In Milton, Ontario, the recording studio was in the garage of a townhouse. With a few tables, computers, and black and blue foam on the walls, it looked like it was put together quickly.
Glen Pretty, who wanted to be a singer, thought the set-up was strange for a platinum recording artist, but he wasn’t about to ask questions. It was finally his turn. He thought so, at least.
Pretty, then 25 years old and from a small town in Ontario, had a big dream of one day selling out Madison Square Garden in New York City. He thought he was going to learn from Canadian pop and R&B star Danny Fernandes and make music with him. Pretty said that Fernandes had told him he would become famous.
“I used to listen to him, so of course I’m freaking out. So I thought, “Wow, this is a big deal.”” Pretty said.
Pretty says that a lot of what Fernandes was selling didn’t exist.
A months-long investigation by CBC Toronto found that Fernandes took tens of thousands of dollars from musicians who thought they were paying him to help them with their music careers.
Fernandes sent an email to CBC News in which he apologized to those he “hurt or misled” and said that his actions were caused by drugs.
Pretty met Fernandes for the first time in June 2020. He had seen an ad on Facebook that said aspiring musicians could record a song with Fernandes for $75 an hour. It talked about other services, like advertising on the radio and having access to a publicist.
Pretty, who was living in Ingersoll, Ontario, at the time, got a video call from Fernandes asking him to come to his studio soon after.
“I thought, ‘Wow, everything is happening so fast,'” Pretty said. “He told me, ‘I want you here tomorrow,’ so I quit all my jobs.”
Pretty paid Fernandes $2,500 to record a song. This quickly turned into Pretty giving Fernandes around $55,000 over a six-month period, some of which was for music and some of which Fernandes borrowed for personal use and didn’t pay back. It all came to an end when Pretty sued Fernandes in 2021 and won.
A judge in the Ontario Superior Court told Fernandes to pay it all back, but Pretty hasn’t gotten a single cent yet.
WATCH: Glen Pretty talks about why he kept trusting Fernandes’s promises:
Artists who paid Fernandes say he didn’t do what he said he would do: meetings with music executives were mysteriously canceled, working with other artists didn’t work out, and most of the songs and videos he recorded weren’t finished or released.
Text messages, bank records, and court cases show Fernandes stole more than $200,000 from about a dozen people. CBC talked to them or looked at their legal papers to find out what happened.
Aspiring artists and fans say he took advantage of them in their quests to become famous or to meet him and get a tattoo from him after he started doing that.
Some artists say they were impressed and flattered when Fernandes befriended them, but now they say they think the friendships were just a way for Fernandes to get money that he hasn’t paid back.
Fernandes apologized to CBC in an email and said he wasn’t thinking straight because he was on drugs.
But it looks like some of his behavior continued earlier this year, even though Fernandes told CBC that he was in rehab and sober at the time. CBC confirmed that he was in a place.
‘He made it all seem so real
Pretty said Fernando told the truth about his past drug use. Pretty also talked about how he had dealt with bullying and depression in the past.
“It didn’t take long before he felt almost like an older brother,” said Pretty.
Pretty said that things moved quickly. They did photo shoots, recorded radio ads, and gave Fernandes $8,000 to hire a manager to get their one original song played on the radio.
Fernandes asked Pretty to perform with him at a popular music venue in Toronto, but Pretty said that he had to pay for the backup dancers after the show.
Pretty said that Fernandes promised to meet with the top music executives in Canada, but the meeting kept getting canceled.
Parts of Pretty and Fernandes’ text conversation:
Pretty said that Fernandes told him that he was having trouble paying his bills and asked for help.
CBC looked at Fernandes’ text messages and saw that he said he would give Pretty the big sum of money he was expecting.
Pretty said he wanted to help Fernandes, but he also thought that giving him money was tied to any help Fernandes could give him with his music career.
“I’m thinking, ‘If I stop giving him money, he’ll just let me go, and I won’t get to where I want to be,'” Pretty said.
