Latest / Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald / The Modeling Pyramid: Predatory Agencies, Cindy Crawford, and St. Bart’s Secrets

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The Modeling Pyramid: Predatory Agencies, Cindy Crawford, and St. Bart’s Secrets · Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald

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  Speaker 1: Itching.
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  Speaker 3: Heather MacDonald has got the Juicy Scoop.
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  Speaker 2: She talks Hollywood tales for real life.
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  Speaker 2: Fast to the number one tabloid real life podcast.
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  Speaker 4: Listen in, listen up.
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  Speaker 1: Woo, woo.
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  Speaker 4: Heather MacDonald.
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  Speaker 1: Juicy Scoop.
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  Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to Juicy Scoop. I'm so excited about
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: today's show. We have a real juicy, best-selling author of
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: the kind of books that we absolutely love. Welcome, Michael Gross.
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  Speaker 4: To Juicy Scoop.
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  Speaker 5: Hi, Heather. Great to be with you.
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  Speaker 3: I'm very excited for your next book, the book that's
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  Speaker 3: out now, because everybody always either wants to go to St.
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  Speaker 3: Bart's or has been or wonders it or remembers reading
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  Speaker 3: about it in tabloids and all the stars and billionaires
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  Speaker 3: that have gone there, which is the title of your
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  Speaker 3: new book, Treasured Island, the Story of St. Bart's, and
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  Speaker 3: it's Barbarians, Billionaires, and Beauties. What a great subtitle.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you.
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  Speaker 3: So before we get into that book, though, I have
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  Speaker 3: this other bestselling, New York Times bestselling book of yours, Model,
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  Speaker 3: which is all about just the ruthless business of the
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  Speaker 3: top modeling agencies in New York and Europe, What years
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  Speaker 3: was that book kind of chronicling?
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  Speaker 1: Well, the book came out 31 years ago. But it
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  Speaker 1: covers the business from its invention in the 1920s straight
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  Speaker 1: through in the copy that you're holding, it goes through 1994.
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  Speaker 1: So through the height of the supermodels. Then there have
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: been a series of updates. And so the current version
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  Speaker 1: that you can buy on Amazon, goes through 2011 and
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  Speaker 1: actually has the name Jeffrey Epstein.
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  Speaker 3: So you cover some of that. I know there's been
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  Speaker 3: so many legit models that also got sucked into that
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  Speaker 3: world unknowingly.
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  Speaker 4: So does it cover some of that?
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  Speaker 1: You know, Cindy Crawford told me that when she first
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  Speaker 1: went to Milan, which was a hotbed of sleazy guys
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  Speaker 1: trying to dive into the pants of models, both to
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  Speaker 1: get their money and to get other things, Um, she
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  Speaker 1: was never harassed and she said that she always thought
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  Speaker 1: that it was because some girls just had that thing
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  Speaker 1: where it said this one don't touch.
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  Speaker 5: She's worth too much money.
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  Speaker 1: So yes, uh, you know, lots of models right now,
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  Speaker 1: just the other day, Carrie Otis, who was a pretty
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  Speaker 1: top model in the mid nineties filed a new lawsuit
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  Speaker 1: against the guy who used to run elite models in Paris.
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  Speaker 1: and it was on behalf of, she's trying to do
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  Speaker 1: a class action suit because the statute of limitations has
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  Speaker 1: run out on this guy. His name is Gérald Marie,
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  Speaker 1: and he's one of the main characters in the book model.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the reason I have the book is because, I
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  Speaker 3: don't know how many years ago it was, maybe like
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  Speaker 3: 10 years ago, my agent called me and was like,
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  Speaker 3: this guy wants to meet you to maybe collaborate I
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  Speaker 3: don't know if they had the rights to your book
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: or to try to do like a television series. And
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: so reading it and I just gave, it didn't really
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: go past more than just like a meeting. I don't
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: know what happened with it, but I was like, oh
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  Speaker 3: my God, this would make such a great television show.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: And being that it would be like, you know, that
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: time of 80s, 90s and like what it was like,
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  Speaker 3: he wanted to do a show kind of about the
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  Speaker 3: main character modeling people that were a couple that then
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  Speaker 3: both ran their agencies. And how many times did that
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  Speaker 3: come about, being the author, that people wanted to try
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  Speaker 3: to make your book a series?
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  Speaker 1: Well, model, so there's a process called optioning, and that's
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: where a producer or a star takes an option. They
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  Speaker 1: give you a little bit of money to take the
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  Speaker 1: book off the market, and then they try to put
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  Speaker 1: it together and make it into a movie or a
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  Speaker 1: TV show. Model has been optioned. five or six times.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: It went to script twice. Once it was the next
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: thing that ABC was going to do as its movie
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: of the week, and there was a regime change at ABC,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and it died a sad.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: And horrible death.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And then there was another one quite recently that almost
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  Speaker 1: made it, but finally just didn't make it. So we're
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: still waiting for Model the Movie.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like it's going to happen. I
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  Speaker 3: feel like this appearance on.
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  Speaker 4: Juicy Scoop is going to be the tipping point. No,
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: I really do think it could be great.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: And I think there's such a yearning for that nostalgia,
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  Speaker 3: that period of time, especially with younger viewers that are like, oh,
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: what was life like before cell phones and social media?
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  Speaker 3: And there were real models and it wasn't just Instagram
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  Speaker 3: and influencers, and they want to jump back and escape
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  Speaker 3: to that era. So I think it would make a
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  Speaker 3: great series.
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  Speaker 1: And the heart of the book is really that moment
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  Speaker 1: in the 70s and 80s when models emerged as real
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  Speaker 1: celebrities instead of just niche celebrities. And that's precisely the
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  Speaker 1: movie that really ought to be made. People have tried
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  Speaker 1: and bad ones have been made, but no one's ever
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  Speaker 1: done one that got close to the truth.
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  Speaker 4: What exactly is the truth?
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  Speaker 3: Because I guess someone that, you know, is maybe their
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  Speaker 3: age or a little bit younger, you know, of course,
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  Speaker 3: everybody wanted to be a real model when I was
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  Speaker 3: in my all-girl Catholic high school. And there was like
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  Speaker 3: the cheesy, what.
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  Speaker 4: Was the guy's name?
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  Speaker 3: He had like a modeling school. It's like escaping me
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  Speaker 3: right now.
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  Speaker 5: Johnny Casablancas.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: That was one of them. I think there was another one,
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  Speaker 4: but that was one.
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  Speaker 3: And you could take a course and the first course
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  Speaker 3: is like etiquette. And then the next course is like
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  Speaker 3: actually putting outfits together. Then the third course is like
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  Speaker 3: having a little fashion show. And then the fourth course
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  Speaker 3: is expensive because you're actually going to get real headshots
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  Speaker 3: done with a professional photographer. And you've got to take
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  Speaker 3: the loop and pick out your thing. And so many
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  Speaker 3: girls were doing it thinking, oh, maybe I could be
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  Speaker 3: a model. And even like So many models were in
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  Speaker 3: music videos and stuff. So that was just like, oh,
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  Speaker 3: let me put on some black nylons and a tiny
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  Speaker 3: black dress and just a red lip and slick back
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  Speaker 3: my hair and look real chic. But back then it
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  Speaker 3: was so about you had to be tall enough. And
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  Speaker 3: if any girl tried to say she wanted to be
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  Speaker 3: a model and she was under, you know, five, eight
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  Speaker 3: and a half, everyone would be like, good luck, loser.
