Pras Michél of the Fugees on facing 22 years in prison: ‘I’m going to fight’

In a new interview, New Jersey’s Pras Michél speaks for the first time about his criminal conviction.
Last year, Michél was found guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. on 10 counts in a corruption case that linked him with $4.5 billion embezzled from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.
Now he’s facing 22 years in federal prison.
Michél, who founded the Fugees with Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean in South Orange in 1990, accepted an offer of $20 million from Malaysian financier Jho Low, the alleged figure behind the scandal. Low wanted a photograph with then-President Barack Obama.
“I know people like (Low) who legitimately have money, and they’re wild,” Michél, 52, tells Variety. “If they want something, they’re going to go through all means to get it because they have the resources to. People say, ‘People do crazy things,’ but they haven’t actually witnessed it. I’ve witnessed it.”
A jury convicted Michél, who grew up in Irvington, of violating campaign finance laws during Obama’s run for reelection in 2012 as well as illegally lobbying the Trump administration in 2017.
The government’s case painted the Fugees member as a Chinese spy.
“Technically, I’m a foreign agent,” Michél says in the interview.
“I like spy movies, but I never wanted to be a spy,” he says. “I don’t think that’s sexy. But a part of it felt like that.”
He also addresses the possibility of two decades of prison time.
“I’m going to fight, and I’m going to appeal, but there’s a possibility that I’m going in while I’m fighting,” Michél says. “It’s just the reality.”
This chapter in the Jersey celebrity’s life is set to be depicted in a documentary from director Ben Patterson that includes footage filmed by Michél, Variety reports.
Actor Idris Elba has also shown interest in obtaining Michél’s life rights for a potential onscreen narrative, according to the report.
Though the Fugees reunited and launched a reunion tour in 2023, Michél indicates that Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean have kept their distance from him.
“They’re going to Europe (to tour), I can’t go,” he says in the interview, since he’s on bail and can’t leave the country (which makes it difficult to see his 6-year-old daughter, who lives part-time in Italy). “It’s what it is. You can’t give people that kind of energy. So you could be frustrated, you could be disappointed, but I really believe in my path and in my journey, and I believe what’s mine, no one’s going to be able to take it away from me. So it’s better that you have a small group of people who really believe in you and believe in what you’re doing than to have 100 people around you, and the minute something happens — boom. People just disappear.”
At the time of the interview, Michél hadn’t yet filed a lawsuit against Hill, one she called “baseless.”
In his suit, filed Oct. 1, he accuses her of breach of contract and fraud after the premature end of the group’s 2023 reunion tour. He also slammed Hill for rejecting $5 million for the Fugees to play Coachella, saying she did so after learning No Doubt would get top billing instead of them.
The Fugees have two Grammys — best rap album for “The Score” (1996), which topped the Billboard 200, and best R&B performance by a duo or group with a vocal for “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”
Michél was also nominated for a Grammy for best rap performance for a duo or group for his 1998 song “Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)” featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Mýa.
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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at [email protected] and followed at @AmyKup.