Pretty eventually found out that the manager he paid didn’t exist and that the radio stations Fernandes said were playing their song had never heard of Pretty.
Pretty said he felt bad when he found out he’d been tricked and needed more work to pay his bills.
“I didn’t want anyone to know…. It really shook me up, “he said. “It wasn’t easy. I was starting to worry a lot.”
Pretty said it was “such a quick and unbelievable event.”
Pretty said, “I feel like I just got so lost in this dream.”
“He made everything look so real.”
Fernandes says she’s sorry and that her addiction took over
Fernandes became famous in 2008. His legal first name is Daniel. The next year, at the Much Music Video Awards, he won the award for best Canadian pop video of the year for Private Dancer.
In 2010, along with Drake and Justin Bieber, he was nominated for a Juno for breakthrough artist of the year, and his 2011 song “Bad Blood” won the award.Hit Me UpWent platinum. In 2021, his last single came out.
Fernandes sent an email to CBC with an apology and a statement that “all of those things happened when I wasn’t thinking straight.”
He wrote, “I used drugs, and no one will know what that’s like unless they’ve been there.” “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not happy with. My addiction took over my life, and just like any other addict, I would do anything to get what I needed.
“Yes, I feel bad about a lot of what I’ve done. Do I wish I could change what happened? Yes, but I’m sorry to say I can’t.”
Fernandes has talked about his drug use and time in rehab in podcasts and online videos in the past.
Concerns will be looked at, says the lawyer
He told CBC that he’s been clean since the middle of January, when he got out of rehab.
Fernandes was in a facility in January, which has been confirmed by CBC. However, during part of that time, he managed to get a Vancouver musician who had paid him for unfinished music projects to send him more than $18,000.
This week, Fernandes’s lawyer, Amedeo DiCarlo, contacted CBC and asked anyone who has seen Fernandes act in a similar way to contact him. He said that the problems will be looked at, looked into, and, hopefully, fixed as soon as possible.
Dicarlo said, “We will do our best to help you get back any money you lose.”
“Danny’s career has had a lot of setbacks in the last 11 to 15 years, but he has a lot of family and social support networks now that help him understand and help the people he was and is in debt to.”
The singer from Vancouver says he is out $100,00
Harman Maddhar answered Fernandes’s Facebook ad a month after Pretty did.
Maddar said that at the time, he thought, “I’ve got nothing to lose.”
Maddhar, who was 22 when he met Fernandes, said he told him he couldn’t fly to Toronto to meet him because he uses a wheelchair after being in an accident. Instead, they agreed that Fernandes would fly to Vancouver, they’d record a song, make a music video, and it would cost $15,000.
Maddhar said that the price was worth it, especially since music means freedom to him.
He said, “I feel like my life has been taken away.” “But this is something I could say, ‘This is mine, and you can’t take it away from me.'”
Maddhar said that he gave Fernandes about $20,000 over the course of two months for music-related projects that never happened or were never finished.
Maddhar said that during that time, he and Fernandes became close, so he felt comfortable giving Fernandes money when he asked for it. He also said he would pay him back.
Maddhar said that their friendship seemed so deep and real. “He said that I was his little brother. I thought, “Wow, this is so cool.””
Maddhar said he gave Fernandes about $60,000 on top of the $20,000 he spent on music. This money came from a settlement he got after an accident as a child left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Maddhar said Fernando knew where the money was going to come from.
Maddhar hadn’t heard from Fernandes in two years, but this year, he sent him a message. In the letter, Fernandes said he was sorry and promised to pay him back with money from a multimillion-dollar settlement he said he had just won for police brutality. There is no proof that such a deal was made.
According to text messages between Maddhar and Fernandes, he asked Maddhar for money and said that they would finally put out their song and video.
“I’m going to ask you for help one more time. I won’t ask you again until I pay you back.… That’s a promise from a brother, “In January, Fernandes wrote to him.
According to text messages read by CBC, Fernandes convinced Maddhar to send him more than 60 e-transfers totaling about $18,000 over the next month.
