Editor’s commentary: When I see a headline like this, I immediately think that whoever the woman is, she’s just after his money. Why else would anyone want to be with a vile 92-year-old man who has (and continues to) actively worked to brainwash Americans into believing lies, which in turn divides us and creates hate.
But on a lighter note…yachts. Who needs a yacht that can carry hundreds of people. Especially when, I just recently learned, a $230 million yacht caused hundreds of thousands if not a million a month to maintain and insure! Okay, let Tim tell you more about ‘ol Rupert and his “boat.”
When I tell people about our package on American oligarchy at Mother Jones, everyone wants to know about the yachts.
As I wrote in an essay for the magazine, these gleaming vessels have come to symbolize both the decadence and detachment of Russia’s ultra-wealthy and our own. And they are full of some absolutely ridiculous shit: submarines and helicopter hangars, sculptures of spouses preening off the bow, climbing walls, anti-paparazzi lasers, drone-detection systems, gold-leaf ceilings, IMAX theaters. The former owner of Tottenham Hotspur installed a padel court on the yacht where he used to conduct his business deals. (Are you familiar with padel? It’s sort of like pickleball for people who do insider trading.)
But there’s one yacht that I’ve come to think of as sort of the yacht of yachts. The Christina O is not the biggest superyacht in the world; at 325 feet, it is a full 265 feet shorter than the royal family of Abu Dhabi’s pleasure craft, Azzam. But the Christina O is unsurpassed in both its rich-guy history and rich-guy taste. It was built for Aristotle Onassis in the 1950s, played host to Jackie Kennedy, and served as Grace Kelly’s wedding venue when she married the Prince of Monaco. It also had a swimming pool that turned into a dance floor and bar stools made out of whale foreskins, so that Onassis could tell women that they were “sitting on the largest penis in the world.” The dance floor became a recurring feature in the industry; the seats, as far as I know, did not.
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