think about when you asked him about sharon osbourne. take a minute. s sued him for using the name ozy and in return he said i'm going to give you some shares in my business. he then went out and said oh, i consider them investors. they're not investors. craig, that is like if today stephanie ruhle started a business and i said to elon musk and jeff bezos, i'm going to give you shares and tomorrow i went out and said guess who is waccing my business? well then all sorts of other potential investors might say if warren buffett backs it, so will i. sharon osbourne built a major media business, and it looks like she backed him. he knows all sort of people. the fact they have that call with goldman sachs and make a youtube executive, you have investors who might say i'm a traditional investor, i don't know about the kids and the youtube, but if he's getting th investment. now he's been exposed. >> this announcement this morning they are going to continue operations, is he going to be able to raise money now? >> craig, you said to him who is backing you? who

in a 2019 interview watson told cnbc that sharon osbourne was an investor in the company. look >> fun fact, our friend ozzy and sharon sued us briefly >> did they? >> and then we decided to be friends and now they're investors in ozy >> investors is that right? that's not true either according tosharon osbourne. she tells cnbc it's all a lie. our brian schwartz is here he's the one that spoke with sharon osbourne and broke that story. the accusations and the lies just piling up it all just crumbled >> if all crumbled today after a crazy week of news involving ozy media and carlos watson. and really this has been going on with these stories. one of them as you mentioned we kind of figured out by just going back and looking at the tape and then of course "the new york times" mentioning a bunch of other really kind of blatant lies here involving ozy media and their ceo carlos watson among other executives really when you think about it. >> could these media executives be in big err why trouble? >> well, i think they could. after we wrote the story i reached out to two or three

you know why you should invest sharon osbourne is investing in ozy.going to try to continue this company and keep going. >> yeah. and it will be tough as you said, joe, we'll have to regain trust. >> the investors apparently have left the company ron conway effectively said i'm giving back the shares. >> i need you, andrew, as sophisticated you are about this stuff, you know we raise millions of dollars of capital so for you to bandy about ron conway -- >> it's the first time i mentioned his name. >> today, but you mentioned it before, in the last week for you to keep bandying that about, that's not accurate that's what i said before, joe, about the things that are misleading i'm sorry to see him go. he's a terrific investor. >> why did they abandon the company? if things are as good -- mark lazzeri defended you, that he thought this was real, dealt with appropriately, you know, 72 hours later, he's gone why? tell us about that. >> i can't speak to that except to say it's heartbreaking. i'm a big fan of mark's. i've been lucky to get a chance to work

sharon osbourne last week on cnbc said she's never met carlos watson what's true there? sued us over the name ozy fest. the agreement was that we were going to give her shares in the company. and the way i think about it, i think the way a lot of people think about it, if you own shares in a company, you're an investors. and let's be clear i'm not going to raise money by telling sophisticated people that sharon osbourne is an investor so i think i said that clearly in the cases there, but, again, craig, what i want to say is the last couple of days gave a lot of people the chance to take cheap shots. that's not to say there aren't things to do better. we need to do better on data, we need to do better on marketing >> let's talk about data for a second have you ever paid for digital traffic? >> like everyone, 100% this is such a good conversation to get into. because guess who else pays? nbc. nbc advertises on ozy. nbc advertises -- >> not to get into the weeds here one of the knocks in the last few days is ozy has spent millions of dollars buying content that pops up tha