Brooke Astor Traumatized Henry KissingerToday at the Astor trial, the former secretary of State told the story of his undoing at the hands of the famous socialite.
John McCain Brings All the Billionaires to the YardJohn McCain is coming to New York next Tuesday for a giant fund-raiser to power his national campaign, reports Elizabeth Benjamin at the Daily News. It sounds like it’s going to be a doozy — the host committee includes Henry Kissinger, Alfonse D’Amato, Woody Johnson, Georgette Mosbacher, and Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain. Tickets are either $1,000 or $2,300 per person (get it? The most you can donate to one candidate?), and it will take place at the Plaza. So glamorous. But let’s get down to business (literally). How many billionaires will be in attendance? And how many billions do they represent? From Forbes.com’s most recent list, we count five: Henry Kravis (the world’s 178th-richest man, worth $5.5 billion), Ray Dalio (worth $4 billion), Louis Bacon (worth $1.7 billion), Marc Rowan (worth $1.5 billion), and Robert Fisher ($1.4 billion). That’s a total of over $14 billion in the room with the Republican presidential nominee. There are several dozen other multimillionaires on the list, plus Lord knows how many buying tickets — so we’ll conservatively push that number over the $15 billion barrier. At first, we wondered how on earth any of the Democrats could get that much money into one room. And then we remembered that all Hillary needs to do is have Warren Buffet hold another fund-raiser, and she’d be in the company of quadruple that amount. Nobody else would even need to show up.
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The Nine Media Lives of Tina BrownTina Brown signed a deal to develop story ideas and shows for HBO. Donny Deutsch celebrated his 50th-birthday party at the Jazz at Lincoln Center with lobster tail and foie gras. Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman are having trouble yachting around on their Caribbean honeymoon because there’s a massive fuel strike on St. Barts. (Weinstein’s friends also sent him a lot of video congratulations on the day of his wedding.) Lydia Hearst is mad that her name is being attached to Darfur awareness events without her permission. Gay activist Allen Roskoff keeps George Bush toilet paper at his Jane Street apartment.
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Richard Gere’s Sell-Buy ConundrumRichard Gere may buy the penthouse in Julian Schnabel’s West Village building, if he can sell his Sullivan Street townhouse for $12 million first. Henry Kissinger, Michael Eisner, and Barry Diller were among the power players who ate at Michael’s for lunch yesterday. Some designers are refusing to use the Earth Pledge’s ecofriendly “Sea Leather” because it’s actually made out of dead fish skin. Ivana Trump’s new engagement ring, from daughter Ivanka’s jewelry line, costs $250,000. Anderson Cooper told Conan that he has a “fatty deposit” under his eye that is visible in high definition. NBC refused to run a Larry Craig–inspired political commercial, though CNN picked it up. (Perhaps it had something to do with Matt Lauer’s interview with the disgraced senator?)
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Jack and Suzy Welch Envy Each Other
Last night moguls and media types gathered to celebrate the revamp of Business Week. Henry Kissinger, Dylan Lauren, Atoosa Rubenstein, and Alexis Stewart (Martha’s daughter) all rallied at Guastavino’s to toast editor-in-chief Stephen Adler. Michael Eisner praised the redesign and then got down to business with us about — what else? — the Fox Business Network.”When you have Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes doing a project, you can’t discount it,” he told us. “So I suspect it will be competitive and successful.” Eisner reminded us that he has his own show on CNBC, a network he thinks is “pretty entrenched and well done.” “I think it will be a long time before they’re taken over the way CNN was taken over by Fox News,” he said. “It’s not really analogous.”
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Leo DiCaprio Has Your BackAt Upstairs in Soho, Leonardo DiCaprio had the back of Danny A after the club promoter got into an altercation with a patron. New York Yankee Joba Chamberlain celebrated his 22nd birthday at the Plumm by drinking Red Bull with a bunch of teammates. Tom Touchet, who was a producer at the Today show until he was forced out by Katie Couric, may have to work with her again now that he’s at CBS. The Scores stripper who sold pictures of Oscar De La Hoya in drag regrets having done so for only $70,000. Derek Jeter sat near Hilary Duff at Megu Midtown. French soprano Natalie Dessay, star of the Met’s Lucia di Lammermoor, understands why a lot of people think opera is boring. George Clooney, girlfriend Sarah Larson, and a group of friends dined downstairs at La Esquina.
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Diddy DissedDiddy’s longtime girlfriend Kim Porter has finally moved out (and on). Henry Kissinger is bummed he isn’t portrayed in Frost/Nixon. Chris Tucker impersonates Bill Clinton, and the former president can’t get enough. At Bergdorf Goodman last week, Beyoncé was barefoot and Katherine Heigl was hot. André Balasz has taken over the Chelsea Hotel and is setting his sights on the Pacific. White House in Hampton Bays paid Diddy $200,000 to host his Independence Day Party there. Ashlee Simpson might be at the Blackbook party in the Hamptons tomorrow. Gwyneth Paltrow, who’s on crutches, blames running into furniture for her injury; Helen Hunt, also on crutches, won’t say why.
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High TimesDuring his Van Halen days, David Lee Roth used to pay staffers to bring him girls backstage. Pete Doherty writes in his new memoir that he and Kate Moss will get married if he stays away from the drugs. Newly minted NBC chief and notorious party boy Ben Silverman finally took, and passed, his company drug test. Not one of the Republicans Michael Moore invited to the D.C. premiere of Sicko showed up.
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Big HouseV.C. Fred Wilson sold a townhouse on West 10th Street for $33.14 million — a record for private property below 14th Street. Beyoncé and her mother won the $1.5 million lawsuit filed against them regarding their House of Dereon fashion line, but the plaintiff plans to appeal. Robert Rodriguez left his wife of sixteen years for Rose McGowan during the filming of Grindhouse, but the split was amicable. The split between golfing great Greg Norman and his wife, Laura, however, is less so. Millionaire Miami developer Thomas Kramer was arrested during the birthday party of Fairchild Corp. CEO Jeffrey Steiner for allegedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy in the bathroom. Lindsay Lohan and Steve Aoki are hanging out a lot. This here New York Magazine is moving downtown, but no one knows what to do with the signs on top of the current building.
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Breaking: Less Than Pure Ethics at the ‘Post’!Conflict of interest alert! The Post’s state editor, Fredric U. Dicker, has been getting paid to make speeches by the New York Bankers Association. Citigroup’s head of wealth management, Todd Thomson, left the firm yesterday, perhaps because he flew his friends around too often on the corporate jet. The Bachelor’s Lorenzo Borghese is dating the show’s runner-up, but he also hit on Tinsley Mortimer’s sister Dabney. Jared Leto got angry and Sienna Miller partied with Diddy and Josh Hartnett at Sundance. Also, Jared Leto was not pleased to hear that fellow Scarlett Johansson pal Justin Timberlake was to perform at a party he was at. Jay McInerney and Anne Hearst celebrated their marriage in Palm Beach with a gaggle of society folk.
