Savannah James’ comments about flying first class while her best friend flies business have turned into one of the biggest money debates online this week. Underneath it is a question a lot of people have lived: when one friend gets rich and the other doesn’t, should the rich friend be upgrading the other one’s life?
The conversation started on Boardroom’s Mental Wealth podcast. On the Sept. 28 episode, Savannah James and April McDaniel, her friend of 15 years and partner on the Everybody’s Crazy podcast, sat down with Boardroom CEO Rich Kleiman and Jack Howard, head of Money Wellness at Ally Bank. Howard asked how money plays into their friendship.
“We talk about this a lot because there’s two different lifestyles that exist. Like we’re not delusional to that. And I think Savannah has accommodated where I’m at,” said McDaniel, who owns the creative agency Crown + Conquer. “If we’re going on the same trip, I don’t feel the need to be in first [class] because that’s not in my budget.”
McDaniel recalled a flight where Savannah sat in first while she sat in business. She said people got upset when she walked up to first class just to watch a movie with her friend. “They were like offended and I was like why? I can’t afford first,” she said.
Savannah James made it clear nobody in her circle expects her to cover them. “My friends are very respectful of my situation,” she said. “There’s no expectation of like taking care of something or, you know, just having me be responsible for them. It has never ever been that.”
Once the clip spread, the story picked up a detail that was never true. Viral posts said Savannah put her friend in coach, but McDaniel flies business. Critics still went straight to the math. LeBron James became the first active NBA player to reach billionaire status in 2022, and Forbes puts his fortune at $1.4 billion. “What’s the point of being a WAG if your friends gotta ride in the back?” X user @EveryBodyHateKrissy wrote. Radio host Craig Carton questioned on his show whether Savannah James is really being a good friend.
Brandon Jennings was not having it. “If you can’t afford first class or certain things when you around your rich friends and you feel entitled that they should pay. Ur a certified moocher. Savannah James ain’t wrong,” the former NBA guard posted on X. When people read that as a shot at McDaniel, he followed up to say his statement was aimed at the internet. “She works for Savannah James as a business partner I’m sure she can afford her own first class ticket she’s literally sitting up there with Patek Phillipe watch on,” he wrote. “She just felt like saving that day lol.”
Jennings has lived the other side of this. In a 2024 interview on Above The Rim with DH12, he said friends and family constantly asking for money was one of the reasons he walked away from basketball. “Once basketball becomes a job and people look at you as a job… ATM, then it kind of gets depressing, I mean no matter who you are,” he said.
Savannah’s real life friends have stepped in too. Celebrity stylist Casey “iCON” Billingsley posted on X that critics don’t know “her heart, her intentions or the actual dynamic of anything.” He then shared photos from a trip for Savannah’s birthday with McDaniel and others, adding “real ones know the rest.” Comedian Shuler King called McDaniel smart for staying in her budget. “Ain’t nobody entitled to nobody else’s money,” he said.
The bigger question is about day ones. These are the friends who were there when everybody was broke, who split the meal, rode in the same raggedy car, and believed in you before anybody else did. When one of you comes up and the other doesn’t, does that history earn a seat in first?
NBA players have been wrestling with that for decades. Kevin Durant said on Boardroom Talks this summer that players want to take care of everyone because they know they’re the breadwinner, but the hands never stop reaching. “You got to say no. And I think that’s one of the hardest things to do when you get in this position, especially coming from not having this stuff,” Durant said.
Nick Young said the cost of carrying people sneaks up on players once the checks stop. “That [expletive] add up when you’re not playing, and the bills start coming like, ‘Damn, hold on, I was paying this?'” he said. Allen Iverson, who made $154 million in his career, has said he quit drinking partly because friends took advantage of how generous he was. Antoine Walker lost much of the $110 million he earned, in part through real estate deals with a childhood friend who did not know the business.
Fetty Wap’s story shows another way it can go. The rapper said he handed his first $1 million, paid in two checks of $500,000, to the friend who put up the money to get his career started, keeping a promise he made before he blew up. The two no longer speak. “I didn’t have to do nothing but it’s just being loyal,” Fetty said.
Then there is the LeBron model. LeBron James came into the league surrounded by childhood friends Maverick Carter, Rich Paul and Randy Mims, and he was criticized for it. Instead of carrying them, he built a business with them. Paul went on to run Klutch Sports, and Carter became LeBron’s partner at SpringHill. “I’ve tried to put my guys in position to where they can walk in a meeting and go places and they don’t need me,” LeBron said in 2016. Drake did a version of it too, giving Toronto friends titles like creative director so he could put them on the payroll.
McDaniel is already living that model. Her agency has produced events for SpringHill, and she is Savannah James’ partner on a podcast with its own audience. She is not sitting in business class because her friend forgot about her. She is sitting there because she pays her own way and plans trips around her own budget, and by her own account the friendship has room for that.
So should your rich friend upgrade your life? A gift is a gift, and nobody is owed one. Day ones who were there before the money did earn something, though, and it usually looks less like a plane ticket and more like a door opened, a referral made, or a seat at the table where the money gets made. The upgrade that lasts is the one that means your friend never has to ask.
