You can call it what you want.
A scam.
A joke.
A headline.
A cautionary tale.
But let me tell you what it really was.
It was a story.
A story I believed in.
A story I built too fast, too messy, and too far beyond what I could realistically hold up.
And that story collapsed.
It didn’t con people.
It failed them.
And I failed with it.
This Isn’t Me Dodging Blame
Let me say it outright.
The Willy’s Chocolate Experience was a failure.
People felt let down.
Kids were disappointed.
Parents were furious.
And I was the one responsible.
I over-promised.
I misjudged the pressure I was under.
I underestimated the size of what I was building.
And I overestimated what I could control.
That’s not a scam.
That’s a person reaching too far and getting buried in what he built.
It Was a Dream Without a Skeleton
The truth is, I wanted to create something magical.
Something immersive.
Something unforgettable.
But I built it on vision, not on structure.
On urgency, not on planning.
On ambition, not on capacity.
And that’s where things went wrong.
Because dreams without infrastructure don’t fly.
They fall.
And when they fall on people, those people bleed.
That’s not just a creative failure.
That’s a moral one.
And that’s on me.
Why “Scam” Was Easier for the Public
Calling me a scammer gave people closure.
It made it clean.
It made the outrage easier to hold.
Because if I was a scammer,
then they were innocent.
Then it was all one-sided.
Then they didn’t have to feel confused about what had really happened.
But the truth is always messier than the headline.
I wasn’t tricking people.
I was trying to deliver something I wasn’t ready to deliver.
Not out of malice.
Out of blind belief.
I had no backup.
No margin for error.
And no plan B when it all went sideways.
What I’ve Learned
I don’t defend the failure.
I define it now.
I understand what real responsibility looks like.
It means not hiding behind the word “visionary”
when what people needed was someone reliable.
It means understanding that if you’re building an experience for the public,
you owe them more than imagination.
You owe them structure.
Clarity.
Safety.
Truth.
I know that now.
And I’m not forgetting it.
Final Word
I wasn’t a scam.
I was a man who created a story I couldn’t support.
And I let people walk into that story expecting magic.
What they got was something broken.
Something half-built.
Something I couldn’t take back.
I own that.
And I live with it.
But don’t mistake collapse for corruption.
Don’t confuse failure with deceit.
Because they’re not the same.
And the version of me you saw fall
is not the version of me that’s rebuilding now.
ZeroGPT
5.41%AI GPT*