The Hollywood Hills home where Kendall Jenner was both stalked and burgled back in March of 2017 is back on the market, and at a significantly higher price than the sum Jenner got. Jenner sold the house for $6.5 million in 2017. It was just listed for $8.5 million following an extensive renovation of the home.

Kendall Jenner isn’t the only celebrity to have called this house home. She bought it from married actors John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, who apparently did not suffer any major theft incidents while they were the property’s owners.

Kendall Jenner lost approximately $200,000 worth of jewelry in one heist. On another occasion an obsessed fan was arrested by police for hanging around the gate of the property, waiting for Jenner to get home.

These incidents aren’t mentioned in the home’s official marketing materials, of course. Here’s how the $8.5 million listing is being described:

“Located behind tall gates at the end of a long private gated driveway in one of the most sought after exclusive locations and best streets in the Hollywood Hills. This extraordinary architectural estate is perfect for those who require the utmost in privacy. Featuring incredible modern design, quality, and craftsmanship. Approximately 4,800 sf set amidst complete privacy and overlooking beautiful city views. Featuring soaring ceilings, great walls for art, incredible indoor and outdoor living perfect for large scale entertaining. Beautiful living room, gourmet kitchen opens to family room, formal dining, bar, theatre, recording studio, gym, and state-of-the-art details. There is an extremely luxurious master suite, stunning guest rooms, an amazing pool, and rooftop deck overlooking the city.”

Kendall Jenner came to believe the house was “jinxed” in some way, before eventually managing to sell it to its current owner anyway. The home has since been thoroughly renovated, but you can take a look at the home’s previous appearance in the video below from Beverly Hills Aerials:

Larry Xiangdong Chen had a great 2020. After the outbreak of COVID-19, the share price of his online tutoring company GSX Techedu (ticker symbol GOTU), surged. Unfortunately 2021 has been less positive for Larry. Not only has COVID retreated, allowing kids back in schools and away from online learning, but China has begun to crackdown on the online education sector in general. As a result, his company’s share price has fallen nearly 90% since the beginning of the year.

In February 2021, GOTU shares traded for $103. Today the share price sits at $16.

That drop shaved Larry’s net worth from an all-time peak of $16 billion to around $1.5 billion today. In other words, Larry has seen $14.5 billion wiped off his net worth in the last few months alone.

GSX Techedu is a Chinese education technology company offering online tutoring for K-12 students, through its online education platform Genshuixue. The company also offers foreign language and professional training courses for adults. It was an extremely popular and perfectly-timed service as COVID wreaked havoc on the world’s education system. As kids go back to the classroom it has become less useful.

Making matters worse, China’s President Xi Jinping has focused a new intense scrutiny on the education sector, claiming that after-school tutoring is negatively affecting children’s well-being. Techedu has shut down its pre-school education sector for children ages three to eight due to the Chinese government’s ban on kindergarten and private-tutoring schools engaging in elementary school curriculum. The company has had to fire nearly a third of its staff.

STR/AFP via Getty Images

Losing A Fortune

In early January, Chen’s net worth peaked at $16 billion.

In March, Techedu’s main investor, Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management collapsed, leading to a 56% drop in share price in one day. Further complicating matters, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Chen’s company after more than a dozen research reports revealed GSX may have inflated its projected revenue. The reports, it should be noted, come from firms that specialize in short selling.

Chen owns 44% of his company’s outstanding shares. The company went public in June 2019.

Chen comes from a small, poor Chinese village. He was a middle-school teacher until 1999 when he joined New Oriental Education and Technology Group. He rose through the ranks to become that firm’s executive president. He left in 2014 to found GSX Techedu.

From middle-school teacher to billionaire is still a great story! But perhaps not quite as exciting as middle-school teacher to $16 BILLIONAIRE ?

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, is inching along in its bankruptcy proceedings and in the multitude of lawsuits filed as a result of its allegedly aggressive opioid sales tactics. Prosecutors alleged that Purdue Pharma hired a consulting firm that pushed sales reps to target doctors they identified as “high prescribing.” One doctor allegedly wrote an additional 167 prescriptions for OxyContin after a sales rep made additional visits to their practice. Thousands of lawsuits were filed against Purdue Pharma by state attorney generals and others.