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  Speaker 3: Like you're never going to make it. Like it's, it
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  Speaker 3: was such a different, time than today. When you look
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  Speaker 3: at like modeling and fashion and what drives someone being
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  Speaker 3: on the cover of a magazine, what is your point
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  Speaker 3: of view or perspective?
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know, what the book is really about is
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  Speaker 1: think about modeling as a pyramid and everything that you're
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  Speaker 1: just talking about is the very bottom of the pyramid
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  Speaker 1: where there's someone who's a checkout working behind the checkout
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  Speaker 1: counter at Walmart in the middle of Iowa and wants
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  Speaker 1: to be a model. then as you ascend up the
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  Speaker 1: pyramid to the very top, that's the dirty part of
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  Speaker 1: the business because there's a terrible elimination contest that goes on.
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  Speaker 1: And I always said that only a very few models
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  Speaker 1: can dance on the head of the pin of the industry.
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  Speaker 1: And obviously they're the stars. And by the way, as
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  Speaker 1: far as height goes, Kate Moss can say, hey, take
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  Speaker 1: that because she changed that. It's very, very difficult to
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  Speaker 1: get to the top of that pyramid. And a lot
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  Speaker 1: of horrible things can happen on the way up. And
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  Speaker 1: the business is structured in such a way that the
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  Speaker 1: predators are living at the bottom. And at the top,
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  Speaker 1: there are girls like Cindy Crawford who just were untouchables
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  Speaker 1: and still are.
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  Speaker 5: And that continues to this day.
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  Speaker 3: And with someone like a Cindy Crawford, I also feel
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  Speaker 3: like her... Her story was one, just like anybody that
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  Speaker 3: unfortunately is more susceptible to be a victim, oftentimes is
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  Speaker 3: someone that doesn't have that family support, maybe didn't have the,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the strong kind of confidence in the home
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  Speaker 3: coming up. And the predator seeks those more vulnerable souls out.
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  Speaker 3: And they have a talent for it. And then there's
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  Speaker 3: certain people that were, like she said, in the same room,
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  Speaker 3: also talented, but just, I think she was just very
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  Speaker 3: lucky in that she came from this nice family. She,
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  Speaker 3: you know, had gone to some schooling and had pursued
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  Speaker 3: it and just, and again, went kind of up the ranks. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: she skyrocketed, but she, it wasn't so plucked out and just...
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  Speaker 3: you know, no support, no mom, nothing. She had all that.
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  Speaker 3: And so I think that that's really interesting of like,
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  Speaker 3: and how difficult it must've been like for a mom
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  Speaker 3: to let their like 15 year old daughter go to
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  Speaker 3: Italy or Japan. But then you're looking at all these
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  Speaker 3: super successful other models and you're like, well, if I
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  Speaker 3: don't let my daughter go, then she could miss out
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  Speaker 3: on this time just like a professional sports player. Like
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  Speaker 3: you have that small window to make it. And if
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  Speaker 3: you don't make it by 22, good luck.
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  Speaker 1: In the summer of, I think it was 1988 or 1989,
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  Speaker 1: two 15, 16-year-old girls arrived in Paris. One was Stephanie Seymour,
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  Speaker 1: who came without her mother, and the other was Christy Turlington,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: who came with her mother. Christy Turlington was taken by
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  Speaker 1: the Ford agency, which was run on a kind of
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  Speaker 1: maternal basis. And Stephanie Seymour signed with Elite, which was
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  Speaker 1: Johnny Casablancas' agency, which was run on a kind of
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  Speaker 1: predatory basis. And Christy Turlington ended up happily married with
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  Speaker 1: a college degree, kids, runs a charity, is still a
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  Speaker 1: working model. And Stephanie Seymour ended up with Absol Rose
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  Speaker 1: and then Warren Beatty and then God knows who else.
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  Speaker 1: And married to a guy who'd been in jail and
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  Speaker 1: is rarely heard from anymore. So I think that what
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  Speaker 1: you're saying holds true. You know, it's not just heredity.
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  Speaker 1: It's not what you're born with, although that's important. It's
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  Speaker 1: not just environment, which is whether you come from a
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  Speaker 1: good family or not, because lots of top models have
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  Speaker 1: come from messed up families. But it's also what you
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  Speaker 1: have inside and your strength of character and your desire
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  Speaker 1: to succeed, which are two different things that are sometimes
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  Speaker 1: in opposition and sometimes work together.
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  Speaker 5: And those are the ones who, the ones.
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  Speaker 1: Where it all works together, heredity, environment, and everything that's
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  Speaker 1: inside are the ones who become huge moneymakers and famous models.
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  Speaker 1: And they're the ones who end up on St. Bart's
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  Speaker 1: shooting the St. Bart's, shooting the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
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  Speaker 6: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: So let's talk about that because, you know, Sports Illustrated
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: has been in the news this year With the fashion
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  Speaker 3: show in the last few years, they've really expanded from
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  Speaker 3: what we knew it as, as just the top models
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: got it, who was going to get the cover. and
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: then you'd watch the whole filming of the shoot where
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: they'd go to a specific place like St.
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  Speaker 4: Bart's and do the whole thing.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: And we got to see how it worked, how they
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: pose them, who the different photographers were. And it was
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: really entertaining to kind of watch as a young girl
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: that just, you know, had just loved seeing beautiful places
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  Speaker 3: with beautiful women in it. How cutthroat was that to
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: try to make the Sports Illustrated back then between St.
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  Speaker 3: Bart's and modeling and all of it?
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  Speaker 1: Well, I don't really think it was cutthroat at all.
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  Speaker 1: It was a wonderful woman named Julie Campbell who ran
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  Speaker 1: the Sports Illustrated issues. And at that time, there was
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  Speaker 1: one photographer. His name was Walter Hughes Jr. And he
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  Speaker 1: was a lovely man who I actually knew when I
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: was like five, six years old because he had started
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  Speaker 1: out as a sports photographer.
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  Speaker 5: And my father was a sports columnist.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: But, you know, I think with Sports Illustrated, you have
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the exact same fundamental question as you have with St.
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: Bart's, the island. Now, how can an island and a
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: sports magazine be alike?
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  Speaker 1: Well, because they're both in a way brands and they
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: both have to figure out ways to negotiate the path
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: into the future.
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: And St.
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  Speaker 1: Bart's started out as a rock in the ocean that
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: nobody loved and became the destination, the place to go.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: where Sports Illustrated would go to shoot its swimsuit issue
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: because it was, in 1989, the year Sports Illustrated went there,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the hottest.
