I’m disappointed to have to share this report from the New York Daily News:
Forced to unmask himself as a tax deadbeat, would-be congressman and former “Real World” star Kevin Powell blamed bad luck, bad advice, booze, depression and even his beloved mom.
He also argued his checkered financial history makes him “uniquely qualified” for election.
Powell owes between $615,000 and $1.3 million in taxes, as revealed in a Daily News review of financial disclosure records he was required to file.
He never submitted the papers for his 2008 Democratic primary against Rep. Ed Towns. This year, the forms were received in Washington three months late, a day after The News asked about them.
The ex-MTV icon canceled a planned news conference yesterday and instead released a remarkable 2,500-word statement to explain himself.
Powell, 44, said he grew up poor. He recalled going to a deli “and getting baloney, with my mother always nudging the butcher ‘to slice it a little thicker, please.’ It was her way of saying. …I need this baloney to last as long as possible.”
It’s unclear how that stretched the baloney, but Powell said his hardworking mom couldn’t teach him to manage money. “Of course I have debt, lots of it,” Powell admitted. It started with student loans, and continued through his MTV gig and working for Vibe magazine in the ’90s. After falling out with Vibe, he said, “I plunged into an alcoholic-fueled depression for the remainder of the 1990s, not paying much attention to my finances,” relying on “a hack accountant.”
Then came a new career as a public speaker. His mom helped him buy a no-money-down condo in 2006, with a monthly mortgage of $5,000. But the recession stopped “cold” his speech income. Powell said 2009 “turned out to be the worst financial year of my life,” though his forms show he earned $200,000 and is on a similar pace this year.
“After all these up-and-down financial tribulations, I feel very strongly they actually make me uniquely qualified to serve the people of Brooklyn’s 10th Congressional District,” he concluded. “Their experiences are my experiences.”
Political experts were dubious.
“C’mon already – give it up and write a screenplay,” said Baruch College political scientist Doug Muzzio, noting most Brooklynites earn far less than Powell. “This is like unreality TV.”
Read more: Brooklyn Hopefuls