The Modeling Pyramid: Predatory Agencies, Cindy Crawford, and St. Bart’s Secrets

Summary

Podcast Summary: Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald

Episode: The Modeling Pyramid: Predatory Agencies, Cindy Crawford, and St. Bart’s Secrets

Date: June 18, 2026
Host: Heather McDonald
Guest: Michael Gross, bestselling author of "Model" and "Treasured Island"

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Heather McDonald delves into the high-stakes world of modeling, the evolution of the industry, and the allure (and secrets) of the luxe Caribbean destination St. Bart’s. Featuring acclaimed author and journalist Michael Gross, the conversation unpacks the dark underbelly of modeling agencies, the journey of iconic supermodels like Cindy Crawford, the draw and decadence of St. Bart’s, and how wealth and celebrity shape exclusive travel destinations. Gross offers firsthand insight from decades of reporting on the rich, famous, and ambitious, both in fashion and on island playgrounds of the elite.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Michael Gross's Career and "Model" Book

• Background: Michael Gross shares that his book "Model" charts the modeling industry from the 1920s through the supermodel era and up to the inclusion of Jeffrey Epstein in later editions.
• Years Covered: Original publication covers up to 1994; later versions updated through 2011.
• Industry Truths: The business is described as a “pyramid,” where only a select few make it to the top and most are preyed upon by bad actors at the lower rungs.
  • “Think about modeling as a pyramid... the predators are living at the bottom. And at the top, there are girls like Cindy Crawford who just were untouchables and still are.” — Michael Gross [08:58]
• Predatory Agencies: Carrie Otis’s recent lawsuit against Gerald Marie (Elite Models) is discussed as a contemporary example, with Gross noting perpetrators' long careers and the difficulty in achieving accountability.

2. The Culture of the Modeling World

• Pre-Instagram Era: Models once needed specific “look” and stature; today's fashion scene is different, with more entry points but arguably less mystique.
  • “If any girl tried to say she wanted to be a model and she was under, you know, five, eight and a half, everyone would be like, good luck, loser.” — Heather McDonald [07:38]
• Family Support as a Shield: Models from strong backgrounds (e.g., Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington) were better equipped to navigate the industry's dangers, compared to those with less support.
  • Example: Stephanie Seymour vs. Christy Turlington—agency cultures and eventual outcomes differ by parental involvement. [11:43]
  • “It's not just heredity... it's also what you have inside and your strength of character and your desire to succeed, which are two different things that are sometimes in opposition and sometimes work together.” — Michael Gross [12:54]

3. Sports Illustrated, St. Bart’s, and the Branding of Beauty

• The SI Swimsuit Issue: Formerly the pinnacle for models, it was curated and not cutthroat, according to Gross, and became intertwined with St. Bart’s as a glamorous photo shoot destination.
• Brand Evolution: Sports Illustrated and St. Bart’s both succeeded by cultivating exclusivity but now face challenges from overexposure and shifting tastes.
  • “Will success kill Sports Illustrated? Will success kill St. Barts?” — Michael Gross [14:32]
  • Discussion of how islands and magazines maintain allure amid saturation.

4. Gross’s Insider Experience

• Journalist, Not Friend: Gross maintained a professional distance to avoid becoming a “lapdog,” emphasizing real stories over ingratiation (which sometimes cost him professionally).
  • “I could ride in the limousine, but it wasn’t my limousine. And I vowed that I was not going to become the kind of person who did whatever it took to get invited into somebody else’s limousine.” — Michael Gross [23:53]
• Willingness to Name Names: He writes honestly and uses real names, even under threat of lawsuits, because he prioritizes readers over the powerful subjects of his stories.

5. The Evolution and Mystique of St. Bart’s

• Physical and Social Limits: The harbor naturally restricts larger yachts, and building codes limited hotels to preserve exclusivity and a certain clientele.
• Intentional Exclusion: Owners (e.g., at Taiwana Hotel) would rather leave rooms empty than sell to the “wrong” people, consciously “curating” guests.
• Modern Transformations: St. Bart’s has moved from a modest French outpost to a hub for the world’s billionaires, with real estate and luxury services evolving accordingly.
  • “They were consciously trying to, and I hate this word, curate. The kind of people who came to the island to ensure that it kept this very lofty luxury image.” — Michael Gross [30:44]

6. Influence of Social Media and the Rise of Influencers

• Change in Travel Culture: Overexposed by influencers and Instagrammers, St. Bart’s and other elite locales risk losing some of their “hidden” charm.
  • “I put up a post making fun of the influencers. And while they're looking at themselves and at each other, all you have to do is turn your head and you can look out at sea and see what Saint Barts is really about.” — Michael Gross [37:27]
• Pendulum Swing Predicted: Both Gross and Heather agree there’s a growing desire for “living in the moment” and curbing compulsive online sharing.

