Cam’ron and Mase have weighed in on Cameron Brink's recent financial budgeting revelations.
On a recent episode of her Straight to Cam series, Brink revealed: "I had a chef. Do you want to know what she was charging me for one month? Seven Grand. I know. Absurd."
Brink said that the six-figure price was just for her and her fiancé, Ben Felter, and didn’t even cover three daily meals.
"She was, like, shopping at Erewhon, though," Brink said about the chef. "That was the issue. Stay away from Erewhon! Fuck that place. Actually, I love Erewhon. Sorry."
Brink added that her annual WNBA salary was only $70,000, meaning the chef cost more than what she was earning from the league.
The comments fueled longstanding concerns about the pay gap between professional female athletes and professional male athletes; however, Mase, during the latest episode of his and Killa's It Is What It Is podcast, suggested the pay discrepancies were no excuse for poor financial choices.
"When it comes to getting a chef, you know, if the chef costs more than you’re making, then you definitely got to back out of that," Mase said. "I think that’s a lifestyle choice. You can eat healthy for less money… When it comes to paying $7,000, that’s not unusual for a chef… in L.A."
Cam assumed Brink failed to "ask questions" when hiring the chef, otherwise she wouldn’t have found the $7,000 bill "absurd."
"This is what they do, right?" Cam said. "They’ll say, 'Is it a problem in the WNBA?' You knew what you signed up for in the WNBA when you signed that contract. You knew. Or if you didn’t know, that’s your fault for not knowing how much your rent is, your chef is, or anything else."
Cam’ron and Mase said Brink's confession reminded them of Angel Reese’s 2024 livestream, in which she boldly stated she was "living beyond [her] means." The Chicago Sky star said at the time she was paying about $96,000 a year on rent when her WNBA rookie salary was a little under $74,000.
Cam gave the young athletes a bit of grace, saying they lacked the experience to make smart financial choices. But Mase was less forgiving, especially when it comes to white earners.
"Killa, I can’t go with you on that," Mase said. "[Brink is] caucasian. She’s supposed to know this. That’s something a guy from the hood is supposed to do: spend $7,000 on food when he know he only makes $6,000 and say he 'didn’t know.' That’s not what you do as a caucasian."
Mase admitted he didn’t know anything about Brink's upbringing, but assumed she came from a more affluent area than Reese. He was later informed that Brink was from Princeton, New Jersey, and Reese was from the Baltimore region.
"This is exactly what I’m saying. You should know better," he continued. "You expect kids that come from better households to know these things… You understand budgets, you understand finances, you understand taxes, you understand all of this."