Government officials and public health officials place the blame for the U.S.’s opioid epidemic pretty much squarely on the proverbial shoulders of Purdue and its billionaire former owners, the Sackler family.

Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019 in reaction to the hundreds of lawsuits that had been filed against the company. There’s been more than a year of negotiations for Purdue’s bankruptcy plan. This week, a federal judge approved the plan, which brings the members of the Sackler family one step closer to not facing any personal liability for future lawsuits related to OxyContin.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The immunity from prosecution would apply to dozens of members of the Sackler family, more than 160 trusts, and at least 170 companies, consultants, and other businesses and entities tied to the Sacklers.

An attorney representing Purdue pointed out that due to the fact that the Sackler family is paying $4.275 billion in fines, they expect to be done with this chapter of their lives from this point on.

Purdue Pharma has pleaded guilty to federal crimes related to its opioid marketing schemes in the past, but no member of the Sackler family has ever faced criminal charges. They have continuously maintained their innocence. The Sacklers will pay the more than $4 billion fine and they have given up control of the family business as well. The Sacklers paid $225 million as part of their settlement with the DOJ while denying the allegations against them.

A number of government officials believe some members of the family were aware of the highly addictive nature of OxyContin but went ahead with the aggressive sales tactics anyway.

Despite the judge’s approval of the bankruptcy plan, 24 states oppose the deal because it will rob them of the ability to sue individual members of the family.

The approval isn’t the end of the road for Purdue, it’s merely a step in the process so that Purdue’s creditors can begin to recoup some money. Over the next several weeks, more than 600,000 state and local governments, companies, and individuals will vote on the bankruptcy package, which has been described as one of the most controversial and complicated bankruptcies in history.

If the plan is rejected, the situation could devolve into years of litigation that would cost claimants billions in legal fees.

Today is Allen Iverson’s 46th birthday. On this day in 9 years, Allen will finally inherit an infamous $32 million trust fund. The trust fund was established by Reebok back in 2001. The trust fund’s distribution date is June 7, 2030. Allen’s 55th birthday. How did this arrangement come to be? Was this actually a good financial move? Will Allen get the full trust, or does his ex-wife get half? Let’s look for The Answer.

Let’s start with that first question:

How Did The Trust Fund Get Set Up In The First Place?

Over 15 seasons in the NBA, Allen earned $155 million in NBA salary and roughly $50 – $100 million from endorsements. That brings his total career earnings up to $200 – $250 million. The vast majority of his endorsement income came from shoe company Reebok. Allen signed his first Reebok contract in 1996 right after the 76ers took him with the #1 pick of the NBA draft. That first contract was worth $50 million over 10 years, aka $5 million per year.

After winning the 2001 NBA MVP award, Allen and Reebok convened to talk about the future. Even though he still had 5 years left on that original deal, Reebok wanted to be in the Allen Iverson business forever.

So a new deal was struck. A very unique deal thanks to three important terms:

1) Allen would be paid $800,000 per year for the rest of his life.

2) Allen would continue earning $5-10 million per year for the remainder of his professional career.

3) Reebok would set aside $32 million in a trust fund for Allen to inherit on his 55th birthday, 29 years in the future at that point.

Getty Images

How Did The World Learn About The Trust Fund?

Despite earning $200 – $250 million during his career (before taxes), Allen was broke a few years after retiring.

How?

Well, throughout his career Iverson’s profligate spending was the stuff of legends, even by NBA standards.

Instead of maintaining a more-common 3-5 person NBA entourage, he was known to travel with an entourage of 50 people. He showered these same people with luxurious jewelry, expensive cars and exotic vacations. He showered himself with jewelry, cars, homes and vacations.