7. Decadence and Dark Side: Gossip, Excess, and Scandal

• Infamous Decades: The 70s and 80s saw hedonism run wild, with stories of sex parties, drugs, and wild behavior at places like Auteur des Rocher.
• High-profile “MeToo” Figures: Christmas week in recent decades brought Harvey Weinstein, Puff Daddy, and others to the island, with the implication that much hidden misconduct occurred.
  • “Between the late 1990s and the 2000s, there was a period when almost every MeToo perpetrator on earth was going to St. Bart's, usually again during Christmas week.” — Michael Gross [49:18]

8. Real Estate, Preservation, and Political Tensions

• Battle for the Island’s Soul: Gross describes ongoing debates over development versus preservation, with strict rules now in place to limit purely rental housing and protect green space.
  • “There's an acute consciousness of the fact that Saint Barts could become the victim of its own success. And there's a very careful process going on...” — Michael Gross [56:04]
• Skyrocketing Prices: Rental costs for villas during peak season can reach $250,000 per week.
• Local Response: Despite economic incentives, there’s strong resistance to overdevelopment.

9. Social Dynamics: Who Goes, Who Gets In, and How

• Table Wars: Getting reservations at top restaurants or beach clubs depends on wealth, status, or connections—“money talks,” but planning ahead is key.
• Groups vs. Couples: While some “yacht girls” or groups of attractive women seek to join the scene, most visitors arrive with a plus-one (spouse, partner, mistress).
• Children and Families: Initial elitism (rumored Madonna was once turned away for bringing a baby) has softened; today, families and children are common, especially among locals.

10. Wealth, Relationships, and Social Status

• Real Housewives Dynamic: Discussed how reality shows covet the “billionaire’s wife” archetype, but Gross argues the truly accomplished or elite rarely seek reality TV fame.
  • “If they're rich guys, wives, then they're second tier rich guys and they might even be second tier wives.” — Michael Gross [65:55]
• Billionaire Social Circles: Some men and women care more for status, experience, and peer validation than youth or aesthetic; others embody the “bigger, flashier, better” mentality while some pursue a quieter, more refined existence.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Modeling’s Ruthlessness:
  “I always said that only a very few models can dance on the head of the pin of the industry, and obviously they're the stars.” — Michael Gross [08:59]
• On Getting Too Close as a Journalist:
  “There was a divide: I could ride in the limousine, but it wasn’t my limousine. And I vowed that I was not going to become the kind of person who did whatever it took to get invited into somebody else’s limousine.” — Michael Gross [23:53]
• On Writing Truthfully:
  “I don’t write for the people I write about, I write for the people who read my books.” — Michael Gross [26:53]
• On Hedonism in St. Bart’s:
  “There’s the bartender who had sex with so many girls in the bathroom that they ripped the sink off the wall three times... girls left their boyfriends to be with this guy.” — Michael Gross [47:52]
• On Social Media Saturation:
  “At some point, people are gonna start looking out to sea instead of at themselves in their cell phones.” — Michael Gross [38:34]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:43] – Michael Gross explains the history and updates of "Model"
• [03:49] – Discussion of predatory agencies and the Carrie Otis lawsuit
• [06:57] – Emergence of models as celebrities in the 70s-80s
• [08:58] – Modeling as a pyramid; protections, exploitation, who “makes it”
• [11:43] – Cindy Crawford, Stephanie Seymour, Christy Turlington—nature vs. nurture in survival
• [14:05] – Sports Illustrated, St. Bart’s, and branding; how “success is the enemy”
• [23:43] – Gross on journalist ethics, not becoming friends with the rich/famous
• [28:16] – Details on St. Bart’s exclusivity, harbor limitations, and intentional curation
• [37:21] – Impact of influencers, culture changes, and looking beyond selfies
• [47:50] – Scandals: excess, hedonism, infamous parties at Auteur des Rocher
• [49:18] – MeToo perpetrators’ presence in St. Bart’s; “cancelled” figures
• [56:04] – Ongoing debate: development vs. preservation on the island
• [60:18] – Puff Daddy thrown out for misbehavior; proof that even the rich face consequences

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Tone & Style

• Conversational and candid: Heather peppers the interview with personal anecdotes and pop culture references; Michael Gross is witty, dry, and unafraid to “name names.”
• Juicy and revelatory: Stories are told with a flair for scandal and insider perspective, but also deep research and critical thought.
• Discerning yet playful: Both hosts balance respect for privacy with a thirst for gossipy details, striving to give listeners a peek behind the curtain of the elite.

