What happened to Chris Moneymaker?
Type any celebrity’s name into a search engine and you’re bound to find a pre-packaged answer to what is likely the most-asked question about someone whose fame has evolved:
What happened to Paris Hilton?
What happened to Peyton Manning?
What happened to Chris Moneymaker?
Truth be told, those three stars crossed paths through the years before shooting off to their own individual universes. We know what happened to Paris Hilton (it was, ahem, well-documented). We can’t possibly not know what happened to Manning, because he’s on every television show, ESPN commercial, and executive producer credit you’ll see today.
But what happened to Chris Moneymaker? For a story that’s been told and written thousands of times, the narrative hasn’t evolved much since the early days. He won a PokerStars satellite tournament. He had a great name. He won poker’s most-coveted prize. He kept playing poker. The end.
No. Not the end, and not even close.
Just before this year’s World Series of Poker, almost exactly 20 years to the day after Moneymaker won the Main Event, PokerOrg’s Lee Jones and Will Thomas sat down with Moneymaker in Palm Beach, FL where Moneymaker was supporting his brand new Moneymaker Tour.
PokerOrg had asked Moneymaker for a no-holds-barred, no-question-off-the-table, wide-open interview. Moneymaker had agreed, and for the next three hours, Moneymaker told stories he has never before told in public. That conversation became what you’ll see below. It’s a revealing and at times touching look at an unprepared champion, what became of him after his win, and what he’s made of himself since then.
