it’s now it’s way bigger than me.

This is like a criminal, This is criminal.

[01:57:53] Jessy: How do you feel Knowing

that it’s like bigger than just you? Does that make you feel different about it?

[01:58:01] Nike: I mean, on one hand I want my money, but on the other hand I think this is like an actual crime. I don’t know all these girls who are afraid and it feels like so like all these girls…

 Because I’m on the outside, even though it’s happening to me and I’m the one speaking up, I don’t know what the, what’s happening to everyone that’s just disappearing. What’s going on there? I want to know what’s going on to all the girls who in my dms, one second in my text was again, in the phones.

What’s it kind freaking out five seconds later? Like, what’s going on? Are they all can be freaking out over that simple little legal threat that he sent me? If that’s what they’re freaking out about, I’m so disappointed because I just laughed at him when I saw that. I was like, are you you kidding?

[01:58:58] Jessy: You have a lot of experience behind you that makes you have that reaction. Other people might get that and have a very different reaction for different reasons, but like in an ideal world, everyone would just be brave enough to speak up, be like brave enough to advocate for other people, like advocate for themselves.

But that’s just not the reality. People come with their own baggage, you know what I mean? Like, these people have, like this kid, like he’s involved in it. Maybe he tried to throw his head under the sand for the length of time that he took to sign 500 forged names, tens and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of agreements.

 But then he got caught then he’s part of it and like, things like that usually don’t last forever. It’s so rare that these things can just continue on and on and on without having some sort of a reckoning. Like people are gonna find out and there’s gonna be consequences, you know?

[02:00:04] Nike: Where did we go from here? I haven’t slept in four days, you know? You know, I was in New York when it happened, and then I had a sinus. I was in the hospital when I dropped the first video. I was literally in when Id the, I haven’t slept in days. I just, the story just gets crazier by the minute, by the minute it gets crazier.

[02:00:31] Jessy: If I can give you like, friendly advice, I would just say two things come to mind. It’s like you just, you gotta take care of yourself first and foremost. You’ll be able to deal with this in do time. You’re not gonna let this slide, you’re not gonna let this fall off the radar, but this is ultimately going to take longer than you probably expect for it to take.

And so like you do, please prioritize yourself. Please take time to just if you take a day, two or a week to just check out of what’s going on and just like. Do something that calms you down, relaxes you, like, you have to, takes care of like yourself, your family, your physical mental health.

Do that. It will be there waiting for you when you come back to it, but this is gonna be like a long. This is gonna take much longer than you expect it to.

[02:01:24] Nike: It’s a big story.

[02:01:27] Jessy: It’s like there’s so many components to it. There’s so many moving parts, and ultimately you’re gonna need to decide to what extent you wanna pursue justice versus it is, the reality is it’s gonna take a toll on you.

 I’ve had my own legal issues. People can understand like through their own, like the legal system is so broken. I wanna like pump you up. I wanna give you encouragement, but I personally just wanna be real with you and tell you that like I, I think that it’s the action items for the short period of time is keep records.

Like literally keep digital safe records of everything. Document everything with yourself first and foremost in mind. And then if you can also help others because you choose to, you will. But I do think it’s like, the analogy of being on an airplane and your own oxygen mask first before you help others.

Like it’s a hundred percent true. And I just wanna make sure that like you take care of yourself first. I think that you absolutely should speak to a lawyer and I’m happy to speak to that friend that I mentioned to you and just run it by her. And I think it’s great for you to get your story out there, but I do think that it’s ideal to have advocates to be able to, so that you’re not the only one speaking up about it.

You’re the first one. You know.

[02:03:07] Nike: Why won’t this girl speak? Maybe I just don’t get it. What does this guy have over people I don’t like, I want, I mean, I understand like, yes, I, I’m going back and forth my mind. Cause I’m like, Yeah, not everyone can be like you. But then I get mad. It’s like I’m going through five stages of cannot, everyone can advocate, speak up like you.