He was also a bad gambler in both senses of the word. He gambled a lot and was not particularly good at it. Iverson was known to drop over a million dollars gambling in single evenings in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Allen’s financial problems came to light after his wife Tawanna filed for divorce and demanded custody and full support for their five children. In a December 2012 court filing, Iverson told a judge that his monthly income was $62,500. Nice, right? Well, unfortunately his expenses were $360,000. Leaving him $300k in the hole every single month. An annual debt accumulation of $3.6 million. Here’s how the filing broke down some of Iverson’s expenses:

• $125,000 to cover various mortgage and creditor debts
• $10,000 on restaurants and entertainment
• $10,000 on groceries
• $10,000 on clothes

Tawanna knew Allen was cash poor today, but she also knew about the Reebok trust fund. So she petitioned for a judge to give her half of the $800,000 annual pension and half of the $32 million trust fund when it is distributed in 2030.

That’s how the world learned of the trust fund’s existence.

There’s actually some debate today over whether or not Allen and Tawanna ever fully divorced. I have been under the impression that they did get divorced and the fund was split. I pointed this out on this day last year in response to a tweet from sports writer Darren Rovell:

“Allen Iverson turns 45 today. Ten years from today, on his 55th birthday, he receives a $32 million trust fund as part of a the lifetime Reebok deal he signed in 2001.”

Here’s my twitter exchange with Rovell:

Interesting twist! So maybe Allen will get the full $32 million after all? But that begs another question…

Was The Trust Fund Actually A Wise Choice?

A lot of people look back on the trust fund today and call it a brilliant financial move. People also love to compare it to Bobby Bonilla’s famous multi-decade contract.

For those who are unfamiliar, in 1999 the Mets owed Bobby $5.9 million. They also wanted him off the team. To make a smooth exit, Bobby negotiated a deal where  he gave up that $5.9 million and instead would earn $29.8 million from the Mets in 25 annual installments. This is why the 57-year-old Bobby Bonilla will earn $1.2 million per year from the Mets until 2035 – when he will be 72.

Mets owner Fred Wilpon loved the deal because at the time he was one of Bernie Madoff’s biggest clients and was therefore used to earning double digit annual returns on his money. Over 25 years, $5.9 million invested with Madoff would grow into far more than the roughly $30 million they would pay out over time.

Obviously, that didn’t happen. As we all know now, Madoff was running a massive Ponzi scheme and those double-digit annual returns were totally fake. Wilpon personally lost a good chunk of his net worth from the scandal. He nearly lost the Mets.

Financially speaking, it also technically wasn’t a great deal for Bobby Bonilla. Had Bobby taken $5.9 million in 1999 and gotten a 5% annual return (which wouldn’t have been guaranteed), by 2035 he would have $34 million.

Similar arguments can be made with Iverson’s trust fund. Yes it’s nice for Allen to earn $800k a year with a huge retirement fund decades in the future, BUT consider this:

Had Allen gotten a 5% annual return on $32 million, by 2030 he would have $87 million.

If you think that’s unlikely or hard to achieve, between January 2001 and today, with dividends reinvested, the S&P has had an annual average return of 6%.

So had Allen invested $32 million in an S&P index fund in January 2001 AND reinvested all stock dividends, today his trust fund would be worth $102 million. If he maintained 6% for the next 10 years, by 2030 he would have $183 million. Far far far more than $32 million + $800k per year.

Bottom line though, hindsight makes us all amazing investors. Maybe this was the best deal for Allen personally? He gets a great annual income by any standard, while having a major windfall to look forward to in his golden years. Risk free. Doesn’t get much better than that!

In 14 seasons at Alabama, Nick Saban has amassed a 165-23 record. Along the way, he’s won seven SEC championships and six national titles. That record includes an undefeated 2020 season that ended with the College Football Playoff National Championship.

So, it’s safe to say Saban can stay with the Crimson Tide for as long as he pleases.

Alabama knows as much, too. The university just offered its coach a three-year contract extension. The new deal will keep him in Tuscaloosa through the 2028 season. If Saban sees the contract all the way through, he’ll be 77 when it concludes.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

The deal will pay Saban $8.425 million annually. He’ll also make $800,000 each season from 2022 through 2025. Add it all up and that’s $70.6 million over eight seasons.

Saban implied this contract will take him until retirement. Here’s what he said regarding the new deal.

