In Texas you can keep even an opulent mansion, but it has to be your primary residence, and you must make payments as they come due. And, from memory, I don't think the contents of the mansion are necessarily protected.

I also think you get to keep one car and the "tools of the trade", which in his case might be no more than pencil & paper.

In any case he didn't actually go bankrupt. If he did, and owed a lot of money, the creditors would no doubt do some digging, and the judge will have heard all of his excuses before.