But then I go straight into anger right after I say that. It’s like, but then you should do the right thing. You should do the right thing and speak up. These girls have all, they have all the paperwork. Why won’t you do the right thing?

[02:03:41] Jessy: I will say this, I really want you to not give him power anymore.

 He’s had so much power already, and I hear you, and maybe it’s true, we don’t know, but like maybe he’s going and threatening all these people and saying all these things, and maybe it’s from a wealthy family and there’s all these reasons why people should be intimidated from him. But like your instincts were hell, right?

This whole time and when you like met this person in person, right? And when you got these, like last few emails, your response was to write l o l and take away all his power. Try really hard to stick with that. You know what I mean? Because I mean, it might be valid, it might be true when you say oh, he’s this, he’s that, and he’s threatening people and intimidating people and there’s something to be fearful of.

And I’m like, maybe. But what is that based on right now? Isn’t that based on nothing? Like it’s based on.

[02:04:46] Nike: Payments is what we’ve been able to verify.

[02:04:50] Jessy: Have we been able to verify that?

[02:04:52] Nike: Well, we saw their house. I don’t know if it’s a real house, it’s a big house in Connecticut.

[02:04:58] Jessy: It’s a big house. And that’s all that that means that his parents, maybe parents, I don’t know. He is such an amorphous person. Until we have proof that there’s something to be nervous of, maybe will act differently. Right. But like, assume that there’s nothing to be nervous of. And it’s like a slimy kid who is scamming people out of their livelihood, who probably worked as hard as you did, who like went through tough times and were clawed their way up to having a successful career.

And he fucking took all of that hard work into his pocket for what did he do to deserve any of that? Nothing. Like, I just, I wanna take his power away from this guy, this kid, like this punk who, like, who, how does he like, continue to take that power away? Yeah. Because I don’t want you now after you’ve unearthed like all this garbage to still be some semblance of intimidated by this person.

[02:06:08] Nike: Oh no, I’m a little concerned that everyone keeps dropping off . What in the mafia is this? But I’m not the type to back down easily. And again, like I said this in the beginning of our interview, if I have to do this, look, I would love not to do it alone. I would love not to do it.

But if I have to do it alone, I will get to the end of it. And, you know, maybe I have Susan on my side who was the whistleblower so far. She hasn’t retracted any of her. She has a video up and everything. She hasn’t retracted any of her statements and hasn’t freaked out yet. She’s checking in on me like, are you okay?

 Keep going, you can do this. And I’m so grateful for that. And so far I have that on my side. I have her on my side and of course my parents and my assistants.

[02:06:56] Jessy: And so maybe this is a good way to end this conversation, which is everyone who’s listening, if you’ve had a negative experience with this agency or there’s information that you know about that can support this case, right?

Like this, cause that like these people have scammed people, there’s fraud, there’s like forgery involved, there’s impersonation involved. And if anyone listening or watching has had an experience with this and can back up Niké case, we’re gonna include information in the description box so that you can send that information so that you don’t have to do this alone because.

The more that comes out, we’re fighting out.

[02:07:51] Nike: More information. I’m so sorry. No, don’t be. So there’s only one guy on his roster. His name is Alexander. He unfollowed me last night and then he just wrote me like, he unfollowed me, disappeared for a while and just wrote me, he says, so last night I did some digging.

After he unfollowed me, I had to unsend his message. He goes, I did some digging and looked back at my contract with Carter Agency and he just disappeared. The pander doc though, he is like, oh my, I can’t access it. And it says ,all my session has been timed out. This kid unfollowed me last night and it came back and wrote me this.

Maybe he’s feeling more confident to do after doing his own research, doing more research, but they locked him out of his own. Sorry, I’m like changing seats, changing positions. I’m so like, I dunno what to do. They locked him out of all his contracts. But the kid was following me, unfollowed me, disappeared from social media and came back to write me this.