“Terry and I are pleased and happy to sign another contract extension that will keep us in Tuscaloosa through the end of our career. Our family calls Tuscaloosa and the state of Alabama home, it’s a place where our roots now run deep. This agreement gives us the chance to continue to impact the lives of the young men and their families who choose to play football and get an education at Alabama.”

Of course, Saban’s massive deal once again highlights the ongoing controversy around paying college players. Alabama does have a terrific track record of getting players to the draft, but that’s only a dozen or so players in a given year. Everyone else will simply have the opportunity to contend for a national title on a regular basis, which is no small feat.

For his entire career, Saban has an all-time record of 256-65-1. Before arriving in Tuscaloosa, he had coached at Toledo, Michigan State, and LSU. He also won a title in 2003 with the Tigers.

It’s a safe bet he’ll win one or two more before he calls it a career.

Dawood Ibrahim is the leader of a crime ring known as D-Company. You probably have never heard of Dawood OR D-Company. And that’s kind of insane because D-Company is considered one of the most violent criminal organizations in the world. The syndicate has been linked to extortion, gun running, murder, and counterfeiting, among other heinous crimes.

He is currently wanted on charges of drug trafficking, terrorism, murder, extortion, money laundering, targeted killing, and more. He makes El Chapo look like a boy scout.

Dawood Ibrahim was named a global terrorist by both India and the U.S. in 2003 for his role in the 1993 Bombay bombings, which were responsible for 257 deaths and more than 1,400 injuries. Reportedly, after planting the bombs that decimated parts of the city, he fled for Karachi, Pakistan. He might still be there. Or not. No one knows. Despite his absence, his D-Company still runs Mumbai.

D-Company pushes drugs, pimps out women, skims money from businesses, extorts Bollywood stars, and fixes the results of cricket games. Through D-Company, Ibrahim backs militants terrorizing Kashmir and northern Nigeria. And all of this comes from a man who is the son of a police officer!

There have long been whispers that he was directly have been linked to Osama bin Laden.

There’s a $25 million reward for his capture. For a time he was #3 on the FBI’s list of the world’s 10 most wanted fugitives. Long story short, Dawood Ibrahim is a bad, bad, bad dude.

Dawood Ibrahim has been on the run for nearly three decades. His exact whereabouts are completely unknown.

I guess it’s easy to evade capture when you’ve got a net worth of…

$6.7 BILLION

STR/AFP via Getty Images

Where Did He Come From?

Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar was born in 1955 in Dongri –a poor neighborhood in central Mumbai which leans heavily Muslim in a city that is mostly Hindu. Dongri is tiny – just about the size of two soccer fields, but it is well known for the gangs that are born and simmer there.

Dawood and his brother Shabir did not follow in their law-abiding father’s footsteps. Instead, they started stealing, robbing people, and committing fraud as children. When Dawood was 19, he mugged a courier for a well-known Indian crime lord named Haji Mastan. That caper earned Dawood $200,000. His father took him to the police chief, who unknowingly set Dawood on the trajectory that would make him the most feared crime lord in Southeast Asia. The chief told him that instead of taking the law into his own hands, he could do it with the law by his side. The aspiring gangster then launched a war against Haji Mastan.

In 1981, hitmen for Mastan cornered Dawood and his brother. Shabir was killed. Dawood got away. By 1984, Dawood had exacted revenge for his brother on those three hitmen, having them killed. Haji Mastan packed up his gang and left Mumbai. D-Company grew throughout the 1980s to become the biggest mafia in India.

The Biggest Mafia In India

In the 1990s the tides changed somewhat. Suddenly Dawood and his network of gangsters, drug dealers, and assassins were no longer working with the law by their side. Mobsters were gunned down by the police by the hundreds. In 1991, D-Company mobsters were locked in a gun battle with Mumbai’s police on live TV. The following year, Dawood had one of his assassins execute a police officer in broad daylight.

The following year, 1993, the Bombay bombings occurred. Dawood and his D-Company had become a terrorist organization that brought the city of Mumbai and its 12 million residents to its knees.

Dawood was placed on the most-wanted lists of the FBI, Interpol, and other law enforcement agencies. Soon after the bombings Dawood left India for Pakistan.