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In Closing

This episode is a tapestry of fashion, fame, and luxury, interwoven with sharp social critique and irresistible storytelling. For anyone curious about the modeling world’s dark alleys, the changing face of exclusive destinations, and the psychology of the uber-wealthy, Heather and Michael Gross deliver a podcast overflowing with both juicy scoop and thoughtful reflection.

Book Mentioned:

• Model by Michael Gross
• Treasured Island: The Story of St. Bart's and Its Barbarians, Billionaires, and Beauties (out June 16th)
• More at mgross.com

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Heather McDonald has got the Juicy Scoop.

[A]

When you're on the road, when you're on the go. Juicy Scoop is the show to know. She talks Hollywood tales, her real life Mr. Sigma cereal data and Cereal Sister. You'll be addicted and addicted fast to

[B]

the number one tabloid real life podcast. Listen in. Listen up.

[A]

Woo woo.

[B]

Hannah McDonald juicy scoop. Hello and welcome to Juicy Scoop. I'm so excited about today's show. We have a real juicy bestselling author of the kind of books that we absolutely love. Welcome Michael Gross to Juicy Scoop.

[A]

Hi Heather. Great to be with you.

[B]

I'm very excited for your next book because the book that's out now because everybody always either wants to go to St. Bart's or has been or wonders it or remembers reading about it in tabloids and all the stars and billionaires that have gone there. Which is the title of your new book, Treasured the Story of St. Barts and Its Barbarians, Billionaires and Beauties. What a great subtitle.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

So before we get into that book, though, I have this other bestselling New York Times bestselling book of yours, Model, which is all about just the ruthless business of the top modeling agencies in New York and Europe. What years was that book kind of chronicling?

[A]

Well, the book came out 31 years ago, but it covers the business from its invention in the 1920s straight through. In the copy that you're holding, it goes through 1994. So through the beginning, through the height of the supermodels. Then there have been a series of updates. And so the current version that you can buy on Amazon goes through 2011 and actually has the name Jeffrey Epstein in it.

[B]

So you cover some of that. I know there's been so many legit models that also got sucked into that world unknowingly. That's just. So is that. Does it cover some of that?

[A]

You know, Sidney Crawford told me that when she first went to Milan, which was a hotbed of sleazy guys trying to dive into the pants of models both to get their money and to get other things, she was never harassed. And she said that she always thought that it was because some girls just had that thing where it said, this one, don't touch. She's worth too much money. So, yes, you know, lots of models right now. Just the other day, Carrie Otis, who was a pretty top model in the mid-90s, filed a new lawsuit against the guy who used to run Elite Models in Paris. And it was on behalf of. She's trying to do a class action suit because the statute of limitations has run out on this guy. His name is Gerald Marie, and he's one of the main characters in the book Model.

[B]

Well, the reason I. I have the book is because I don't know how many years ago, it was maybe like 10 years ago, my agent called me and was like, this guy wants to meet you to maybe collaborate. I don't know if they had the rights to your book or to try to do like a television series. And so reading it and I just gave it didn't really go past more than just like a. A meeting. I don't know what happened with it, but I was like, oh, my God, this would make such a great television show. And being that it would be like, you know, that time of 80s 90s, and, like, what it was like he wanted to do a show kind of about the main modeling people that were a couple that then both ran their agencies. And how many times did that come about, being the author, that people wanted to try to make your book a series well, Model.

[A]

So there's a process called optioning, and that's where a producer or a star takes an option. They give you a little bit of money to take the book off the market, and then they try to put it together and make it into a movie or a TV show. And Model has been optioned five or six times. It went to script twice. Once it was the next thing that ABC was gonna do as its movie of the week, and there was a regime change at abc and it died a sad and horrible death. And then there was another one quite recently that almost made it, but finally just didn't make it. So we're still waiting for Model the movie.

[B]

I mean, I feel like it's gonna happen. I feel like this appearance on Juicy Scoop is gonna be the tipping point. No, I really do think it could be great. And I think there's such a yearning for that nostalgia, that period of time, especially with younger viewers that are like, oh, what was like, what was life like before cell phones and social media? And there were real models and it wasn't just Instagram and influencers and they, they want to jump back and escape to that era. So I think it would make a great series.

[A]

And the heart of the book is really that moment in the 70s and 80s when models emerged as real celebrities instead of just niche celebrities. And that's precisely the movie that really ought to be made. People have tried and bad ones have been made, but no one's ever done one that got close to the truth.

[B]

What exactly is the truth? Because, like, as someone that, you know, was maybe their age or a little bit younger, you know, of course everybody wanted to be a real model. When I was in my all girl Catholic high school and there was like the cheesy. What was the guy's name? He had like a modeling school. It's like escaping me right now.

