♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight, taylor's ticket disaster. ♪ bad blood ♪ >> the bad blood between swifties and ticketmaster. >> i'm going back on tour. >> from anticipation -- >> god, please! >> to epic meltdowns. >> the ticket selection has been released. >> millions unable to get tickets. >> it was just gone. that was a very hard reality to accept. >> the newly launched investigations into who's to blame. >> does any part of you blame taylor? plus crypto meltdown. >> honestly, if i look back on myself -- i think i got a little cocky. >> george stephanopoulos goes one on one with sam bankman-fried, the man at the center of the ftx implosion. >> i can't imagine what it goes

like from $20 billion to $100,000. >> yeah. >> boom to bust, facing multiple investigations. world aids day. ♪ >> beyonce shouts out her uncle johnny in the song "heated." the superstar's mother tina knowles lawson sharing their story and their heartache. ♪ uncle johnny made my dress ♪ ♪ that cheap spandex she looks a mess ♪ then own it support your immune system with a potent blend of nutrients and emerge your best every day with emergen-c

♪ good evening. thank you for joining us. ticketmaster is feeling the wrath of taylor swift fans after the ticketing giant was unable to meet the unprecedented demand for tickets to her first concert tour since 2018. their outrage sparking investigations and renewing calls to break up the powerful entertainment company. here's abc's ashan singh. >> take me to day one of the presale day. did you even get a code? >> yes, so i did get a code. >> what went wrong? >> everything. mine crashed immediately. >> trying hard to keep my morale high. >> then it finally pops up and loads, and it does the "there's 2,000 plus people in front of you." >> what's going through your head at this point?

>> i'm kind of panicked. >> first there was the anticipation. when the queue opened up to finally buy tickets for taylor swift's upcoming stadium tour -- >> no, what just happened? >> reporter: her fans, the swifties, went from freaking out -- >> are you joking? >> what? >> reporter: to melting down. >> the tickets you have selected have been released. >> the line has stopped moving. fully crashed. >> i waited in line. for like six hours. >> reporter: now ticketmaster, the company responsible for selling these tickets, is facing increased scrutiny with fans and government officials demanding answers on what many claim are unfair practices. all that chaos twigered by taylor swift's november 1st announcement. >> i finally get to tell you, i'm going back on tour. >> reporter: her big news came just days after she dropped her record-breaking album "midnight."

>> i finally get to tell you, i'm going back on tour. >> reporter: her big news came just days after she dropped her record-breaking album "midnight." which filled all top ten spots on the billboard charts with inescapable hits like "anti-hero." >> it's me hi i'm the problem it's me ♪ >> reporter: this will be the first time taylor's hit the road since her 2018 "reputation" stadium tour. ♪ now we got bad blood ♪ >> reporter: featured in the netflix movie of the same name. >> people are really just hungry to see taylor swift perform live. >> her fans are incredibly devoted. they're incredibly passionate. and that is to her credit. when she says she cares about her fans, we're talking about an artist who literally has baked them cookies. >> people have not been able to see the artists that they've wanted to see perform because of the pandemic. major artists are announcing tours. people have to figure this out and get it together. >> reporter: the swifties took it to a whole other level of

demand. so one of the biggest frustrations about this ticket sale is taylor swift fans were led to believe that they specifically had multiple avenues to be able to secure tickets to the tour. so we're right outside columbus, ohio, to link up with superfan nicole hallberg who says she checked all those boxes. let's see if she was able to get tickets. i'm looking at your desk over here. it looks a bit more like a taylor shrine than a desk. >> i would say that is correct. i mean, we have everything. even water bottles. >> it's 11:30, and my line hasn't moved in an hour. >> reporter: like many fans, nicole wasn't able to get a ticket during the fan presale, but she had a capital 1 credit card which let her get into another special presale one day later. >> i started with the cincinnati show, couldn't get tickets. i tried arizona, l.a., seattle, i tried chicago. i mean, i must have went to probably eight different cities. >> reporter: and then ticketmaster canceled the

general sale. nicole's last chance at tickets. due to, quote, insufficient remaining ticket inventory. >> it was just gone. like, and that was a very hard reality to accept. >> does any part of you blame taylor? >> you can't look at taylor and say that she's just the artist, she doesn't have control. she is taylor the businesswoman, she's taylor the corporation. >> i'm so upset right now because i was in line for taylor swift tickets. >> reporter: as more fans lost out on tickets, they started looking for someone or something to blame. >> this was a terrible experience. i'm really disappointed. >> reporter: and a lot of them looked at ticketmaster. >> all of these things were preventible. >> reporter: days following the incident, taylor put out a statement on her instagram story. never naming ticketmaster but writing in part, "i'm not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand, and we were assured they could." adding in reference to her fans,

