Calvin Johnson Reveals The Worst Financial Decision He Ever Made

Calvin Johnson is coming clean.

The man known as Megatron retired from the NFL back in 2016 after playing nine unbelievable seasons for the Detroit Lions. Johnson, whose first job was bagging groceries, had a lot to learn about finance when he started making real money as a professional athlete. He now boasts a net worth of $45 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, if you can buy into that. While appearing on “In Depth With Graham Bensinger,” Johnson shared that he regrets lending money to family and friends.

“You loan money and you think you’re going to get it back, especially [from] people that are close to you, but I would tell anybody now, if you’re loaning money to a friend or anyone close to you, just know that you’re not getting it back,” he said. “I’ve loaned a lot of money to people and I’ve grown. I’m just like, ‘OK, I know I’m not going to get it back.’ It’s cool with me now, but what that does though is it sours relationships. Money you can always get back, but relationships, you’ve got to cherish those.”

The NFL Hall of Famer said to avoid involving money in family and friend relationships, if possible.

“Money can easily mess up a relationship,” he said.

Watch Calvin Johnson explain:

Megatron quickly learned that it’s best to leave the review of those contracts to the pros.

“[The] best financial advice I ever received was probably from my attorney — ‘Just let me read everything you get,’” he said. “Those attorneys, they pull out like, ‘OK, this isn’t right. This little sentence right here can be the difference in, you’re getting your money or you’re not.’ Stuff like that, stuff that I wouldn’t see.”

When asked how he saved money before achieving financial success, Johnson confessed that he didn’t.

“I had no money,” he said. “It just went from not having anything to having something. My first job was bagging groceries at Publix and my second job was actually working at Delta, putting the bags on the plane. The money that we made from that, I spent pretty fast probably. I’m trying to think [about] what happened to that money in college. We didn’t make a whole lot of money, maybe a couple of thousand dollars, but that goes fast!”

Megatron wasted a Hall of Fame career in Detroit, and retired a lot earlier than fans wanted him to. In that regard he really followed in the footsteps of another Lions legend,  Barry Sanders.

It’s a shame he didn’t play longer and make a ton more money, because he was certainly deserving of more..

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