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: Island in the world.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And then it only got hotter, just like Sports Illustrated did,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: for years and years and years. But now the magazine
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: business is in decline and Sports Illustrated is in trouble,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: like all magazines are in trouble. And I was a
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: magazine writer for decades, so I certainly, I lived through this.
• 14:08
  Speaker 6: St.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Bart's, in the same way, has become so popular that
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: success has become its enemy. Will success kill Sports Illustrated?
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Will success kill St.
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: Barts?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And the underlying issue in my new book, Treasured Island,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: is how does an island like that survive, not just survive,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: but continue to succeed and continue to be the sort
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of product it is at its peak? How do you
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: maintain that? And it's a very difficult balancing act.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: So let's talk a little bit about your background as
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: a writer and then also your interest in putting you
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: in this place where you could write with such great
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: knowledge of these kind of people, whether they're supermodels or
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: billionaires or both.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit about that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: As I said, my father was a sports writer. He
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: worked for the New York Post. back in the old
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: days when newspapers were important too. Planning on rewarding your
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• 15:41
  Speaker 6: I'm Darman, and this is What Happens Next. Each week
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: on the show, I sit down with extraordinary people who
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: have faced tremendous setbacks and yet somehow have found a
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: way to turn them into their greatest strengths.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Life is one long lesson of chaos.
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: I'm heading to the Emmys, and I have police complaints
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: filed against me.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: When your free will was about to be taken from you,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: what would you do if it was given back?
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: Where did that need come from where you thought that
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: you had to succeed in order to feel loved?
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: He said, I have a work dad.
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: I need a home dad.
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: What happens next?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: When I came in, he started crying.
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: Everybody in life encounters hardships. What defines them is not
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: those hard moments that they go through. It's about what
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: happens next.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I decided to risk it all.
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  Speaker 4: I realized how valuable every day was. You're worth the work.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Listen, Dara, I'm not going to pull punches.
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  Speaker 4: You can use your voice even if it shakes.
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: The stories are different, but the impact is the same.
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: Only one question matters. What happens next?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And so I grew up in Yankee Stadium and Shea
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Stadium and Madison Square Garden.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: My father covered the Knicks, go Knicks.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: And, you know, I have a Knicks championship ring back
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: in my jewelry box from 1970 when the Knicks won
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the championship for the second to last time, although maybe
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: they'll win again this year. And the thing was that
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: when I was growing up, sports was something to be
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: obsessed with. But for people my age, rock and roll
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: was something even more to.
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: Be obsessed with. And so I was obsessed with rock
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: and roll.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And I started writing for rock magazines and newspapers about
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: rock stars. And for 10 years I did that.
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: I went on the road. I traveled with bands. I
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: wrote about bands. And one of the things that you.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Noticed was that fashion models gravitated to rock stars. And
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: rock stars gravitated to fashion. And so I started getting
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: interested in the world of fashion. And after about 10
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: years of rock and roll, I'd had enough.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: I needed a change. And I started writing about fashion photography.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And it was partly Cherche La Femme. I liked pretty girls.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I liked pretty women. Curiously, I almost immediately got married
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: to a fashion designer. But I had then a 10-year
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: run of covering the fashion world, going to Milan, going
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: to Paris, going to London, going to the shows in
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: New York, sitting in the front row at shows. And
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: who did you sit next to if you were in
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the front rows of shows? The wife of the billionaire,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: the princess this, the countess that. And so you also
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: become fascinated with the people who are sitting around you
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and who you have access to. And so I slowly
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: evolved into writing about rich people, celebrated people, not movie stars,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: because I'd already had my 10-year run of writing about stars,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and it was getting a little tired for me. But...
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the people who were richer than the stars, maybe less famous,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: but more important in many ways. And I had a
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: good tenure run at New York, first at the New
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: York Times and then at New York Magazine, writing about
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: all of that.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: During that time, I started writing for travel magazines.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And what I wrote about were the places where rich
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and famous people went.
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: And that was how I first encountered St. Barts.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I started going there myself in about 1989 or 1990.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And it became my go-to destination for my vacations. And
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't go Christmas week when all the billionaires were
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: there because I wanted a week off, not another week on.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to go to the beach and see
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Calvin Klein coming out of the surf. I wanted to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: go to the beach and be left alone. So I
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: did that for 10 years. And then as the magazine
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: business started to decline after 1995 or so, I started
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: writing books.
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: I wrote Models.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: And then from there, I segued into writing books that
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: were social histories that looked at the relationship between rich
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: people and real estate and what their choices in real
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: estate told you about the upper classes and about the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: world we live in. So I wrote a book about
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a apartment building in New York called 740 Park that
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: was very old school New York wealth and how the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: old school New York wealth evolved. Then I wrote a
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: book about Los Angeles called Unreal Estate that was about
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: how Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills evolved over 50,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: 75 years. Then I wrote a book about a condo
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: building in New York and the book was called House
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of Outrageous Fortune and it was about 15 Central Park West,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: which was full of all of the international oligarchs and
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: hedge funders and private equity people, the kind of people
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: who have no relationship with the world in which they live.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: They helicopter in, helicopter out, have private security, live in
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: a bubble, sort of the Jeff Bezos's of the world.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: And then I was looking for a next book and
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I thought, well, where does Jeff Bezos go on vacation?
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: To the same place that I've gone for almost 40 years, St. Barts.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: Okay, a couple of questions. It's fascinating.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: When you're writing about these people and you're sitting in
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: the front row of the fashion and the And that's
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: really interesting that they, of course, the billionaire's wife is
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: going to be invited because she's the top customer and
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: she's going to wear these clothes.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: And she's way more.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Important to the fashion brand than some chick that's going to,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: you know, hope to get the outfit for free and
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: wear it on the red carpet, you know? When you're
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: meeting these people, did you try to ingratiate yourself? So
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: they're like, oh, Michael, come on our yacht with us.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: Let's hang out.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: How did that work? Because you were like writing about them.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Did they want you to write about them? Did they
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: did it make you nervous? Did it make them nervous
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: that that you were, in fact, you know, a writer?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, when I was covering rock and roll
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and I was in my 20s, I kind of had
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: this fantasy that I would be their friend and you're
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: not their friend.
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: They live in a different world than you.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And I pretty quickly came to understand that there was
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: a there was a divide that I could ride in
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the limousine, but it wasn't my limousine. And I vowed
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: that I was not going to become the kind of
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: person who did whatever it took to get invited into
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: somebody else's limousine. So when I started writing about fashion,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't do that kind of work. I wrote about
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the real story. I wrote about how things ticked, what
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: really made a fashion brand. And, you know, there were
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: times when that really annoyed people. Calvin Klein canceled $ 5
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: million in advertising in New York Magazine because of a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: story I wrote about him. Christian Lacroix banned me from his...