"it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them." representatives for ticketmaster, though, said there was no way to prepare for all these buyers. on cnbc's "squawk on the street," ceo of liberty media, a majority stakeholder in ticketmaster, said -- >> all the live nation team is sympathetic, the long wait times and fans that couldn't get what they wanted. the site was supposed to be opened up for 1.5 million verified taylor swift fans. we had 14 million people hit the site, including bots. we could have filled 900 stadiums. >> everybody knew going in there weren't going to be enough tickets for all the buyers. what people wanted was a fair process where they felt like they at least had the opportunity to get them. >> reporter: two weeks after tickets went on sale, we still don't have any idea how many are left or if they'll go back on sale. >> because people have this personal connection with taylor, and because individuals who want to resell the tickets to the people who want to go out to the shows, that's why we have this

particular problem. >> reporter: ticketmaster does have a tool to try to slow down the ticket resale market called dynamic pricing. >> the idea behind dynamic pricing is to match the real market value of the tickets. so if a particular artist is exceptionally popular, the tickets are priced a little bit higher right away. because there's an algorithm that recognizes that tickets that might otherwise cost, say, $100 could theoretically be sold on the secondary market for $1,000 or maybe two or three times that. so dynamic pricing allows the artist to capture this revenue herself rather than simply see someone who's sitting in front of a computer, has nothing to do with the show, contributes nothing artistically, make that profit by buying the ticket and then reselling it. >> reporter: there's been speculation that taylor was

using dynamic pricing this tour. but for the first time, her team is speaking out. a spokesperson told impact exclusively that, "taylor chose not to use and will not use dynamic or platinum pricing on taylor swift "the heiress" tour. over the years ticketmaster has only gotten more powerful especially after a merger with mega promoter live nation. >> when you have this monopoly power, when you have no competition, it discourages innovation, degrades quality, produces higher prices. all those things which are harmful to consumers and the quality of life that my constituents live and the quality of life of people across this country. >> reporter: according to yale school of management, ticketmaster currently controls over 70% of the market for ticketing and live events. >> you have the world's largest concert promoter that owns the world's largest ticketing company, that also has a management group with about 100 managers and 450 of the world's

best-known and most-talented artists. and this same company owns and operates venues. to a lot of people, this looks very much like a vertical monopoly. >> reporter: "the new york times" is reporting the justice department is actually already looking into the company. they've been asking around for months about whether ticketmaster engages in monopolistic practices. >> ticketmaster has a hugely dominant market position, so we're looking at this from a consumer protection and anti-trust perspective. >> reporter: even jonathan scrametti, attorney general of taylor's home state, is investigating the issue. >> the concern is there's huge incentive for people to game this system. tickets in the tens of thousands of dollars appear to be somewhat common and there's huge markup here. where people have that incentive, we have to be awfully careful to make sure there's nobody putting a thumb on the scales and getting a cut of that. >> reporter: ticketmaster's parent company live nation defended itself in a november

19th statement, live nation takes its responsibilities under the anti-trust laws seriously and does not engage in behaviors that would require it to alter fundamental business practices. they also said it has a significant share of the primary ticketing services market because of the large gap that exists between the quality of the ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system. that ticketmaster continues to be a leader is a testament to the platform and those who operate it, not to anti-competitive business practices. >> you can't call this the straw that broke the camel's back because the camel was broken. what happened was all of a sudden, a bunch of kids saw the camel in pain. and that's not good. >> what i do know is, ticketmaster or whomever else has to figure out how to solve this before beyonce announces her tour. because if you think the swifties are bad, the bey-hive, you don't want to mess with the bey-hive. >> our thanks to ashan. and stream "impact" by

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♪ ftx was the crypto boom headliner. the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange, sam bankman-fried, hailed as a boy wonder, the face of its success. now he's at the center of an implosion with reports of over

$1 billion vanishing, allegations of fraud. he spoke with abc's george stephanopoulos in his first broadcast interview. >> a lot of people look at you and see bernie madoff. >> yeah. i mean, i don't think that's who i am at all. but i understand why they're saying that. people lost money. and people lost a lot of money. and, i mean -- at the end of the day, look -- there's a question of what happened and why, what caused the meltdown. and i think that reads very differently, right? when you look at the classic bernie madoff story, there was no real business there. the whole thing was just one big ponzi scheme, right? ftx, that was a real business. >> reporter: he was at the top of the cryptocurrency world. 30-year-old billionaire sam bankman-fried. >> you just need ftx. >> ftx, a safe and easy way to get into crypto.

