Cole Bennett has revealed how he feels about passing up an offer to sell Lyrical Lemonade for $30 million when he was 20 years old.
The music video director and record executive opened up about his thoughts on the topic during a live episode of Idea Generation at ComplexCon 2025.
“Oh, I feel better about passing on that money more than ever," he said. "I think if I would have taken $20 million at age 20, it would have been ugly. I think I wouldn’t have known what to do."
"I don’t think I was mature enough to handle that," he continued. "And thank God I was so rooted in my values and what I stood for at the time, because I felt good saying no. I kind of puffed my chest when I did it, actually."
While he feels good about his situation, Bennett did admit that he sometimes thinks about the alternative.
"There have been times as I’ve gotten older that I’m like, 'Damn, that 30 million would’ve looked nice,' you know?" said Bennett. "But I believe in the fact that if we’re talking money here, I believe that comes when it’s supposed to come, at the amount it’s supposed to come, when it’s supposed to come."
Bennett then spoke briefly about other companies that’ve tried to acquire the brand since then. "There have been different companies and people that have come and wanted to buy the company and build out whatever they envisioned," he said. "It’s very flattering. You know, at some point, there might be a fit. But it’s about finding the right fit so that you can go to bed at the end of the night and be like, 'Okay, I did what I was supposed to do.'"
In 2019, Bennett told Complex about the $30 million offer that would have changed his life. "I was offered $30 million for Lyrical Lemonade around a year ago," he said at the time. "It was the most refreshing feeling to decline that and stay true to myself. I didn’t even have to think about it, and I know that sounds crazy. I haven’t seen anywhere near that amount of money in my life at all."
"We never got funding from any big company, and we never sold out," Bennett said elsewhere in the interview. "There have been some crazy offers there for a long time, and I just said, 'No, no, no,' because I wanted to do it how I wanted to do it. I wanted to be happy. I didn’t want to be controlled by anyone else.
"When I got to a point where I was making money off it, and I was able to make a living off it, I made a promise to myself that I’d always keep the passion first and I’d never prioritize the money aspect over the passion behind it."