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: What did you write that he didn't like? Well, it
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: was a 9,000-word profile. So there was a lot that
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: he didn't like in there. And, you know, the funny
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: thing is I never said he was gay. But there
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: was a picture on the cover of him and his wife, Kelly.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: And maybe there.
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: Was a subtle message underneath all of that.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: But... I wrote about Christian Lacroix and I simply said
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: that his second collection wasn't very good and I was
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: banned from his fashion shows. So, you know, you discover
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: that a lot of these people have very thin skin.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: And what they count on is that there are so-called
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: journalists out there who think of their job as ingratiation,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: who are lapdogs. And I kind of decided to position
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: myself opposite that and become a terrier. If you put
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: a bone in my mouth of a story, I wasn't
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: going to let it go. And it wasn't a great
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: way to make friends. And in fact, I did make friends.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I made friends with lots of the people in the
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: worlds that I covered. But the way that I kind
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of sum them up is they're people who got the junk.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: They understood that it was all a game and it
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: was a game with journalists and that there was this
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: continuum between terriers and lapdogs and that you could work
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: with somebody. And sometimes you had to bite the hand
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: that feeds you. And as a great, great editor once said,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: And if you do that, they'll feed you some more.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And it really is true. And, you know, I found
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that if I didn't want, care about being invited, I
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: would be invited. And when I wasn't invited, I could
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: just get the story anyway. So that was how I,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: that was how I handled it.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: In writing about them, whether it was in the newspapers, magazines,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: or in your books, did did sometimes did you say
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: who they were and other times kind of, you know,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: make it that someone could figure it out, but you
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: don't say their actual name. How do you work that
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: as far as not getting, you know, someone coming after
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: you for defamation or whatever?
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Well, I've been threatened and, you know, lawyers don't scare me. Um,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: and I've been threatened by some pretty scary people. So, um, But,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I did write a gossip column once for
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: about four months.
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: I hated it. I hated myself.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I hated waking up in the morning and looking in
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the mirror. I hated what I was doing. And I
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: did write blind items. You know, guess who this is?
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: And I hated doing that. No, what I do is
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I write real stories about real people and I use
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: real names. And, you know, that might be why some
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: people didn't get the joke.
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: But that allowed me to write books that connected with
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the audience. I don't write for the people I write about.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I write for the people who read my books. And
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: what's great is that by the time I started writing
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: these books about real estate, and I've done four now
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: with the St. Bart's book, people respected what I did
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: and they understood that I was putting their accomplishments into perspective.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And if that meant describing them as the saying goes,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: warts and all, it still was a way of saying,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: look at how important this person is. Look at how
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: successful this person is. And so by the time I
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: got to the later books and especially Treasured Island, there
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: were people who were thanking me for writing it because
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: they realized that if somebody like me who asked the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: right questions didn't write that book, then the story of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: the island was going to vanish and die with the.
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: People who created it. the St.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Barts that we have today. And that it was really
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: important that that story be told. And you can only
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: do that if you're willing to tell the truth.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: So I happened to St. Barts once.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: I took the scary, you know, the little scary jumper
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: plane that everyone talks about.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: I was very lucky.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: My husband and I were guests on our friend's yacht
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: that was docked there. We never took the big yacht out,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: but we stayed on the big the big yacht that
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: had a staff. And then we would take the very
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: nice Tinder out to snorkel and went to dinner and
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: danced on the tables and went out at night and,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: and walked around the fancy shops and the more charming
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: shops and took.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: The Moki around and all of that.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: And we didn't go at the high tide time, like
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: the Christmas time we went around Easter. So it was
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: still very nice weather, but some days like rained and, um,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: And it was interesting then, which was about three or
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: four years ago, where, yeah, three years ago, where we
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: were talking about, you know, they made sure that like
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: there wasn't a place for any kind of big boat
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: to come in so that, you know, or it's very
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: restricted of like how big or what level of hotel
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: and stuff would be there because they didn't want it
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: to be accessible to everybody. They really wanted to keep
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: it at a level that you had to be pretty
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: darn rich to stay there, get there, go to restaurants there,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: find a hotel room.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Is that correct?
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, but you're talking about two different things. The
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: harbor only accommodates a certain length of boat. So when
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: David Geffen comes, he has to park his boat outside
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the harbor because it just can't get in. And even
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: though there are slips for super yachts in the marina there,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: There's not room for the really, really, really big boats.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: So Roman Abramovich, Paul Allen, David Geffen, they have to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: tender in from outside the harbor. So that's one limitation,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: but that's a natural limitation. That harbor has been, the
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: reason why St. Barts is St. Barts is because of
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: that harbor. It was a free port going back to
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the 17th century. In the 16th century, pirates operated out
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of that harbor. The original name was the Caranage. And
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Caranage is where boats are repaired. So that's a physical
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: fact of St. Barts, and it was a huge advantage
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: that it had that harbor. As the island began to develop,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: there was a very conscious decision made that hotels would
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: be limited, that they would, originally, they had to be
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: 12 rooms or fewer, nothing larger. And so what they
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: did was, very consciously, they created an island where There's
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: an intimate scale. There are no concrete box hotels. There
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: are no beaches full of hotel, hotel, hotel, hotel, with
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: people selling garbage on the beach. And all of those
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: things contributed to the island that you visited three or
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: four years ago, which is very different from the island
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: that I visited 35 years ago, because it's the same
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: French island. It's got the same style of life. It's
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: got the same savoir-faire. It's got the same croissant, the same,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: you know, duck confit. But back then, there were no
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: palace hotels. There were no glass and marble villas. The
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: villas were made of mahogany antique. The hotels were small, intimate,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and charming. They were very luxurious even then. but it
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: was all on a much smaller scale. Everything was also
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: far less expensive then, even though it was probably the
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: most expensive island in the Caribbean. There was a hotel
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: called Tijuana where the owner would rather keep the rooms
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: empty and have no one staying there than rent to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the wrong kind of people. They were consciously trying to,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and I hate this word, curate the kind of people
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: who came to the island to ensure that it kept
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: this very lofty luxury image. And over the years, more
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: investment came and the DNA of the island didn't change,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: but the outward expression of it did. And so now
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: there are palace hotels and they're kind of snooty and
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: there are stores that really very few people would shop in. And,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of those billionaires, they expect to
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: get the clothes for free because they're billionaires. So they
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: don't even shop. I mean, I know one billionaire guy
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: who has a gigantic yacht who I, he told me
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: he was going to St. Barts and I offered to
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: recommend some restaurants. And he said, why would I want
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: a list of restaurants? And I said, because St. Barts
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: is famous for its food. And he said, I have
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: a shop on my boat. My chef is better than theirs.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: So there's that kind of billionaire attitude of you bring
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: it with you. And what's interesting is that these people
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: tend to come Christmas week when they can rub shoulders
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and butt chests with.
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: Others of their ilk.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And they're all engaged in this gigantic who's is bigger.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: And I'm talking about their wallets and their boats, not
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: anything else, not their short stubby fingers. And, um, um,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: So there's that society in St.