[A]

Johnny Casablancas.

[B]

Yes, that was one of them. I think there was another one, but that was one. And you could take a course and the first course is like etiquette, and then the next course is like actually putting outfits together. Then the third course is like having a little fashion show. And then the fourth course is expensive because you're actually going to get real headshots done with a professional photographer. And you've got to take the loop and pick out your thing. And, you know, so, so many girls were doing it thinking, oh, maybe I could be a model. And even like, so many models were in music videos and stuff. So that was just like, o, let me put on some Black nylons and a tiny black dress and just a red lip and slick back my hair and look real chic and. But at. Back then, it was so about. You had to be tall enough. And if any girl tried to say she wanted to be a model and she was under, you know, five, eight and a half, everyone would be like, good luck, loser. Like, you're never going to make it. Like, it's. It was such a different time than today. When you look at, like modeling and fashion and what drives someone being on the COVID of a magazine, what is your point of view or perspective?

[A]

Well, you know, the. What the book is really about is think about modeling as a pyramid. And everything that you're just talking about is the very bottom of the pyramid, where there's someone who's a checkout working behind the checkout counter at Walmart in the middle of Iowa and wants to be a model. Then as you ascend up the pyramid to the very top, that's the dirty part of the business because there's a terrible elimination contest that goes on. And I always said that only a very few models can dance on the head of the pin of the industry, and obviously they're the stars. And by the way, as far as height goes, Kate Moss can say, hey, take that, because she changed that. But it's very, very difficult to get to the top of that pyramid. And a lot of horrible things can happen on the way up. And the business is structured in such a way that the predators are living at the bottom. And at the top, there are girls like Cindy Crawford who just were untouchables and still are, and that continues to this day.

[B]

And with someone like a Cindy Crawford, I also feel like her story was one just like anybody that unfortunately is more susceptible to be a victim, oftentimes is someone that doesn't have that family support, maybe didn't have the, you know, the strong kind of confidence in the home coming up. And the predator seeks those more vulnerable souls out.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

They have, they. They have a talent for it. And then there's certain people that were, like she said, in the same room, also talented, but just. I think she was just very lucky in that she came from this nice family. She, you know, had gone to some schooling and had pursued it and just. And again went kind of up the ranks. Yeah, she skyrocketed, but she. It wasn't so plucked out and just, you know, no support, no mom, nothing. She had all that. And so I think that that's really interesting of, like, and how difficult it must have been like for a mom to let their like 15 year old daughter go to Italy or Japan. But then you're looking at all these super successful other models and you're like, well, if I don't let my daughter go, then she could miss out on this time just like a, you know, just like a professional sports player. Like you have that small window to make it. And if you don't make it by, you know, 22, good luck.

[A]

In the summer of, I think it was 1988 or 1989, two 15, 16 year old girls arrived in Paris. One was Stephanie Seymour, who came without her mother, and the other was Christy Turlington who came with her mother. Christy Turlington was taken by the Ford agency, which was run on a kind of maternal basis. And Stephanie Seymour signed with Elite, which was Johnny Casablancas agency, which was run on a kind of predatory basis. And Christy Turlington ended up happily married with a college degree, kids, runs a charity, is still a working model. And Stephanie Seymour ended up with Axl Rose and then Warren Beatty and then God knows who else, and married to a guy who'd been in jail and is rarely heard from anymore. So I think that what you're saying holds true. You know, it's not just heredity, it's not what you're born with, although that's important. It's not just environment, which is whether you come from a good family or not, because lots of top models have come from messed up families. But it's also what you have inside and your strength of character and your desire to succeed, which are two different things that are sometimes in opposition and sometimes work together. And those are the ones who, the ones where it all works together. Heredity, environment, and everything that's inside are the ones who become huge moneymakers and famous models and they're the ones who end up on St. Barts shooting the St. Barts shooting the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Yes.

[B]

So let's talk about that because, you know, Sports Illustrated has been in the news this year with the fashion show. In the last few years, they've really expanded from what we knew it as is. Just the top models got it, who was going to get the COVID And then you'd watch the whole filming of the shoot where they'd go to a specific place like St. Barts and do the whole thing. And we got to see how it worked, how they posed them, who the different photographers were. And it was really entertaining to kind of watch as a young girl that just, you know, had just loved seeing Beautiful places with beautiful women in it. How cutthroat was that to try to make the Sports Illustrated back then, between St. Barts and modeling and all of it?

