Why was Leonardo DiCaprio in a Washington DC court this week testifying against a rapper?
- L’Oreal bought Australian brand Aesop for $2.5 billion, the company’s largest acquisition.
- Apple released a standalone app dedicated to classical music.
- Rupert Murdoch, 92, called off his engagement to 66 year-old evangelical Christian Ann Lesley Smith after just two weeks.
by Liz Moseley
Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio testified in a Washington DC court this week in an embezzlement case against former Fugees rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel. The case – surely heading for a glossy TV dramatisation – is a twisted saga of missing Malaysian billions, Hollywood movies, political influence and a see-through, perspex grand piano.
So what? The case shines a light into the murky world of American political campaign financing. The presence of DiCaprio, whose influence extends way beyond Hollywood, shows how widely the illicit money spread across the US establishment.
The case. After The Fugees disbanded in 1997, Michel became a self-styled “connector” and activist, before meeting the financier Jho Low in a nightclub in New York in 2006. He has pleaded not guilty but is accused of helping Low, now missing, syphon billions of dollars from Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB and channeling it via shell companies into then-president Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. He’s also been charged with trying to shut down a 2017 investigation into Low and failing to register as an agent of the Chinese government. Prosecutor Nicole Rae Lockhart said Michel had accepted over $100 million from Low in a tale of “political intrigue, backroom dealing… burner phones and lies.”
Low and behold. At just 5’5” with wireless spectacles, Low would be an unlikely mastermind of a $4.5 billion international kleptocracy case. He’s accused of pilfering cash from 1MDB to embark on an epic spending spree which bought him attention from the likes of Michel and DiCaprio, and even got him into the Obama’s White House Christmas bash. Michel’s team even wanted Barack Obama to explain under oath how Low ended up partying with the president. The judge denied their request. Low, who has been on the run since 2018 and is thought to be hiding in China, maintains his innocence.
The Leo and Low Show. After meeting at a party in Vegas in 2010, the actor and the financier became pals. Hopeless spendthrift Low couldn’t resist treating his famous chums – gifts including a $3 million Picasso, a $9 million Basquiat and Marlon Brando’s 1954 Oscar were relinquished by DiCaprio to the US authorities in 2017. Low also invested millions in The Wolf of Wall Street, which was co-produced by and starred DiCaprio. DiCaprio told the court that Low passed all investor vetting procedures prior to accepting the money. He severed ties with Low in 2015.
Leo a-go-go. His penchant for dating women decades younger than him dominates his media profile but obfuscates the extent of his influence across Hollywood and beyond.
- His Appian Way production company holds “first look” deals with Sony Pictures Entertainment and Apple. Martin Scorsese’s long awaited next movie, Killers of the Flower Moon (which will premiere in Cannes next month) is co-produced by Appian Way and stars DiCaprio and Robert de Niro. Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, said “as Michael Jordan and Tom Brady are to basketball and football, so is Leo to film.”
- Named after Leonardo da Vinci, it’s not altogether surprising that the actor – personal wealth between $200 million and $300 million – is partial to a painting. He can remember The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch hanging above his crib, apparently. He’s now a respected fine art collector – he snapped up Salvador Dali’s Chevalier for $1.2 million in 2011. In 2013, working with Low and ex-Christie’s rainmaker Loic Gouzer, he staged “The 11th Hour”, an auction in which 32 lots from artists including Banksy and Anish Kapoor netted $33 million for his foundation.
- DiCaprio’s charitable work pays more than lip service to environmental activism. The 11th Hour is also the name of a 2007 documentary he produced, co-wrote and narrated about global warming, although arguably his more memorable foray into climate catastrophe filmmaking was 2021’s word-of-mouth hit Don’t Look Up. The Leonardo DiCaprio environmental foundation has distributed more than $100 million in grants to wildlife and ecosystem protection projects around the world over 20 years, catching the attention of former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who designated DiCaprio a Messenger of Peace in 2014. Go, Leo.
What about that piano though? Australian model Miranda Kerr, now wife of billionaire Snap Inc CEO Evan Spiegel, was the lucky recipient of the perspex grand piano from Low. Must be a nightmare to dust.
(News in brief)
It’s all gone wibbly for Ghibli
These are turbulent times for influential Japanese animation studio and megabucks merch machine Studio Ghibli. President Koji Hoshino, formerly president of Disney Japan, unexpectedly announced he will leave the company this June and will be replaced by studio co-founder Suzuki Toshio. His resignation statement makes no mention of allegations made in Japanese celebrity gossip magazine Shukan Josei that Suzuki has been using his position (and company money) to set up a Thai girlfriend with a Bangkok spa and a plum job as an official Ghibli photographer. The studio denies any link between Hoshino’s retirement and the Suzuki rumours – but it’s not ideal timing. Ghibli is eyeing the Best Animated Oscar for How Do You Live?, the final film from legendary studio director Hayao Miyazaki, creator of Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro. The film has been seven years in the making and is set for release this July.
Living la dolce vita
Emily FitzRoy from Bellini Travel has the best job in the world. Her business, launched in 2000 as a travel guide, sources uber-discreet locations where the most quietly luxurious (and powerful) people on the planet let their perfectly coiffed hair down. It also unearths breathtaking backdrops for hit TV shows including White Lotus and Succession. She cast Villa Tasca (where Harper and Daphne stayed in White Lotus) and Villa La Cassinella (tech billionaire Lukas Matsson’s pad in Succession). Since the White Lotus series two, luxury travel enquiries for Sicily have increased by 90 per cent. It all started two years ago when FitzRoy “fished an email out of my junk from Mark Mylod [Director, Succession] explaining that he was a director of a show I’d probably never heard of and could I give them a hand finding some locations in Italy.” One of FitzRoy’s Italian friends later inspired a key White Lotus character (though she’s far too discreet to say who). Happily, FitzRoy is confident that despite the rise in “telly tourism”, as she calls it, hidden gems can still be found. “Ignore Taormina in Sicily and head to little hill towns such as Ragusa Ibla and the island of Filicudi.”