A Billionaire Gangster In Hiding

Pakistan is likely giving Dawood refuge as a power play over India, its nearest neighbor. Pakistan and India are not exactly friendly allies.

Dawood isn’t getting a free ride. At some point he allegedly paid for his protection by bailing out Pakistan’s Central Bank with a huge cash infusion at a time of a banking crisis. He armed the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba in its battle to take control of Kashmir from India. Dawood has also lent money to Boko Haram, the notoriously violent terrorist group in northern Nigeria responsible for the death of more than 36,000 people since 2009.

Dawood is still inflicting violence in Mumbai from afar. Back in 2008, it is believed he smuggled members of the Lashkar into India to instigate a four-day siege of blasts and gunfire in Mumbai’s prominent Taj Mahal hotel that killed 31 people.

These days, D-Company is focusing on gambling and fixing cricket games. D-company members have been found to be bribing star players and issuing threats to other players so that they will throw games. According to one report, in 2018 D-Company fixed the outcome of two-thirds of all the cricket games in the world.

Dawood Ibrahim has never been caught – and it seems very unlikely that he ever will be. Thanks to his nearly limitless financial resources, he has been called “the most dangerous man in the world.”

Laurene Powell Jobs is best known as the widow of the late Apple founder, Steve Jobs. When Steve died in 2011, Laurene inherited around $10 billion. That transfer instantly made her one of the richest women in the world. Today she is worth around $22 billion.

Laurene Powell Jobs is a major philanthropist, advocate for education, art collector, professional sports team owner, and beekeeper. She’s also pledged not to hand down her $22 billion net worth to the three kids she had with Jobs.

Who is this impressive woman? And what are her plans for her $22 billion fortune?

Steve Jennings/Getty Images

Early Life and Meeting Steve

Laurene Powell was born November 3, 1963, in West Milford, Connecticut.

Powell Jobs earned a B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in political science and economics. After graduation, she worked for Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch on Wall Street in the mid-to-late 1980s. In 1989, she headed to Palo Alto, California where she enrolled at Stanford to earn an MBA.

One night, a friend asked Laurene to attend an event on campus that featured Steve Jobs as a speaker. She knew a little bit about Jobs, but in her mind she pictured more of a Bill Gates type.

At the time, Jobs was no longer running Apple. Instead he was the head of a new computer company he launched called NeXT. That did not impress Laurene, but her friend really wanted to go so she went along begrudgingly. They were late and attempted to sit in the aisle, but security quickly explained that was not an option. So Laurene and her friend slid into some empty reserved seats right in the front row of the lecture hall.

Before it was his turn to speak, Steve Jobs ended up sitting next to Laurene.

Steve and Laurene started chatting. She flirted with him by joking that she’d won a raffle and the prize was dinner with him. After the lecture, Jobs went looking for Laurene and found her in the parking lot. He asked her about the raffle. They exchanged phone numbers and set a date for dinner the following Saturday. Jobs was about to walk away to a business dinner with his colleagues from NeXT. He suddenly stopped, turned around, and asked Laurene if she wanted to go to dinner right then and there. She said yes and they headed to a restaurant in Palo Alto called Saint Michael’s Alley. Their first dinner date lasted four hours and they were together from that moment forward.

Steve and Laurene married on March 18, 1991, at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Their son Reed was born in September 1991. Daughters Erin and Eve were born in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Laurene is also stepmother to Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Steve’s daughter from a previous relationship.

For a time after earning her MBA, Laurene actually ran a health-food truck called Terravera. The food truck specialized in selling burritos with black bean dressing and basmati rice dishes to people in office parks around the Palo Alto area.

Inheriting A Fortune

Unfortunately Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011, of pancreatic cancer.

Laurene inherited his entire estate which was worth around $10 billion. Of that $10 billion, $8 billion came from shares in The Walt Disney Company. Only $2 billion came from Apple.

According to an SEC filing, in 2017 she sold a little less than half of her Disney stake, 64.3 million shares, for proceeds of $7 billion. Even after selling half her stake she still owned 4% of Disney’s total outstanding shares, around 74 million shares. She earns around $120 million in cash dividends every year from Disney (technically $60 million semi-annually). At today’s market price, 74 million shares of Apple are worth around $13 billion.