• 31:27
  Speaker 6: Bart's.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: And then there's the society that you encountered going Easter week.
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: I was there just the week before Easter this year.
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: It's quieter.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: There's still David Geffen's yacht was still there. The richest
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: man in Israel's yacht was still there. But there wasn't
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: this constant game of I'm more important than you are
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: going on. And you can also, the great thing about St.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Bart's is it depends on the St. Bart's you want
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: to see. Because the people who go to the dance
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: on table restaurants, they're getting drunk at three o'clock in
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: the morning. They're not getting up at 7 a.m. and
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: they're not on the beach at 9 a.m. and they
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: don't know which beaches are great for swimming. They probably
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: don't swim. They probably sink from the weight of their wallet.
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: So, and they go to.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Their restaurants, but there are other restaurants that the people
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: who love the old style St. Barts go to. So
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: there's this, it's like a multi-layer cake. And you can
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: choose your layer. And then you can, if you want,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: go visit the top layer and have some caviar and
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: have some foie gras, dance on a table, and then
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: go back to the real St.
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: Barts the next day.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: And so now, how do you see it today? Like,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: is it too many influencers, so many places, whether it's
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: a restaurant that has a great frozen yogurt in New
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: York City to... a bagel place to an actual vacation
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: spot where influencers would go and film it and make
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: people aware.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: And now it's like, I got to go there. I
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: don't care how much it costs.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: I just got to go there once, get these photos.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: And it's really, isn't the, the vibe that it was in.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: Of yesteryear.
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: Do you find that?
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, there are, you know, I have, I have an
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Instagram account and, And when I started promoting my book,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: one of the things that I put up on there
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: was a picture of eight influencers on the beach at
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: a beach called Anse de Galette in St. Barts at
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: a day club called Shalona. And they were all primping
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and posing in their little metallic bikinis and with their
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: selfie sticks. And I did put up a post making
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: fun of the influencers. And the great thing is that
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: while they're looking at themselves and at each other, all
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: you have to do is turn your head. And you
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: can look out at sea and see what St. Bart's
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: is really about. As opposed to, look, I'm here. You know,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I have never cared about the frozen yogurt place that
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: people line up for. That whole culture, you know, I
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: spent 10 years covering that culture for the New York Times.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: And it was a job and I got paid for it.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And the notion that this is what our society has
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: become is.
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: Fascinating one.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: And the one thing that I am willing to guarantee
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: is that the culture will move on. This too is
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: reaching the saturation point. And at some point, people are
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: going to start looking out to sea instead of at
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: themselves in their cell phones.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, even my own life with social media, you know,
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: it is such a great tool to for someone like me,
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: who's a comedian, who is responsible for getting her own opportunities,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: own ads, own jobs, all that stuff.
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: It's extremely valuable.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: But I have looked back on vacations in the recent
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: years and been like, I was too, there's like an
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: anxiety where you're like, I got to take these photos.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: I've got to take this content because it's so beautiful.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: I got to get it.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Then I was like, okay, I got to get it.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: But then I won't post it till I'm home or,
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: you know, in my room or whatever so that I
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: can enjoy the experience. Now I'm going on a trip
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: next week to these Bahama Islands. And I'm so excited
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: because I love, I do love swimming in the ocean. I,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: you know, but now I'm in a place where I'm like,
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: I'm going to bring one carry on.
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: That's it. I want to just enjoy it. I'm fine
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: taking it.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: I'm not bringing bags and shoes that match because that
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: takes up a lot of room. I'm ready to just
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: really experience the beauty and have the fun. And I
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: don't care to have to show it off. Now, you know,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: someone would be like, really Heather, you just came to
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: that now, like at your age. But I do think
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: that eventually people do get to that place where it's like,
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: it feels like work. You know, I went on this
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: one vacation and it I didn't want people to know
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: I was there because we had planned it and it was,
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: there was bad things happening in the world.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: So I didn't want to look clueless posting this great time,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: you know?
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: So we took photos and I, and I never posted it,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: but it was like, it wasn't a great vacation because
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: I was stressed about the things going on in the world,
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: but it made it so nice just to be like,
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: oh my God, you know, take maybe one, One morning
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: photo and one when you're cute to go out to dinner.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: And like, that's it. Like to be filming it all
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: around and stuff. It's you do get to a place
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: where you're like, I'm not living in this moment. And
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: I don't now even remember it.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the one of my great St.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Barts memories is the second or third year I went.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And as I was in St. Barts, the Gulf War,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: George Bush and Saddam Hussein broke out. And you couldn't
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: get a newspaper at St.
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: Barts then.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: You could get a day and a half old New
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: York Times at four o'clock in the afternoon the next
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: day if they happened to pick up the papers in
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Puerto Rico and fly them in. There was no television.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: There were no telephones. And I am so serious about this.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: There was a boutique that was called Sorry No Telephone.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: And I still have some Sorry No Telephone t-shirts. And
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: at the time, you know, you didn't realize what an
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: amazing thing it was to be in a place that
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: was cut off from the world. So now the Gulf
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: War breaks out and the only television reception we had
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: in the house that we were renting was reverse image snow.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: So it was all static and you could just about
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: hear that very horrible things were going on in Iran,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: in Iraq.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: And I thought, how lucky are we? Turn it off.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: And, you know, it sounds like you've got the right idea,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to pose a challenge to you. Leave
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: your phone at home.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Well, that I don't think I can do because unfortunately.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: Get an old fashioned flip phone.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to try to, I've been getting better,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: but you know, again, with my business, I have to post,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: you know, this is going to be dropping while I'm
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: on vacation. So it's like, I have to post about it,
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: you know, and I can have Drake work with me
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: so that I, I'm getting to a place where I'm like,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: I don't want to, I definitely don't want to be
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: doing too much.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: But yes, you do kind of have to do that.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: But yeah, it's great.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: When somebody, I've interviewed people that have done, young kids
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: that have done reality shows where they take their phones
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: and they said, you know, the first day it was weird,
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: but after that, we loved it. We loved every second
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: of it. Nobody else had their phone. We, that's why
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: we were able to make friends or even maybe, you know,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: get romantic or whatever, because we weren't looking at the phones.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: It's just such a, And I do feel like there's
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: gonna be a pendulum swing and it's already starting where
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: people are really making events and things like that where
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: you drop the phone or you hire a photographer and
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: that's the photos and you don't need to worry about
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: getting them.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: And it really makes such a difference, you know?
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: You know, and I realize that it's both ironic and
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: perhaps a little hypocritical that I'm here, now here comes
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the advertisement, talking about my book, Treasured Island, the story
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: of St. Barts, out on June 16th in bookstores everywhere,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: while talking about an island where there were once no
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: telephones and no television and no newspapers and how much
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I loved it.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: But the fact is the world can accommodate both of
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: those things. You can be.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Both the person who does your job and takes pictures
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: and posts on social media and also someone who can
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: just throw the switch and.