[A]

Well, I don't really think it was cutthroat at all. It was a wonderful woman named Julie Campbell who ran the Sports Illustrated issues. And at that time, there was one photographer. His name was Walter Hughes Jr. And he was a lovely man who I actually knew was when I was like 5, 6 years old. Cause he had started out as a sports photographer and my father was a sports columnist. But, you know, I think with Sports Illustrated, you have the exact same fundamental question as you have with St. Bart's the Island. Now, how can an island and a sports magazine be alike? Well, because they're both, in a way, brands, and they both have to figure out ways to negotiate the path into the future. And St. Barth started out as a rock in the ocean that nobody loved and became the destination, the place to go where Sports Illustrated would go to shoot its swimsuit issue. Because it was in 1989, the year sports Illustrated went there, the hottest island in the world. And then it only got hotter, just like Sports Illustrated did for years and years and years. But now the magazine business is in decline and Sports Illustrated is in trouble, like all magazines are in trouble. And I was a magazine writer for decades, so I certainly, I lived through this. Saint Barts, in the same way, has become so popular that success has become its enemy. Will success kill Sports Illustrated? Will success kill St. Barts? And the underlying issue in my new books, Treasured island, is how does an island like that not just survive, but continue to succeed and continue to be the sort of product that it is at its peak? How do you maintain that? And it's a very difficult balancing act.

[B]

So let's talk a little bit about your background as a writer and then also your interest in putting you in this place where you could write with such great knowledge of these kind of people, whether they're supermodels or billionaires or both. Tell me a little. Tell us a little bit about that.

[A]

As I said, my father was a sports writer. He worked for the New York Post back in the old days when newspapers were important, too.

[B]

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[A]

And so I grew up in Yankee Stadium, in Shea Stadium in Madison Square Garden. My father covered the Knicks. Go Knicks. And you know, I have a Knicks championship ring back in my jewelry box from 1970 when the Knicks won the championship for the second to last time, although maybe they'll win again this year. And the thing was that when I was growing up, sports was something to be obsessed with. But for people, my Age rock and roll was something even more to be obsessed with. And so I was obsessed with rock and roll. And I started writing for rock magazines and newspapers about rock stars. And for 10 years I did that. I went on the road, I traveled with bands, I wrote about bands. And one of the things that you noticed was that fashion models gravitated to rock stars and rock stars gravitated to fashion. And so I started getting interested in the world of fashion. And after about 10 years of rock and roll, I'd had enough, I needed a change. And I started writing about fashion, photography. And it was partly cherchez la femme. I liked pretty girls, I liked pretty women. Curiously, I almost immediately got married to a fashion designer. But I had then a 10 year run of covering the fashion world, going to Milan, going to Paris, going to London, going to the shows in New York, sitting in the front row at shows. And who did you sit next to if you were in the front rows of shows? The wife of the billionaire, the princess this, the countess that. And so you also become fascinated with the people who are sitting around you and who you have access to. And so I slowly evolved into writing about rich people, celebrated people, not movie stars, because I'd already had my 10 year run of writing about stars and it was getting a little tired for me. But the people who were richer than the stars, maybe less famous, but more important in many ways. And I had a good 10 year run at New York, first at the New York Times and then at New York Magazine writing about all of that. During that time I started writing for travel magazines. And what I wrote about were the places where rich and famous people went. And that was how I first encountered Saint Barts. I started going there myself in about 1989 or 1990, and it became my go to destination for my vacations. And I didn't go Christmas week when all the billionaires were there, because I wanted a week off. Not a week, another week on. I didn't want to go to the beach and see Calvin Klein coming out of the surface. I wanted to go to the beach and be left alone. So I did that for 10 years. And then as the magazine business started to decline after 1995 or so, I started writing books. I wrote model, and then from there I segued into writing books that were social histories that looked at the relationship between rich people and real estate and what their choices in real estate told you about the upper classes and about the world we live in. So I wrote a book about a apartment building in New York called 7:40 Park. That was very old school New York wealth and how the old school New York wealth evolved. Then I wrote a book about Los Angeles called Unreal Estate that was about how Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills evolved over over 50, 75 years. Then I wrote a book about a condo building in New York called. And the book was called House of Outrageous Fortune. And it was about 15 Central Park west, which was full of all of the international oligarchs and hedge funders and private equity people, the kind of people who have no relationship with the world in which they live. They helicopter in, helicopter out, have private security, live in a bubble. Sort of the Jeff Bezos of the world. And then I was looking for a next book, and I thought, well, where does Jeff Bezos go on vacation? To the same place that I've gone for almost 40 years. St. Bart's okay, couple questions.