With her remaining Apple stake, today Laurene is worth around $22 billion. Her fortune has been as high as $28 billion (in late 2020) which made her one of the 35 richest people in the world. Today at $22 billion, she’s roughly #85.

Philanthropy and Other Endeavors

In 1997, Laurene and a partner founded the nonprofit foundation College Track, which helps low-income students get ready for college through mentoring and tutoring.

In 2004, she founded Emerson Collective, which makes grants that focus on education, immigration, and social justice.

In 2015, Powell Jobs donated $50 million to XQ: The Super School Project, which called on teams of teachers, students, community leaders, artists, and others to create high schools that foster dynamic learning, critical thinking, intellectual flexibility, collaboration, and other skills needed for the modern world. Powell Jobs stressed that today’s high school model was developed 100 years ago to produce factory workers. Today, we don’t need as many factory workers as we did back then and schools are failing a lot of students.

She has also been on the board of Teach for America, the New America Foundation, Conservation International, the Council on Foreign Relations, and on Stanford’s board of trustees.

In 2017, Powell Jobs bought a 20% stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the holding company that owns the Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals, and Capital One Arena, where both teams play. With that purchase, Powell Jobs became one of just four women with a sizable investment in an NBA franchise.

Giving Away The Fortune

Laurene has stated in numerous interviews that she does not plan on leaving her children with billions of dollars. She explained her feelings to the New York Times:

“I’m not interested in legacy wealth buildings, and my children know that. Steve wasn’t interested in that. If I live long enough, it ends with me.”

She told the Washington Post:

“I’m very aware of the fact that we’re all just passing through here. I feel like I’m hitting my stride now. It is my goal to effectively deploy resources. If there’s nothing left when I die, that’s just fine.

One night when Doris Duke was 10, her father leaned across the dinner table with a disturbing prediction that no child (honestly, no adult) should ever hear. James “Buck” Buchanan Duke bluntly informed his little girl that no one would ever truly love her. No matter what she did or where she moved, people would only love Doris for her money. It was a mantra he repeated constantly.

“Buck” Duke was the founder of the American Tobacco Company. Two years after delivering that horrible dinner table prediction, Buck was dead. He died on October 10, 1925 at the age of 68. Doris was 12 years old. She was just one month shy of her 13th birthday.

Upon Buck’s death, Doris inherited a $100 million trust fund. That inheritance instantly made Doris the second richest person in the world. She was 12. The only person on the planet with a larger fortune was John D. Rockefeller.

The media soon gave Dorris a nickname that stuck with her for life:

“The richest girl in the world”

And her inheritance didn’t stop with that $100 million. In 1962 Doris inherited an additional $250 million after her mother Nanaline died. In total, Doris was worth the equivalent of $3 billion before her 40th birthday.

And despite being hounded by reporters, suitors, and grifters, “the richest girl in the world” still managed to live a vibrant, wild, life. For better or worse, Doris spent a lifetime trying to disprove her father’s dour prediction about love and money.

Duke Ellington serenades heiress Doris Duke (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Marriages and Affairs

Doris married twice. In 1935, she married a gold-digging social climber named James Cromwell. Cromwell would soon use his wife’s money to finance an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate.

While they were married, Doris became pregnant. She secretly confided to friends that Cromwell wasn’t the father. The child was actually the product of an affair she had while on a cross-country train trip. “There was nothing else to do,” she told one friend. A daughter, Arden, was born prematurely and lived for just 24 hours. Doris and James Cromwell divorced in 1943.

She married again in 1947 to a diplomat from the Dominican Republic named Porfirio Rubirosa. There was one tiny obstacle before they got married. Porfirio was already married. According to legend, Doris was so head over heels for him that she offered his current wife $1 million to divorce him quickly. The offer was accepted. That would have been like being offered $12 million in today’s dollars.

Unfortunately, even after a $1 million bribe, this marriage only lasted a year. Rubirosa turned out to be a world-class womanizer who had dalliances with a number of famous women including Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford, Veronica Lake, Judy Garland, Eva Peron, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Fortunately, Doris had an iron-clad prenup.

