As Bernie Madoff wastes away in a North Carolina medium security prison for defrauding hundreds of clients out of nearly $200 billion dollars of their money — one of his more former famous clients, Kyra Sedgwick is finally able to talk about how she lost “hard earned money” in the scandal that put the murky inner workings of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme in the spotlight of the world’s financial collapse.
The 43-year-old actress and her husband Kevin Bacon were badly hit by the Wall Street fraud, losing almost all their savings in the scandal. But his punishment was only a small consolation to Sedgwick, who has branded officials “hideous” for failing to act on information they had on Madoff. She is the cover girl for September’s issue of Ladies Home Journal, and tells the magazine, “The fact that someone blew the whistle on (Madoff) three times and nobody did anything about it? It was hideous.”
Sedgewick, who is one of Hollywood’s highest paid actresses (she reportedly earns $300,000 per episode for her award winning role on TNT’s The Closer) and a mother of two, is also taking a philosophical approach to the loss, ”But I think the economy has forced a lot of people to look inward and go, What really fulfills me so I don’t have to go out and buy? Getting back to simple pleasures is a good thing.”
Of course, that’s one way to look at a situation that has crippled many with even less than the Hollywood couple — but she’s lucky enough to get an opportunity to get one last dig. Sedgwick was reminded when she appeared on last night’s The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien that a recent episode had a Madoff-esque character succumb to a grisly death.
Sedgwick was quick to be coy about the connotations, “No, I did not write the episode and in fact I’m such a dumb blond sometimes I was like, ‘I wonder if this has anything to do …’ so it took me a little while.”
I can promise you that Miss Sedgwick is no dumb blond, and hopefully she continues to be an optimist and find some humor in the midst of the drama.
Photo courtesy of lhj.com