[B]

It's fascinating when you're writing about these people and you're sitting in the front row of the fashion and, you know, and that's really interesting that they, of course, the billionaire's wife is going to be invited because she's the top customer and she's going to wear these clothes and she's way more important to the. To the fashion brand than some chick that's going to, you know, hope to get the outfit for free and wear it to. On the red carpet. You know, when you're meeting these people, did you try to ingratiate yourself? So they're like, oh, Michael, come on our yacht with us. Let's hang out. How did that work? Because you were, like, writing about them. Did they want you to write about them? Did they. Did it make you nervous? Did it make them nervous that you were, in fact, you know, a writer?

[A]

Well, you know, when I was covering rock and roll and I was in my 20s, I kind of had this fantasy that I would be their friend. And you're not their friend. They live in a different world than you. And I pretty quickly came to understand that there was a divide, that I could ride in the limousine, but it wasn't my limousine. And I vowed that I was not going to become the kind of person who did whatever it took to get invited into somebody else's limousine. So when I started writing about fashion, I didn't do that kind of work. I wrote about the real story. I wrote about how things ticked, what really made a fashion brand. And there were times when that really annoyed people. Calvin Klein canceled $5 million in advertising in New York magazine because of a story I wrote about him. Christian Lacroix banned his.

[B]

What did you. Wait, what did you, what did you, what did you write that he didn't like?

[A]

Well, it was a 9,000 word profile, so there was a lot that he didn't like in there. And you know, the funny thing is I never said he was gay, but there was a picture on the COVID of him and his wife Kelly. And maybe there was a subtle message underneath all of that, but I wrote about Christian Lacroix and I simply said that his second collection wasn't very good and I was banned from his fashion shows. So, you know, you, you discover that a lot of these people have very thin skin. And what they count on is that there are so called journalists out there who think of their job as ingratiation, who are lap dogs. And I kind of decided to position myself opposite that and become a terrier. If you put a bone in my mouth of a story, I wasn't gonna let it go. And you know, it wasn't a great way to make friends. And in fact, I did make friends. I made friends with lots of the people in the worlds that I covered. But the way that I kind of sum them up is they're people who got the joke. They understood that it was all a game, and it was a game with journalists and that there was this continuum between terriers and lapdogs and that you could work with somebody. And, you know, sometimes you had to bite the hand that feeds you. And as a great, great editor once said, and if you do that, they'll feed you some more. And it really is true. And, you know, I found that if I didn't want care about being invited, I would be invited. And when I wasn't invited, I could just get the story anyway. So that was how I, that was how I handled it.

[B]

In writing about them, whether it was in the newspapers, magazines, or in your books. Did sometimes. Did you say who they were and other times kind of, you know, make it that someone could figure it out, but you don't say their actual name. How do you work that as far as not getting, you know, someone coming after you for defamation or whatever?

[A]

Well, I've been threatened and, you know, lawyers don't scare me, and I've been threatened by some pretty scary people, so. But, you know, I did write a gossip column once for about four months. I hated it. I hated myself. I hated waking up in the morning and looking in the mirror. I hated what I was doing. And I did write blind items. You know, guess who this is? And I hated doing that. No, what I do is I write real stories about real people and I use real names. And, you know, that might be why some people didn't get the joke. But that allowed me to write books that connected with the audience. I don't write for the people I write about. I write for the people who read my books. And what's great is that by the time I started writing these books about real estate and I've done four now with the St. Barts book, people respected what I did and they understood that I was putting their accomplishments into perspective. And if that meant describing them, as the saying goes, warts and all, it still was a way of saying, look at how important this person is. Look at how successful this person is. And so by the time I got to the later books and especially Treasured island, there were people who were thanking me for writing it because they realized that if somebody like me who asked the right questions didn't write that book, then the story of the island was going to vanish and die with the people who created the St. Barts that we have today. And that it was really important that that story be told. And you can only do that if you're willing to tell the truth.

[B]

So I have been to St. Barts once. I took the scary, you know, the little scary jumper plane that everyone talks about. I was very lucky. My husband and I were guests on our friend's yacht that was docked there. We never took the big yacht out, but we stayed on the big. The big yacht that had a staff. And then we would take the very nice Tinder out to snorkel and went to dinner and danced on the tables and went out at night and, and walked around the fancy shops and the more charming shops and took the mochi around and all of that. And we didn't go at the high tight time like the Christmas time. We went around Easter. So it was still very nice weather, but some days like rained and, and it was interesting then, which was about three, three or four years ago where it was. Yeah, three years ago where we were talking about, you know, they made sure that like there wasn't a place for any kind of big boat to come in. So that, you know, or they is very restricted of like how big or what level of hotel and stuff would be there. Because they didn't want it to be accessible to everybody. They really wanted to keep it at a level that you had to be pretty darn rich to stay there, get there, go to restaurants there, find a hotel room. Is that Correct?