However, it wasn’t his extramarital affairs that really dulled her affection for Rubirosa – it was the fact that after they divorced he married her arch-nemesis, Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton. Doris and Hutton were both born into wealthy Manhattan families within a week of each other and spent their entire lives in an a heated battle. Doris could claim a victory over her rival with Rubirosa though – his marriage to Hutton only lasted 53 days.

Doris had a number of high-profile affairs as well. Her lovers included Duke Kahanamoku, Errol Flynn, British politician Alec Cunningham-Reid, and General George Patton.

Extracurricular Activities

Doris dabbled in a number of interests and careers. She studied singing with one of the most renowned voice coaches of her day. She became a member of a gospel choir.

During World War II, she worked in a canteen for soldiers in Egypt for $1 a year. She had a short-lived career as a foreign correspondent, even moving to Paris to write for Harper’s Bazaar.

While living in Hawaii, Doris became the first non-Hawaiian woman to take up competitive surfing after learning from the best of the best, Duke Kahanamoku.

She was an animal lover and supported animal rights and conservation long before it was fashionable.

She cultivated rare and exotic flowers after learning to do so from Louis Bromfield, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and horticulturist.

Doris had a priceless art collection. She was especially passionate about Southeast Asian and Islamic art. The collection is on public display at her former estate in Hawaii, which is now the Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, and Design.

Here’s a video tour of the Hawaiian estate today:

Tragedy and Controversy

Doris Duke lived a wild and exciting life but it wasn’t without tragedy and scandal. In 1966, Eduardo Tirella, the curator of her art collections, told Doris he was quitting to pursue a career as a production designer in the film industry. He flew to Rough Point, Doris’ Newport, Rhode Island estate to pack his things and give her formal notice. The two were overheard having a heated argument by the estate’s staff just before they got into a station wagon to leave. According to Doris, Tirella drove the car down the driveway and stopped to get out and open the gates. He left the engine running. Doris moved over to the driver’s seat so she could pick Tirella up as they left her estate. As she was moving into the driver’s seat, she released the parking brake and accidentally hit the accelerator. The car sped forward and pinned Tirella between the station wagon and the gates. The gates soon gave way sending the car into a tree across the road and killing Tirella. Newport police ruled the death an accident. Tirella’s family sued Doris for wrongful death. They were awarded $75,000 — which was far less than they were seeking.

Here’s a Drone video of Rough Point:

Doris never married again after her second marriage failed. She never had children. But she did have deep, personal relationships with two people that would change the course of all of their lives.

Chandi Heffner

In 1984, Doris met a woman named Chandi Heffner in Hawaii. The two women developed a deep bond almost instantly.

For some reason, Doris actually came to believe that Chandi was the reincarnation of her daughter Arden. The two traveled the world together, enjoying Doris’ wealth. They spent time in Russia, went to Romania for “fountain of youth” treatments, shopped for a $25 million Boeing 737, and adopted two camels after Doris learned they were an endangered species. Chandi managed Doris’s staff and advised her on financial matters. They were inseparable and traveled between Doris’s huge New Jersey farm, her Newport, Rhode Island estate, and “Shangri-La,” her palatial property on Oahu, Hawaii.

Here’s where it gets weird: Doris adopted Chandi in 1988. Why is that weird? Chandi was 35 years old. She also reportedly promised to take care of Chandi in the manner she’d become accustomed to for the rest of her life and make her the executor of her will.

But something changed and Doris cut Chandi out of her life and her will in 1991.

Bernard Lafferty

Ironically, it was Chandi who brought the other significant relationship of Doris’ senior years into their lives when she recommended Bernard Lafferty as a butler. Bernard had formerly worked for Chandi’s sister Charlene who had recently married billionaire Nelson Peltz. Bernard was Irish and an orphan who emigrated to the U.S. when he was 35. Doris hired him as her butler in 1987. He endeared himself to Doris and became her closest confidant and constant companion.

Doris Duke died on October 28, 1993 at the age of 80. Upon her death Bernard was put in charge of the estate.

