HELL FOR BANKRUPTCY, Jermaine Pennant.
HELL FOR BANKRUPTCY I forgot I had a house and spent £25k on a bar bill – now I know why, says bankrupt footballer Jermaine Pennant.
Jermaine Pennant, a bankrupt ex-footballer, has revealed how he lost his career earnings of more than £10 million — and became so in debt that he forgot he owned a house.
The former Liverpool winger spent his money on a fleet of supercars, homes, and five-star vacations abroad, and once paid a £25,000 bar bill on a lads’ trip to Las Vegas.
However, the 39-year-old, who describes himself as “financially illiterate,” also lost money on bad investments and fell victim to hangers-on who he claims targeted him.
He went on to lose three homes and more money as a result of a divorce and bankruptcy.
“In all honesty, I could have been a billionaire and still f***ed it up,” he said.
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“I have made so many mistakes but I did not know how to deal with things and would not think of the consequences of my actions.
“I was labeled a bad boy, but I was just an insecure kid who didn’t know what he was doing.”
Pennant revealed last year that he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and PTSD related to childhood trauma.
Because of his ADHD, he once forgot he owned a house in Cheshire after moving from Liverpool to Real Zaragoza, even though he was still paying the interest-only mortgage on it.
On the advice of a fixer, he paid £1.2 million for the six-bedroom home in Hale.
He left it empty when he moved to Spain, but it was later occupied by a drugs gang, which set fire to the property.
Pennant — now a footie pundit on talkSPORT — admitted: “I bought houses but never spoke to an estate agent and had mortgages that I did not know about.
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“I took bad advice from bad people and just went through the motions.
“There was a fixer who arranged things for me — but now I realize he swindled me out of money.
“He advised me to buy the house in Hale for well over the odds and then to do a load of building work on it. But it wasn’t the builders I was paying; it was him.
“It seemed to happen to me wherever I went.
“I would also go out and spend money on tables at nightclubs without worrying.
“We did two trips to Las Vegas, and on the first one I picked up a bar bill of $30,000 (£25,000) for my mates — I did not even know what was being ordered.
“I invested in horses and properties and have lost all the money.
“I dread to think how much it would cost, but I’m guessing it would be more than £10 million.”
Years of financial miscalculations and errors eventually caught up with the ex-Premier League player.
The breaking point came in 2018 when the taxman handed him a bill for more than £1 million.
He was declared bankrupt earlier this year, with debts totaling more than £1 million.
“The bankruptcy did not happen overnight,” Pennant, who appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2018, said. It was the result of years of bad decisions and ignoring things.
“We contested the tax bill, and I still don’t know what it’s for.
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“However, that is what caused the bankruptcy more than anything else. I had no idea how much I was earning or how much money was leaving my account.
“I would just ignore things and bury my head in the sand because of my ADHD, even forgetting I owned a house.”
Pennant, who lives in Surrey with actress girlfriend Jess Impiazzi, 33, insisted he was “happier than ever” after his bankruptcy and was looking forward to the future.
“Being declared bankrupt is not an ideal situation,” he continued, “but it means I can rebuild my life and start over.”
He expressed regret for his previous behavior and urged young players not to make the same mistakes he did, but to seek sound advice and avoid the pitfalls of celebrity.
Pennant, who has a 12-year-old son from a previous relationship and was married to model Alice Goodwin from 2014 to 2020, previously owned a Ferrari F430, an Aston Martin DB9, a Lamborghini, a Porsche GTS, and several Range Rovers.
He took luxury vacations to places like the Maldives, the Bahamas, Seychelles, and Dubai.
When Arsenal signed the Nottingham-born ace from Notts County when he was 15, his career took off.
He scored a hat-trick for the Gunners on his full Premier League debut at the age of 20 — but he later admitted he was hungover from going out the night before the game because he didn’t expect to be picked.
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Despite a promising start, he was loaned out to several clubs before joining Birmingham City in 2005.
He was jailed for drink-driving while at the Blues after crashing a Mercedes into a lamppost — even though he was already banned from the road for the same offense. Birmingham, however, stood by him, and Pennant revealed that manager Steve Bruce, whom teammates dubbed his “stepdad,” visited him in category A Woodhill Prison in Milton Keynes while he served his sentence.
He played with an electronic tag attached to his ankle after being released.
He earned a big-money move to Liverpool, where he was instrumental in the club’s run to the 2007 Champions League final, which they lost to AC Milan.
After falling out with manager Rafa Benitez, he joined Real Zaragoza on a weekly salary of £80,000 but only stayed for a year.
Pennant, who earned £30,000 per week at Liverpool, made headlines again when he forgot about his Porsche and left it at a train station in Spain for a month.
The England under-21 international later joined Stoke City. He played for Wolves, FC Pune City in India, Wigan Athletic, Tampines Rovers in Singapore, and Bury before finishing his career at non-league Billericay Town in 2017.
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“I came from a rough council estate and became a ‘wunderkind’ when I was 15,” he explained. I had no formal education and knew nothing about finances or money.
“No one at Arsenal helped me; they just put me in a house with a family. I’d go to training, come home, and then be left to my own devices.
“I developed an ego and had no self-worth, so I tried to gain it by demonstrating my wealth.”
His biggest regret, he admitted, was his drunk-driving conviction, which landed him in prison alongside murderers and terrorists.
Pennant also expressed regret for disclosing in his 2018 autobiography that he and former Arsenal and Chelsea defender Ashley Cole, 42, had threesomes with women.
“The thing I am most ashamed of is the drunk driving,” he admitted.
“I also regret what I wrote and what I said in the book. It was yet another case of following bad advice and failing to consider the consequences due to ADHD.
“My agent Sky Andrew suffered during these periods because he was trying to make me listen to good advice but I was on the fast train to destruction”.
“I thought everything would be OK but Ashley was not happy although we are still friends now.
“I also regret participating in Big Brother and do not believe it was a good decision for me.”
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“I would do things without consulting anyone, I would hide things from my agent who was constantly getting me out of trouble,” he continued.
“Perhaps the fact that Sky kept finding a way to make things work helped me believe I was invincible.”
Pennant, on the other hand, will be seen this year on Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins alongside ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
“If I could say one thing to young players, it would be: Make sure you get help, good advice, and are surrounded by decent people,” he concluded.