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: Turn it off for a few days. And it's a
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: place like St.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Bart's where the world is in your face. You go
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: down to Gustavia Harbor and what you are looking at
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: is wealth inequality without question. That's what you're seeing. You
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: are seeing the epitome of inequality. You're seeing, if you
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: look hard enough, how this all happened, how luxury became
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: this thing, how social media, the fuel of ambition and
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: avarice and jealousy and envy that drives social media. And
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: yet you're also in this stunningly beautiful place where you
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: can just turn it off and relax. And, you know,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: there it's just being able to keep two thoughts in
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: your head at the same time. So it's not hypocrisy
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: and it's not irony.
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: It's just the way the world works now.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: And, you know, we have to take pleasure where we
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: can find it, even in troubled times.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: In being in St.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: Barts and things, I'm imagining you encountered like a lot
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: of maybe, you know, infidelity or social climbers or gold
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: diggers or gigolos or wife swapping scandal.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: Can you share any of that?
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, a lot of what goes on in St.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Barts stays in St. Barts because there is an entire
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: ecosystem of people who are paid very well to protect
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the privacy of the people who go there. So the,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: you know, the concierges, which are both hotel concierges, but
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: also concierges for the people.
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: Who rent villas.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: You know, they might tell me the story about the
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: maid who walked in one day and one of the
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: guys in the house was snorting cocaine off the bare
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: bottom of one of the women in the house. Or
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: the clothes were all over the place and who knows
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: who was in what bedroom.
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: But they're going to protect their clients.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: So, and, you know, really, there's something kind of banal
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: about all of that. But at the same time, there,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you know, this is an island where hedonism has reigned
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: for decades. And there was a point when all of
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: that was very, very public. So there's a whole section
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the book about the era from
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the 70s to the 80s when St. Bart's was overrun
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: with drug smugglers, models, fashion photographers, and rock stars. And
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: that was one of the things that, you know, there
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: were a whole series of waves of people going there
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: that put St.
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: Bart's on the map.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: First, there were multi-multi-millionaires like David Rockefeller and Edmund de Rothschild. So,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: you know, you had the American and the French uber-rich guys.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Then you had the kind of Connecticut pioneers, Republicans who
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: liked to sail, who built houses. One of those houses
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: that was built by a fellow who was later the
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: mayor of Wilmington, Delaware, became the den of iniquity the
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: most raucous, louche hotel club on the island.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: It was called Auteur de Rocher.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: It was ostensibly owned by Jimmy Buffett, although Buffett was
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: really just a front man.
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: He owned about 2%, 3%.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: But Buffett described it as the scene of some of
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the worst behavior I have ever seen. And he was
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: a rock star, so you know that he's seen a
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: lot of bad behavior in his life. And so there's
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: a very long section of Treasured Island in which things
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: that went on there are described, and a lot of
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: it is not fit for a family podcast.
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: No, this is not a family podcast.
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: Well, good.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: There's the bartender who had sex with so many girls
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: in the bathroom that they ripped the sink off the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: wall three times. He had a reputation for going down
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: on women for an hour and a half at a time,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: so they would hand him from one to the next.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Girls left their boyfriends to be with this guy. drug
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: dealers traded girls. You know, they would be having sex
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: on the pool table while snorting cocaine from somebody handing
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: it in through the window into the nightclub.
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: It was wild.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: And when I asked one of these drug smugglers whether
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: a night like that was the worst thing he ever saw,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: he kind of paused for a second and he went, uh, no.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: Now, in all this research, was it never darker than that?
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: Like this wasn't never Epstein Island type stuff? Or was
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: there some of that where girls would come that maybe
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: were not 18 years old, but were in the modeling
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: world and looked older? They themselves were trying to get
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: on the yacht. We always hear everybody's like, oh, I
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: want to go on a yacht. I want to be
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: a yacht girl. I want to find friends who have
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: you know, girls that could bring me on a yacht.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: And then people are like, be careful when you get
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: on that yacht. You know, they're not just, they're not
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: looking to find out about what your, you know, high
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: school career was like before you got on this yacht.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: They don't give a shit about that.
• 45:09
  Speaker 7: Between the late 1990s and the 2010s, there was a
• 45:16
  Speaker 7: period when almost every Me Too perpetrator on earth was
• 45:20
  Speaker 7: going to St.
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: Barts.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Usually, again, during Christmas week, Easy to avoid. You just
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: don't go during Christmas week. But Harvey Weinstein was there.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Puff Daddy was there. Russell Simmons was there. There's a
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: PR woman in New York who's kind of been disgraced
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: by her association with Jeffrey Epstein. And just out of curiosity,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: this was long after I'd written the book, but the
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Epstein files came out and I plugged St.
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: Bart's into the Epstein files.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: And she was constantly trying to get him to go
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: from the Virgin Islands to St.
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: Bart's.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: And interestingly, he was like, Well, you know, what do
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I need that for? I've got my own island and
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: I have my own girls. So I guess Jeffrey Epstein probably,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: you know, only went there a few times, but all
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: of the rest of them were there. So there's an
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: entire roster of the cancel who are on the scene
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: on St.
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: Bart's list. So did bad things go on there? I'm
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: sure they did.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: I'm frankly more interested in financial skullduggery, in real estate skullduggery,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: in the machinations of uber-rich people trying to impose their
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: vision on an island that will tolerate them and take
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: their money, but really doesn't want them running things. And
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: so those kind of larger societal forces are what I
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: pay more attention to.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: You know what I wonder about is like, sometimes when
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: I think about like a St. Bar, it's like, let's
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: just say I wanted to go and plan with my friends.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm, I'm a little bit famous, but not much.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: I always panic, like how on a busy time, how
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: am I ever going to get a reservation anywhere? Like,
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: how does it work out that all these people, because
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: each person's more powerful than the next that can say, no,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: I want an eight o'clock table, whatever. I want a
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: two o'clock table on the beach at this place. the
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: big round table near the guy playing the trumpet. Like,
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: how does it always work out that everybody seems to
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: get their spot?
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Well, first of all, you don't have to compete with
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: me because I would never go to those places.
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: But, you know, first of all, where do you live?
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Where do you work at?
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: I live, I'm in just outside of LA.
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: It's just like it used to be to get a
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: table at Morton's or at Craig's or whatever the place
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: right now is.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: If you're somebody, you'll get a table.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: If you know somebody, you'll get a table. If all
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: else fails, money talks. The better thing to do is
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: plan ahead. You know, I hate this, but I know
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: now that there are certain places on St. Bart's where
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I have to call a week or two in advance
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: and email and make reservations and plan ahead.
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: I was much.
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: I remember.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Years and years ago, I wrote a cover story for
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: a travel magazine about the island of Capri off of
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the Italian coast. And when I went to Capri, it
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: was in a slow moment. It had been a very
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: famous place in the 50s and 60s, and it had
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: kind of fallen off the map of rich people. And
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I wrote a cover story about it, and I'm not
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: giving myself full credit for this, but it started to
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: come back until it became the place again. full of
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: yachts and rich people and Jeff Bezos and blah, blah, blah. But,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: you know, we would wake up in the morning on Capri,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: walk down to the concierge desk and say, which way
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: is the wind blowing today? And that was how we
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: knew whether we wanted to go to Luigi, which was
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: on one side of a mountain, or Scalinatella, which was
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the mountain. Which way was
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the wind blowing? Where was the water going to be nicer?