Fernandes said that he needed money right away for things like medicine, food, helping his family, and buying an Xbox. He kept telling Maddhar that he would pay him back soon.
Some of the messages were sent while Fernandes was in rehab and during a time when he told CBC he was clean.
At one point, Maddhar asked Fernandes for collateral. Fernandes sent Maddhar a Rolex watch, which Maddhar says turned out to be a fake.
He said he gave Fernandes money for the second time because he believes in second chances and didn’t want to believe that someone he “idolizes” would lie to him again.
Artists say that they prey on success and friendship
CBC talked to a few other Toronto-area and nearby artists who said they paid Fernandes to record and produce songs that never happened.
Ian Swenson, a singer-songwriter from Toronto, said he gave Fernandes more than $4,000 to record her vocals on a song he had already written and recorded. The song was called “Stay With Me”Bubble Tea.
Fernandes made plans to pick up Swenson for a video shoot meeting that never happened. Fernandes also tried to get the song on a billboard in Toronto’s Yonge and Dundas Square.
Swenson said Fernandes told him that Big Sean, a famous rapper, heard about the fight.Bubble TeaAnd they wanted to be on it.
Swenson said, “I’ve never felt that good about myself before.”
Swenson said that he hadn’t heard much from Fernandes for almost a year. Then, Fernandes sent him a message saying the song was done and asking for another $1,000. Swenson never got to hear the final version, and it was never put out.
Parts of Swenson and Fernandes’ text conversation:
“He says things in a way that makes sense. He says nice things to you, and then he asks for money.”
He said, “I wanted to do well.” “He really took advantage of that.”
“I thought I had a friend.
Collin Feliz said that he thinks Fernandes used the fact that they were both Portuguese against them.
He said that they met at a wedding in 2019 and that afterward, a friend of both of them told Fernandos that Feliz could sing.
Bank records show that Feliz paid him $5,000 to help make five songs.
Feliz said, “It felt like I had a friend helping me through this.”
They got to know each other’s families, and he helped Fernandes out around the house.
Feliz said, “It was more like family than a friend.”
When Fernandes asked Feliz for money to help pay his bills, Feliz’s mother stepped in and gave him more than $4,000.
Feliz said that he and Fernandes only made one song together, but it was never put out. Fernandes told him and his mother that he would pay them back, but he never did.
Feliz said that he thinks Fernandes set up the whole friendship to make money.
“He seems to have been following this plan for years,” Feliz said.
In 2013, an artist management company filed a claim against Fernandes in Ontario Superior Court. The claim said that Fernandes was paid more than $60,000 to manage an up-and-coming artist and pay third parties, like a radio promoter and a music video director. The claim says Fernandes didn’t help the artist in any way and didn’t pay third parties in full.
Fernandes didn’t file a defense statement, so a judge made him pay more than $40,000 in fines. The court said that his money from shows and royalties should be taken.
Hundreds of fans left after Fernandes said they would get tattoos
Denise Arjoon-Singerman felt like everything was meant to be when she saw Fernandes offering tattoos on social media last summer. She was a fan and wanted to get a tattoo on the morning of her wedding to honor her late uncle, who was like a father to her.
She said she told Fernandes what the tattoo meant and when it would happen: that her uncle would be there and walk her down the aisle.
“He was all I had. Fernandos stole from me a special moment, “she told me.
Bank records show that she sent him a $100 deposit, but she says that he didn’t show up the morning of the wedding.
CBC talked to two other fans who also lost money to Fernandes when they got tattoos.
When CBC talked to artists and fans, they said they told their stories so that it wouldn’t happen to other people.
Fernandes told CBC that he is not saying, “I didn’t do those things, but if I was in my right mind, none of that would have happened.”
“I have nothing else to say to the people I’ve hurt or misled except that I’m sorry.”
He said that 10 years of drug use had hurt him, but he’s not a bad person, he’s just made some mistakes.
“I can’t change what happened by going back in time. I have no choice but to move on and try to get better.”