[A]

Well, yeah, I mean, but you're talking about two different things. The harbor only accommodates a certain length of boat. So when David Geffen comes, he has to park his boat outside the harbor because it just can't get in. And even though there are slips for superyachts in the marina there, there's not room for the really, really, really big boats. So Roman Abramovich, Paul Allen, David Geffen, they have to tender in from outside the harbor. So that's one limitation, but that's a natural limitation. That harbor has been the reason why Saint Barts is. Saint Barts is because of that harbor. It was a freeport going back to the 17th century. In the 16th century, pirates operated out of that harbor. The original name was the Carronage, and Carronage is where boats are repaired. So that's a physical fact of Saint Barts. And it was a huge advantage that it had that harbor. As the island began to develop, there was a very conscious decision made that hotels would be limited, that they would originally, they had to be 12 rooms or fewer, nothing larger. And so what they did was very consciously they created an island where there's an intimate scale. There are no concrete box hotels. There are no beaches full of hotel, hotel, hotel, hotel, with people selling garbage on the beach. And all of those things contributed to the island that you visited three or four years ago, which is very different from the island that I visited 35 years ago, because it's the same French island. It's got the same style of life. It's got the same savoir faire, it's got the same croissant, the same, you know, duck confit. But back then, there were no palace hotels. There were no glass and marble villas. The villas were made of mahogany, antique. The hotels were small, intimate, and charming. They were very luxurious even then. But it was all on a much smaller scale. Everything was also far less expensive then, even though it probably the most expensive island in the Caribbean. There was a hotel called Taiwana, where the owner would rather keep the rooms empty and have no one staying there than rent to the wrong kind of people. They were consciously trying to, and I hate this word, curate. The kind of people who came to the island to ensure that it kept this very lofty luxury image. And over the years, more investment came, and the DNA of the island didn't change, but the outward expression of it did. And so now there are palace hotels, and they're kind of snooty, and there are stores that really very few people would shop in. And you know, a lot of those billionaires, they expect to get the clothes for free because they're billionaires, so they don't even shop. I mean, I know one billionaire guy who has a gigantic yacht who I I he told me he was going to Saint Barts and I offered to recommend some restaurants. And he said why would I want a list of restaurants? And I said, because Saint Barts is famous for its food. And he said, I have a chef on my boat. My chef is better than theirs. So there's that kind of billionaire attitude of you bring it with you. And what's interesting is that these people tend to come Christmas week when they can rub shoulders and butt chests with others of their ilk and they're all engaged in this gigantic whose is bigger. And I'm talking about their wallets and their boats, not anything else. Not their short stubby fingers. And so there's that society in Saint Barts and then there's the society that you encountered going Easter week. I was there just the week before Easter this year. It's quieter. There's still David Geffen's yacht was still there. The richest man in Israel's yacht was still there. But there wasn't this constant game of I'm more important than you are going on. And you can also the great thing about Saint Barts is it depends on the Saint Barts you want to see. Because the people who go to the dance on table restaurants, they're getting drunk at 3 o' clock in the morning. They're not getting up at 7am and they're not on the beach at 9am and they don't know which beaches are great for swimming. They probably don't swim. They probably sink from the weight of their wallets.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

And so now what do you, how do you see it today? Like is it too many influencers? So many places, whether it's a restaurant that has a great frozen yogurt in New York City to a bagel place, to an actual vacation spot where influencers would go and film it and make people aware. And now it's like I gotta go there. I don't care how much it costs, I just gotta go there once get these photos. And it really isn't the, the vibe that it was in of yesteryear. Do you?

[A]

Yes, there are, you know, I have, I have an Instagram account and, and when I started promoting my book, one of the things that I put up on there was a picture of eight influencers on the beach at a beach called Anse de Galette in Saint Barts. At a. At a day club called Shalona. And they were all primping and posing in. In their little metallic bikinis and with their selfie sticks. And I did put up a post making fun of the influencers. And the great thing is that while they're looking at themselves and at each other, all you have to do is turn your head and you can look out at sea and see what Saint Barts is really about, as opposed to, look, I'm here. You know, I have never cared about the frozen yogurt place that people line up for that whole culture. You know, I spent 10 years covering that culture for the New York Times, and it was a job and I got paid for it. And the notion that this is what our society has become is a fascinating one. And the one thing that I am willing to guarantee is that the culture will move on. This too, is reaching the saturation point. And at some point, people are gonna start looking out to see instead of at themselves in their cell phones.