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: You know, unfortunately, unless you go places that are not
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: yet discovered, you can't do that anymore. You have to
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: either plan ahead Be immensely wealthy. Be somebody or know somebody.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: And that's just, again, the way the world works. Or
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: be very lucky and walk in just when somebody really
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: rich who had that big table on the beach cancels.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why I wonder, like, are there ever groups
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: of very attractive girls that go there in the hopes
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: of having a great time, going to villas, going to parties,
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: getting on yachts? But it seems to me like most
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: people that go, it's men that bring a girlfriend with
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: them or bring a wife or a mistress or whatever.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: It's not like going.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: To Vegas and meeting a group of guys playing poker
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: at the steakhouse or whatever.
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: Have you found that?
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: One will see groups of incredibly beautiful women in incredibly
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: skimpy clothing wearing sitting in highly visible places on St. Barts,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: and some of them are even amateurs. But yes, that happens.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: It's going to happen anywhere where a lot of money congregates.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: It's part of the scene. But I think that you
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: are right. Most people who are going to St. Barts
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: will bring a date.
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: And then what do you feel about people bringing kids?
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: Has that always been a factor where they bring the
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: kids and the nannies, or was there a time when
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: it was like you saw very little children on vacation there?
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Well, remember I told you about that hotel where the
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: hotel owner would leave it empty in order to appear exclusive?
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: He once sent Madonna away when she showed up with
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: a baby and a nanny because he didn't want the
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: baby and the nanny there.
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: But most places on St. Barts, you see children all
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: the time. It's also, it's a family island. It's an island.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Where there is an entire society that lives there. There's
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: that beach I mentioned with the Instagrammers called Shelby John Stigallette.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: There's an elementary school right next door to that beach.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: There are children all over the island. There are children-friendly hotels.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: There are children-friendly beaches. It's a very sophisticated place. And
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: so well-behaved children do not stand out. And especially on
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: the weekends when the islanders have the day off and
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: they're going to the beach, you see kids all over
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: the place. It's really kind of sweet.
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: It also says, you know, right now locals are dealing
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: with insane overdevelopment, ecological threats, hospitality groups are taking over.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: So where does that leave it now?
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Well, it's an ongoing battle right at this moment. A
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: few years ago, there was an election where development-friendly candidates
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: were running against development-unfriendly candidates. And the slate that was
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: elected was kind of right up the middle. So there's
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: an acute consciousness of the fact that St. Barts could
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: become the victim of its own success. And there's a
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: very careful process going on, which includes a lot of
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: political battles between You know, the St. Barts equivalent of
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: the left and the right, although they're not left or
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: right on St. Barts, they're pro-development or they're pro-preservation. And
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: I think that what's going to happen is they're going
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: to find a balance. But at the moment, it's a
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: political argument. It's a tug of war. And so when
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: you go there, there are lots of construction trucks. There's
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: lots of construction companies. But the process of issuing permits
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: to allow new construction has slowed way down. So what's
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: happening now is all the permits that are outstanding, those
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: places are being built. But for instance, you're no longer
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: allowed to build a villa just to rent it. If
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: you're a family and you're building a villa for your
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: family to live in, no problem. 60% of the island
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: has been declared green. It will never be built on.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: And boy, does that frustrate some people who own land.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: let me tell you. So it's a process and it's ongoing.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: And again, that's the underlying narrative of my book is
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the story of progress, profit, preservation, all of these things,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: you know, greed.
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: It all is in this stew of St.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Bart's and it's just makes it the most fascinating eight
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: square miles in the world to me.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: Question about building a house, you're building a villa for
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: your family, for yourself. Is it one of those things
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: where you can only rent it out to one person
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: a year or you cannot rent it out to anybody?
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: You have to be there with your guests.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Well, now there's an effort being made to stop the
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: construction of purely rental housing. There's also a huge shortage
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: of housing for staff. So you have these five-star hotels
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: where their staff can't find any place to sleep, which
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: is a huge issue on the island. And again, this
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: is all stuff that is in the process.
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: Of being worked out.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Most people on the island, they thought that beachfront property
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: was kind of yucky because beachfront property made you subject
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: to hurricanes and bad weather. Beachfront had mosquitoes. Beachfront wasn't
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: considered good property. They lived back from the beach and
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: up from the beach. And then they saw these people
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: coming to go to the beach. And so they built
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: houses on their properties on the beach that they rented.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: And the joke was that they would move out and
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: sleep in the backyard in a hammock back in the 80s. But,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: you know, nowadays, I mean, I rent a little tiny
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: house from a family that has a compound where mom
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: lives in one house, daughter and husband live in a
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: second house, and my wife and I rent the third house.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: That's very frequent. There are people who have houses that
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: they use once a week and they once a month,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: once a year, excuse me, and they rented out the
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: rest of the time. There are a million rental agents.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: There used to be one. It used to be a duo.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: There used to be two. It was a duopoly.
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: And it was a.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Much more civilized society when that duopoly was in charge.
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: Nowadays, it's a real estate free for all.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: And so you have, you know, There's a house around
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the corner from the one I rent that is, I think, $ 80, 000
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: a week during high season. But if you want it
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: for Christmas, you have to take it for two weeks
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: at $ 250, 000 a week.
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: Now, has anybody or, you know, been such a drunk
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: asshole something that you get like banned from the restaurant
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: or banned from the island or anything like that, even
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: though you're super wealthy?
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: Funny you should mention that.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: That same restaurant, hotel, where Madonna was turned away, which,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: by the way, was famous in the 1980s for having
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: the world's most expensive lentil salad. He once threw Puff
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Daddy out for being too rambunctious. And that exact same weekend,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: Puff Daddy's yacht rental company took the yacht he had
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: rented away from him because he was trashing the yacht.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: So the answer to your question is yes, it at
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: least happened to Puff Daddy.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he had a good sense of judgment,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: this guy, as far as that goes, and seeing that
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: this was not going to get better or this wasn't
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: a one-time incident.
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: But to show you how tolerant St.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Bart's is, that guy, the guy who threw Madonna out
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: and threw Puffy out, that guy has been in jail,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: has sold his hotel to two different people, has been
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: engaged in all kinds of contractual skullduggery. and is still
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: a very beloved person on the island.
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: So St. Barts is tolerant of bad behavior, but only
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: up to a point.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: So you live most of the time in the city,
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: in New York City?
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: I live right near the UN in Manhattan, yes.
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: And so how often then do you go to St. Barts?
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Used to be once a year, lately twice a year.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: My wife and I travel all the time. We're back
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: and forth to Europe all the time. We go all over.
