Sam Cheung

Alex Rodriguez says that after he retired, his income fell about 90%, from $30,000,000 a year to $3,000,000. In 2018, he was still paying his ex-wife roughly $155,000 a month in spousal and child support, and he went to court to cut it. In the video below, he talks about what that kind of money did to him long before the bills came due. He signed a $252,000,000 contract at 25, the richest deal in sports at the time. He says success that early shrinks your self-awareness and grows your ego, and he didn’t have the tools to handle it. He and Cynthia Scurtis divorced in 2008. A decade later, he argued she now had a new fiancé, 3 homes and millions in the bank. He reportedly offered $20,000 a month for their 2 daughters. She reportedly wanted $50,000. Then her brother came after him too. Constantine Scurtis, his former real estate partner, sued him for $50,000,000, claiming Rodriguez cut him out of the business they built together. Rodriguez countersued, saying Scurtis took $1,400,000 from the partnership without permission. Rodriguez says he has now been in therapy for more than 10 years, and that it saved his life. When a fortune comes this early, is the biggest risk spending it, or the people who expect a share of it later?