Michael Vick had once been one of the NFL\u2019s biggest stars.
\nThen he came home from prison and says he and his wife had less than nothing in their bank account.
\nVick was released from federal custody in 2009 after serving time following his conviction in the dogfighting case that derailed his football career. He also entered bankruptcy, with creditors claiming tens of millions of dollars.
\nDuring that difficult period, Vick recalled receiving an unexpected phone call from T.I.
\nThe rapper wasn’t calling because Vick had asked him for anything. According to Vick, T.I. simply wanted to know how he was doing and whether he needed help.
\nVick decided to tell him the truth.
\nHe needed $50,000 to help himself and his family get back on their feet.
\nT.I. didn’t send $50,000.
\nHe sent $75,000.
\nVick has spoken about the gesture years later as something he never forgot. It came when his career, finances and reputation had all collapsed at once, and someone reached out without waiting to be asked.
\nVick eventually returned to the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles, rebuilt his career and later worked to repay his creditors through his bankruptcy proceedings.
\nBut when his bank account was below zero and he needed $50,000 just to breathe, T.I. sent him $25,000 more than he asked for.
\nSource
\nMichael Vick\u2019s public account of T.I.\u2019s financial assistance; reporting and interviews covering Vick\u2019s 2009 return from federal custody, bankruptcy and NFL comeback.
\nDisclaimer
\nThe $50,000 request, $75,000 payment and negative-$1,000 bank balance come from Michael Vick\u2019s own retelling of the assistance T.I. provided and should be understood as his personal account. Vick\u2019s broader bankruptcy involved substantial creditor claims and a court-supervised repayment process; the figures involved were more complex than his immediate bank balance at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Vick had once been one of the NFL\u2019s biggest stars. Then he came home from prison and says he and his wife had less than nothing in their bank account. Vick was released from federal custody in 2009 after serving time following his conviction in the dogfighting case that derailed his football career. He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1072,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions\/1072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}