Actor Michael Sheen has purchased £1 million ($1.3 million) worth of his neighbors’ debts and erased them, using £100,000 ($129,000) from his own funds.
Sheen, known for his performances in “The Queen,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Masters of Sex,” and “Good Omens,” began his “debt heist” two years ago. His goal was twofold: to support 900 individuals in his native South Wales and to highlight the dangers of a debt industry that imposes exorbitant interest rates on short-term loans.
His initiative is the focus of a new documentary, “Michael Sheen’s One Million Pound Giveaway,” airing Monday on British TV station Channel 4. In the program, Sheen explores the complicated financial mechanisms of the debt market, showing how he managed to acquire debt valued at ten times the amount of money he invested.
“People’s debts get put into bundles and then debt-buying companies can buy those bundles and then they can sell it on to another debt-buying company at a lower price so … the people who own the debt can sell it for less and less money,” he said during an interview on BBC TV’s “The One Show” last week.
“I was able to set up a company and for £100,000 of my own money, buy £1 million of debt because it had come down in value like that.”
Sheen mentioned that he doesn’t know who exactly benefited from the debt relief—only that they reside in and around Port Talbot, his hometown, a region deeply affected by the decline of its steel industry.
“It couldn’t be more real, like, how much people are hurting,” he says in a scene from the documentary, seated in a Port Talbot café, recounting how waitresses told him about steelworkers breaking down in tears at their tables, grieving the loss of their jobs.
Sheen has long advocated for stronger regulation of the UK’s credit system, having founded the End High Cost Credit Alliance in 2017.
As part of his broader campaign tied to the documentary, Sheen is also urging the British government to enact a Fair Banking Act. The legislation would aim to increase fair lending access for low-income individuals, lessening their dependence on payday lenders and loan sharks.