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: But St.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Bart's is an every year thing. I've reserved the house
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: that I rent on St. Bart's through 2028. So I'm
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: a true believer.
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: And what's the time of year that you say you
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: like to go?
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Any time from October to early December. So around Thanksgiving
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: is really nice. Then we used to go from Chinese
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: New Year, which is the end of January, anytime right
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: up to Easter, which is very nice. I try to
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: go during slack times of year when the island is
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: a little less crowded and a little less high pressure.
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: And so when is kind of not the ideal time
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: to go weather-wise?
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, you don't want to go, you probably
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: don't want to go in September and October because there
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: are these.
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: Little things called hurricanes.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: And, you know, there's a treasured island tells the story
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: of a number of these hurricanes that basically devastated the island.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: And then the island is very quickly rebuilt. And in
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: certain instances, those hurricanes have been moments of reset for
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: the island when the culture changes a little bit. Like
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Hurricane Irma in 2019 was a moment when people began
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: to take stock of overdevelopment for the first time. So
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: probably September, October, not ideal times to go. Um, The
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: European crowd tends to go on in August, which is
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: European vacation season. and they don't want to go to
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Saint-Tropez because it's overcrowded. So they come to St. Barts
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: because it's underutilized at that time of the year. And,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: you know, you had said about the weather. Well, in August,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: I went once in August and at three o'clock every
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: single afternoon, like clockwork, there would be a torrential rainstorm
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: and it would last for 15 minutes. And then the
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: sun would come out again. That's not too bad. No.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: What about like the Real Housewives of New York and
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: places like those reality shows that come to the island
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: and film? Are they restrictive of that kind of thing now?
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: Or did they do it once and regret it?
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, that's their
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: television show.
• 59:55
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: Keeping Up with the Kardashians did an episode.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: And they spent a week there filming and they rented
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: a villa that had once been a hotel restaurant that
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: was famous for its transvestite cabaret shows. So it was
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: kind of appropriate that, you know, trashy people in high
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: heels would film their show there and people on the
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: island laugh at it. You know, nobody cares. If you're
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: decently behaved, no one minds. I don't know if there
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: are rules about bringing a camera crew to the island.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: You don't see that very often. You see a fashion
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: shoot far more often than that.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: But, you know, do.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Reality TV people go there?
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, sure.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: But so do people who actually accomplish things in their
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: lives and writers and artists and musicians and politicians and billionaires.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: Speaking of real housewives is something I covered.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: I know that's not like your forte or anything, but
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: they always want to get someone that is the billionaire's wife,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: the rich wife that's led this very, very fabulous life.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: But she's not an actress and she's not famous in
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: her own right. But sometimes those women want very badly
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: to be famous because it's the one thing they really
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: can't buy. And then other times they're very hard to
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: get because the husband or whatever is like, hell to
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: the no, we're not going to have our lives exposed
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: and be a target for someone trying to fish into
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: our financials.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: But in you dealing with these wealthy wives of.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: Have you ever found that they do desire to have
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: a higher profile than what is allowed of them as
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: being the wife of?
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: In my experience and to my knowledge, which is limited
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: because it's not a world I cover, the kind of
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: people that you're describing are second tier in whatever world
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: they're in. If they're rich guys' wives, then they're second
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: tier rich guys. And they might even be second tier wives.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: They're people who haven't actually gotten to the top. And
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: they are looking for something. They're still looking for something better.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: And there's a level of desperation there that lots of
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: people are willing to take advantage of. And, you know,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: I'm far more interested in accomplishment. I'm far more interested,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: whether it's business accomplishment or creative accomplishment. Those are the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: people who do things are the people who interest me.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: So on St.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: Bart's, I'm actually far more interested in the people who
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: built hotels, who created restaurants, who built important houses and
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: attracted other influential, important, accomplished people to the island than
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: I am to the people who come in the third
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: wave where they're like looking around going, I don't see
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: any Rockefellers.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: So it's not, I don't think St.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: Barts is an island that would reject someone like that,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: but neither would they be an important person on the
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: island or to the island.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: And one thing I've kind of, I was surprised that
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: I discovered this because I didn't grow up in the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: world of this kind of wealth or even close, is
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: that billionaires kind of are attracted to other billionaires' wives,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: whether they're divorced or whatever, that these women, you know,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: you sometimes think, yes, some rich guys go for the youngest,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: hottest thing for their third or fourth wife. But oftentimes
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: they go for the woman that knows how to live
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: this life already. And if it's sort of a competitive
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: thing that they would get some guy that was sort
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: of in their league or maybe even a little above
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: their league, their ex-wife.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: Have you seen that at all, that dynamic?
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but again, it's only interesting in terms of sort
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: of the life of the French aristocracy in the 19th century.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: It's not in any way about good energy, creativity, accomplishment.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: All they are, you know, the wife who knows how
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: to do things is really no different from the fashion
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: model with the bodacious body. It's just another possession for
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: the kind of person who would do that. The kind
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: of man who would do that is simply looking for
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: a better car, you know, a Lambo with a bigger engine,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: a house with a second swimming pool.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 5: It's banal. It's not a higher expression of human existence.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: It's so interesting that there's those kind of wealthy people,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: like you said, looking for the next thing. They want
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: to have the best thing. They want to have the
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: flashiest item or car. And then there's people that are
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: just rich and relaxed because of it. And it's a
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: peaceful life. It's a generous life. It's a fun life.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: It's a creative life. And You know, I've experienced both. Like,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: it's so interesting, you know, and because it seems like,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: you know, it's such a stratosphere of money that you
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: cannot relate to. It's really interesting to see how certain
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: people navigate that life, protect themselves, but are also still
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: open to new friendships and things.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: Well, and, you know, on St.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: Bart's, that expression is more often through the bigger boat,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: the bigger party. the bigger house, the bigger piece of land.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: It's not so much, you know, the girl, the arm
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: candy that you're walking around with. I'm sure those guys
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: have great looking women on their arms, but it's, again,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: it might be important Christmas week, but the rest of
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: the year, St. Bart's is really, the heart of St.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Bart's is not about the money. The money is simply
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: a means to a higher end in that context.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: Well, this was so interesting. I know everyone's going to
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: love the book. It is called Treasured Island. Comes out
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: June 16th. Thank you, Michael Gross. Check out his other books.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: You listed them and they all sound so juicy and interesting,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: which is why I'm glad you're on Juicy Scoop. And
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: a world that, you know, it's fun to crawl inside
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: and really get to learn about and know about and
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: just kind of escape. And I'm really grateful for you
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: being so open and what a life you've led.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: Thank you for coming on.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: And people can find out all about those books at
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: my website, which is simply mgross.com. And Treasured Island comes
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: out on June 16th and I hope people enjoy it.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much. This is great.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: They think you're done for the day, but they don't
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: know about the drawer. The drawer. Just the one square
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: before bed. Or two, you know.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: Nobody's watching.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: You deserve a treat.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: With eight flavours to choose from, you can choose the
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: flavour you favour with Cadbury Dairy Milk.