I mean, he’s a real person. He’s on the roster, which I’ll send you the roster by. You can have it. He’s a real, he’s a real human being, I promise.

[02:09:13] Jessy: Yeah. What I would attribute all of that to is people are in very similar positions as you, and they’re figuring out that the story is like much more extreme than they thought, you know?

And they’re probably finding out that they’ve also lost out on tens of thousands of dollars. And they’re also questioning everything. And like the foundation of their trust is like falling off from underneath them. So if people are just sort of like acting a little sketchy, who you think, or like, you know, they’re like, Who you been through the same thing I have?

 Why are you go coming and going and can I trust you? Let them sort of sort things out on their own time. You know what I mean? But like, if they’re part of this roster that you were sent and they’re part of it, they’re processing it in different, in their own way. Right? I think that this person, like now you’re getting more information.

You know he’s now been locked out of his contracts. This should confirm to you though that the more sketchy this becomes, the more people are locked out of things and things are being deleted and whatever. I’m telling you, take screen, save as much document, take screenshots, document everything.

[02:10:28] Nike: Yeah, I actually forgot to do that. Yeah.

[02:10:31] Jessy: Yeah, absolutely.

[02:10:32] Nike: He might, he unsent the last one so he might unsend that quickly. Screenshot it.

[02:10:36] Jessy: Exactly. So just document it I feel. Okay. We’ve been talking for so long. I just want you to like relax a little bit. We’ve been talking for a long time.

I want you to make sure that you’re eating, I wanna make sure that you’re drinking a lot of water, you know what I mean? Like.

[02:10:57] Nike: Maybe you can explain this to me quickly as we get the phone. I start, it’s like the psychology behind since I was a kid and I like, I have a big personality and people just automatically rely on someone who has the biggest person.

 I wouldn’t look for it. It would just happen where I would be in the position where I have to be the one who carries so much and to get to the finish line for people. And at the finish line everyone goes, oh my God, thank you so much. They already asked me like, when do I, when do I get my money back?

like, I dunno, I’m not your mother or your lawyer. Like, I’m just helping myself. But this has happened to me since I was a kid. Cause I could remember, things would just happen where I would be the one who has to carry the brunt of things and get beat down for it. And then at the end of it, everyone wins.

 I’m sure all the people hopefully will get their money back, but then I will have to spend a whole probably year recovering from this trauma.

[02:11:51] Jessy: Well, that’s some advice that I could definitely give you. I’ve gone through it myself is like, we can, it’s easier. Like it makes sense that you would say like, I have to do this, I have to do this.

It’s been my past. It’s like just a, it’s a pattern. What is this? But like your adult life is a choice. Like you could choose to fight this for yourself, for other people, but you could also choose to say this is going to cause so much like mental fuckery and this is going to infringe upon my mental health, my physical health.

Like this is gonna impact your future livelihood if you choose to take, you know this into your own hands, right? Because all that energy, we only have so much energy in life and like your, the energy that you could be expending on all these other partnerships and continuing to build your business, et cetera, et cetera.

It could be taken into the opposite direction of fighting this fight. It is a choice. You don’t have to do this.

[02:12:51] Nike: I’m gonna do it.

[02:12:52] Jessy: You’re choosing, but you know what I mean, but you’re choosing to do it.

[02:12:57] Nike: It’s the right thing because I think it would change the course of the industry and it’s the right thing.

And all those black girls, hopefully, maybe they get screwed, but maybe their net set of black influences coming up, who they will know to be on every email. I have to do the right thing.

[02:13:15] Jessy: I have to do the right thing. I think it’s really powerful that you’re doing that. I just wanna give you credit to say it’s a choice that you are making to do this.

 And you absolutely will help other people, whether you do it firsthand and have all these conversations and organize things or whatever. But I will also tell you that if you choose to be protective of your mental health and all your livelihood and things like that, by simply just focusing on your specific instance and working that through, you will not be selfish by doing so.

