SBF Tells Tucker Carlson of 'Dystopian' Prison Life

"Strange bedfellows" just took on a whole new meaning, thanks to a prison interview with none other than Sam Bankman-Fried. The disgraced founder of the bankrupt FTX crypto exchange popped up Thursday for a video chat with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who questioned the 33-year-old inmate on his life behind bars. SBF is currently serving a 25-year sentence at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn for defrauding customers, notes TMZ. Among the nuggets that piqued listeners' interest most: SBF's detailing of how he gets along with one of his cellmates, rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs, who's awaiting a May trial on racketeering and sex trafficking charges. Some takeaways from the interview, per the Hill and Business Insider:

• In general: "It's sort of dystopian," Bankman-Fried conceded of the two years or so he's been incarcerated. "The fortunate thing, the place I'm in ... I'm not in physical danger." He says staff is "trying to be helpful ... and "do what they can, given the constraints. But, you know, no one wants to be in prison."

• Diddy: "He's been kind," Bankman-Fried noted of Combs, both to himself and other inmates. "It's a position no one wants to be in. Obviously, he doesn't, I don't," SBF said, calling prison "a soul-crushing place." He added: "What we see are just the people that are around us on the inside rather than who we are on the outside."
• The 'muffin economy': SBF revealed that he hoards muffins when they show up on the menu, as they're a desired trading item. In terms of what he eats, however, he said he tends to stick to ramen noodles and rice and beans.
• Free time: SBF said he whiles away his days catching up on some novels and "[working] on my legal case to the extent I can." He also plays chess, noting of his competitors: "Former armed robbers who don't speak English and probably didn't graduate middle school—a surprising number of them are, like, fairly good" at the game.
• His 'children': Bankman-Fried doesn't have any of his own (that we know of), but he said he's always considered the folks who worked for FTX as such. "For five years, I felt like I had about 300 children," he told Carlson. "Obviously, I couldn't be a father ... to all of them. But I felt responsible for them." He acknowledged, however, that not one of those 300 had come to see him behind bars.
• Future: SBF anticipates that by the time he's released, he'll be in his late 40s, unless he gets an earlier pardon. "When Carlson asked whether he thinks he'll make it that long, the ex-crypto mogul said he didn't know," notes Business Insider.

(More Sam Bankman-Fried stories.)