At the time of her death, Doris had a total net worth of $5.3 billion. This included her cash and investments, homes in New Jersey, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Beverly Hills, her jewelry, and her art collection, which in addition to her Southeast Asian and Islamic holdings, included works by Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, and Rembrandt. She had a collection of rare wine –more than 2,000 bottles valued at over $5 million.

According to the terms of her will, the vast majority of Doris’ fortune went to charity. Today the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation controls assets worth approximately $2 billion. The Foundation has already given away $1.84 billion in its roughly 30 years of existence.

Chandi was left $0.

Chandi sued the estate claiming she was owed a large amount of money as Doris’ legal daughter. Amazingly, a jury agreed. Chandi was awarded $65 million in 1995. Today, Chandi lives on a ranch Doris purchased for her in Hawaii. Bernard died in 1996 of a heart attack in his sleep in his $2.1 million Bel-Air home.

It’s not totally clear if Doris’ father was right or wrong when he predicted people would only love her for her money. Or at the very least, she never stopped trying to prove him wrong.

Furniture designer Michael Amini, 64, is not a minimalist. Not by a long shot. In fact, he’s known as the “King of Bling.” Amini was an unhappy electrical engineer. His dad, John, ran a company that made kidney dialysis machines in Tehran.

After earning a degree in electrical engineering at Cal State Long Beach, Michael and went to work designing circuits for a company in Brea, California. He was bored out of his mind. He wanted to design things that people could see and appreciate. So he started designing furniture. Really frilly, blingy, ornate furniture.

Today his company, Amini Innovation Corp., also known as Aico, is located in the Los Angeles suburb of Pico Rivera. The company sells its products in more than 3,000 stores in 80 countries. Amini’s products are not for those on an IKEA budget. The average price of a dining room table and chairs is $5,000 to $9,000 but can run as high as $20,000 or more.

Knowing this background about Amini will prepare you for the Newport Coast home he just put on the market for $69.8 million. Look, they don’t call him the King of Bling for nothing. His home makes Donald Trump’s gold-plated New York penthouse look kind of plain.

Amini’s home is a monument to excess. The seven-bedroom home looks like a Palladian European castle with columns, decorative balconies, ornamental detailing, and grand arches. The home is called, appropriately, the Palais de Cristal. Inside, surprising details reveal themselves, such as a garage with its own sound system and smoke machine, enabling it to quickly convert into a nightclub complete with a rotating dance floor.

The home’s entry features a floor mosaic made out of Jordanian marble with an inlay of pink onyx. Looking towards the ceiling, light streams through the glass dome, with an “Eye of Phoenix,” a Swarovski crystal-encrusted eye at the center of the dome. Staircases made of handcrafted iron with 24-carat gold detailing descend on either side of the foyer and were inspired by Paris’ Peninsula hotel.

Clearly, Amini sees interior design as a fashion statement. He designed many of his home’s unusual amenities. The chandelier in the dining room, for example, is made out of 36 crystal vases. The door handles throughout the mansion were imported from Italy and are coated in 24-carat gold. The basement contains a theatre with an LED constellation on the ceiling, a bar made out of green glass tiles, a glass pool table, and a gym. The office has maple and brass cabinets.

The 15,500 square foot estate overlooks the Pacific ocean and also has a large family room, a spa with a wet and dry sauna and a massage room. The house also features an elevator. For the pool, he brought in specialists from England who had worked with Middle Eastern royalty to create the tile mural at the bottom of the pool. The mural features underwater scenes at both sunrise and sunset.

Amini bought the undeveloped land where the home stands today in 2007 for $5.1 million. He had to temporarily postpone the project when the global financial crisis hit in 2008. He really got going on construction in 2013. He only recently finished the home and though he originally planned for this to be his home, in the time it took to finish, his children grew up and moved out. So the house is just too big for just Michael and his wife. He is selling the house fully furnished.

The $69.8 million price tag is not too far-fetched for the area, especially since it comes fully furnished—even if those furnishings are tailored to a very specific design aesthetic. Last year, author Dean Koontz sold his home in Orange County, California for $50 million. A house on the same street as Amini’s sold earlier this year for $41 million.