Because simply by opening this up, putting this out there, other people will absolutely be helped. It’s the degree in which they’re helped and people need to help themselves in my opinion as well. But you are a hundred percent, you’ve already helped a tremendous amount of people. I just want you to focus on yourself the most.

You know, and people will appreciate that you’re doing. People will appreciate it because the people will definitely appreciate it.

[02:14:24] Nike: And I wanna say I really appreciate you for letting me use my voice. Give me a platform to tell my story.

[02:14:30] Jessy: I just wanna be able to get your story out there because I do think that you deserve to have advocates for you.

I know that there are people out there who are going through the same thing and who have been impacted in some way by like this person, this agency, these people, whatever the hell they are. And, you deserve to also just like, know the truth and be able to unravel it and be like, what is this?

To be able to like process it, to be able to move on from it. This is an incredibly traumatic thing. So I just want you to have clarity. I want you all, everyone who’s been affected by it to have advocates in each other, and I don’t want this shit to happen anymore. So this person, I would hope that in the world of cancel culture, which I have so many opinions about, of all people to be canceled, I hope it’s somebody who’s scammed people, right?

[02:15:25] Nike: They don’t have any social media presence. So no one knows where to go attack them, you know, other than their parents’ house .

[02:15:35] Jessy: I just want the truth to be told, that’s all. So, you know, look, this is the beginning of this story. This is so fresh and what you’re unearthing and what you’re figuring out and stuff.

So I’m just super appreciative that you have taken so much time to share your story again. Like this is a generous thing that you are doing and putting it out there. You can, you don’t have to do this, but like we said in the beginning, I’m like, why do you wanna come on today? Do you feel like you got out of this conversation what you hope to by sharing the story?

[02:16:08] Nike: This was therapy, it was therapeutic. Absolutely. First of all, you made me feel so comfortable. You’ve been so kind and so generous. I’ve been through all five stages of grief, right? We’re on the phone and I got my voice out there. And in a industry that’s not regulated and everyone’s afraid, I think there is no, everyone’s so afraid of lawsuits is because there is no regulation in our industry.

So the lines are so blurred and we don’t know what’s right, what’s wrong, and letting me use my voice to speak up for. Well, you and I both know what’s right and what’s wrong is that you don’t take 75 to 80% of someone’s income and pocket it without telling that if we don’t know anything else, we know that’s that to be true.

 For letting me use my voice to say that out loud. I’m very, very grateful.

[02:16:57] Jessy: Definitely. And to be able to be incredibly clear about who you’re dealing with, to be incredibly clear about what the expectations are, to like, put things in writing, like we know all these things, but to be honest, like he knows all these things too.

This is just like manipulative. People are manipulative and it sounds like he is, one of, like, he’s, he’s in an upper echelon of manipulators, so I also just don’t want you to feel as if you did something wrong. You know what I mean? It’s so easy to look back and be like, I’m so capable. I’m so smart.

I’m a business savvy woman, and I was manipulated. Yes. Because he is like, has a screw loose in the head and is an incredible manipulator that doesn’t have anything, that doesn’t diminish any of who you are. It’s so easy to start questioning things, you know, in terms of anything traumatic that you go through.

So I just wanna remind you, you probably know this already, I just wanna remind you that like him doing what he’s done, or this agency or whatever, doesn’t diminish anything that you are, that you’ve done. In fact, you’re being the first person to like, get this out there because you figured it out.

 Your gut instinct was accurate. I hope that that’s empowering, you know,

[02:18:22] Nike: Yeah. Thank you so much. I’m gonna take a quick nap if I can. I haven’t slept in days.

[02:18:28] Jessy: Yes hundred percent like I said, and this is a perfect place to end it while the rightfully goes and takes a nap. I want anybody who has been impacted the to this to check the show notes and we’ll have the way to get your story out there so that we can bring the, we can get clarity to all this and see what’s actually been going on.

So okay thank you so, so much for taking all this time, and we will be in touch and we will be keeping close track of your story.

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