Yup, so much for that. Just goes to show that even the GOAT's values are relative and negotiable.
TB12 was a big part of our lives for 20 years. IMO for the first decade or so, from what I could tell, he was all about the football. Then, as people such as Giselle and Alex Guerrero showed up in his life he was still all about football, but was also up for schemes that would let him cash in on his name in ways that showed his values indeed were/are relative and negotiable.
For instance, if he sincerely was all in on nutrition and the "TB12 Method", why charge so much for his freaking book? A guy of his wealth could have printed less fancy books and sold them at cost or even given them away, if the goal was to popularize his thoughts on nutrition. But nope, he priced them so only relatively well-off people could get their hands on his books, and the rest of his products were really expensive too.
I've thought of a bunch of words I'd use to describe the business side of Tom. I think swindler, grifter or con man are too harsh. A word search came up with:
venal dishonest corrupt dishonorable crooked shady unscrupulous unprincipled untrustworthy corruptible bribable unethical fraudulent dirty amoral immoral bent degenerate purchasable mercenary buyable grafting lawless
The word I'd go with is shady. Not unscrupulous, but pretty darn close to it.
His movie/documentary career to me is a textbook case of of
Steely Dan's Show Biz Kids.
Yet this is just my take. In today's world, anyone with celebrity status is expected to cash in on that status, even if that means being shady when you do so. Sincerity just isn't what it used to be.