>> yeah, i don't think so. >> super bowl ads. named stadiums. steph curry, gisele bundchen. >> we did a lot of things to try and bolster our reputation, to try and, you know, help our brand. >> reporter: in the early morning hours of november 11th, it all came to an end. when ftx filed for bankruptcy and bankman-fried stepped down as ceo amid reports of ftx customer funds being used to pay alameda research creditors. this confirmed by former alameda ceo caroline ellison during an early november meeting with employees. alameda, the crypto trading firm also founded by bankman-fried. abc reached out to caroline ellison for comment but has not heard back. >> one of the reasons ftx went bankrupt is because ftx deposits were used to pay alameda's creditors. caroline ellison said you knew about that. is that true? >> you know, best i can tell, alameda did have a big position open on ftx.

that position i think was, you know, very overcollateralized a year ago. there is a total market collapse, and you know, specifically a large correlated collapse in its assets over the last month. to some extent, over the last year. that threatened that position quite a bit. and i think that's, you know, as best i understand, a lot of what happened there. >> i am no cryptocurrency expert, i'm no finance expert. but i don't think you answered my question. i asked you, did you know that ftx deposits were used to pay off alameda creditors? >> uh -- i don't know of ftx deposits being used to pay off alameda creditors. are you -- i -- which creditors are you referring to? >> caroline ellison said that you all knew that these funds were used -- were put into alameda, they were the funds

owned by your depositors. >> so -- i can't speak for who knew what. a lot of the customers on ftx did have, you know, borrowers either in dollars or bitcoin or euros -- >> this is really a yes-or-no question. caroline ellison says you knew that ftx funds were being funneled to alameda. did you know that? >> i knew that there is an open margin position there and that involved -- >> i know, but that's not what i'm asking. if she's in court and you're in court and she's under oath and you're under oath -- >> yep. >> and you're asked, "did you know that these funds were being funneled to alameda?" what is your answer? >> i did not know that there's any improper use of customer funds. >> you also took out a $1 billion loan. what was that for? >> that was generally for reinvesting in the company. that was not for, you know, consumption. you know.

i expect i'm going to have nothing at the end of this. i think i have $100,000 left in my bank account, last i checked. >> earlier this summer you thought you had $32 billion? >> yeah, probably 20. >> i can't imagine what it feels like to go from $20 billion to $100,000. >> yeah. it's -- i mean -- it's been a really -- it's been a really humbling fall in a lot of ways. >> are you worried about going to jail? >> there are a lot of things that are worrying me right now. and, you know -- as best as possible, i'm trying to focus on what i can do going forward to be helpful. and, you know, let whatever, you know, regulatory and legal processes are happening play out as they will. >> you can watch more of george's interview with bankman-fried tomorrow on "gma." coming up, world aids day. beyonce's mother sharing the heartbreaking story of her nephew.

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♪ finally tonight, we end with world aids day.

beyonce's family, like millions around the world, remembering a loved one on this day. the superstar introduced fans to her uncle johnny in the song "heated" from her latest hit album. tonight her mother, tina knowles-lawson, shares her memories and the family's despair. here's my "nightline" coanchor juju chang. >> johnny was my best friend growing up. johnny was a light. johnny was the funniest person in the whole world. >> reporter: miss tina knowles-lawson, mom to one of the world's most famous women, beyonce. that's her uncle johnny to the right. miss tina is transported back in time, remembering her nephew johnny. but the two were close in age, almost like siblings, finding a common bond in their love for fashion. >> we were designers, we were hairstylists, makeup artists, we had a ball together. he made me laugh more than anybody else that i've ever seen in my life.

i found out that johnny had aids through him being hospitalized. and i went to see him. we had no forewarning. >> reporter: that diagnosis, devastating to the entire family, who considered johnny their centerpiece. >> i want to dedicate this award to my uncle johnny. the most fabulous gay man i've ever known, ever known. >> our thanks to juju. you can watch the full special "viral: a world without aids" on "abc news live," also available to stream tomorrow on hulu. thanks for the company, america. good night.