[B]

I mean, even my own life with social media, you know, it is such a great tool for someone like me, who's a comedian, who is responsible for getting her own opportunities, own ads, own jobs, all that stuff. It's extremely valuable. But I have looked back on vacations in the recent years and been like, I was too. There's like an anxiety where you're like, I gotta take these photos. I've gotta take these cont. This content because it's so beautiful. I gotta get it. Then I was like, okay, I gotta get it. But then I won't post it till I'm home or, you know, in my room or whatever so that I can enjoy the experience. Now I'm going on a trip next week to these Bahama Islands, and I'm so excited because I love. I do love swimming in the ocean. I. You know, but now I'm in a place where I'm like, I'm going to bring one. Carry on. That's it. I want to just enjoy it. I'm fine taking it. I'm not bringing bags and shoes that match because that takes up a lot of room. I'm ready to just really experience the beauty and have the fun, and I don't care to have to show it off now. You know, someone would be like, really, Heather? You just came to that now, like, at your age? But I do think that eventually people do get to that place where it's like, it feels like work. You know, I went on this one vacation and I didn't want people to know I was there because we had planned it and it was, there was bad things happening in the world. So I didn't want to look clueless posting this great time, you know, so we took photos and I, and I never posted it, but it was like, it wasn't a great vacation because I was stressed about the things going on in the world. But it made it so nice just to be like, oh my God, you know, take maybe one morning photo and one when you're cute to go out to dinner and like that's it, like to be filming it all around and stuff. You do get to a place where you're like, I'm not living in this moment and I don't now even remember it.

[A]

You know, one of my great St. Barth's Memories is the second or third year I went and as I was in Saint Barts, the Gulf War, George Bush and Saddam Hussein broke out. And you couldn't get a newspaper at Saint Barts then you had to, you could get a day and a half old New York Times at 4 o' clock in the afternoon the next day if they happened to pick up the papers in Puerto Rico and fly them in. There was no telephone, There were no television, there were no telephones. And I am so serious about this. There was a boutique that was called Sorry, no Telephone. And I still have some Sorry, no telephone T shirts. And at the time you didn't realize what an amazing thing it was to be in a place that was cut off from the world. So now the Gulf War breaks out and the only television reception we had in the house that we were renting was reverse image snow. So it was all static. And you could just about hear that very horrible things were going on in Iran, in Iraq. And I thought, how lucky are we? Turn it off. And you know, it sounds like you've got the right idea, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna pose a challenge to you. Leave your phone at home.

[B]

Well, that I don't think I can do because unfortunately.

[A]

Get an old fashioned flip phone.

[B]

Yeah, I'm gonna try to. I've been getting better, but you know, again with my business, I have to post. You know, this is gonna be dropping while I'm on vacation, so it's like I have to post about it, you know, and I, I can have Drake work with me so that I, I'm getting to a place where I'm like, I don't want to, I definitely don't want to be doing too much, but. Yes, you do kind of have to do that. But, yeah, it's great when somebody I've interviewed, people that have done, young kids that have done reality shows where they take their phones and they said, you know, the first day it was weird, but after that we loved it. We loved every second of it. Nobody else had their phone.

[A]

We.

[B]

That's why we were able to make friends or even maybe, you know, get romantic or whatever, because we weren't looking at the phones. It's just such a thing. And I do feel like there's going to be a pendulum swing and it's already starting where people are really making events and things like that, where you drop the phone or you hire a photographer and that's the photos and you don't need to worry about getting them. And it really makes such a difference, you know?

[A]

You know, and I. I realize that it's both ironic and perhaps a little hypocritical that I'm here now. Here comes the advertisement talking about my book Treasured the Story of St. Barts, out on June 16th in bookstores everywhere, while talking about an island where there were once no telephones and no television and no newspapers and how much I loved it. But the fact is, the world can accommodate both of those things. You can be both the person who does your job and takes pictures and posts on social media, and also someone who can just throw the switch and turn it off for a few days. And it's a place like St. Bart's where the world is in your face. You go down to Gustavia harbor and what you are looking at is wealth inequality without question. That's what you're seeing. You are seeing the epitome of inequality. You're seeing, if you look hard enough, how this all happened, how luxury became this thing, how social media, the fuel of ambition and avarice and jealousy and envy that drives social media. And yet you're also in this stunningly beautiful place where you can just turn it off and relax. And, you know, there it's just being able to keep 2 thoughts in your head at the same time. So it's not hypocrisy and it's not irony. It's just the way the world works now. And, you know, we have to take pleasure where we can find it, even in troubled times, in.

[B]

In being in Saint Barts and things I'm imagining you encountered, like a lot of maybe, you know, infidelity or social climbers or gold diggers or gigolos or wife swapping scandal. Can you share any of that?

[A]

Well, you know, a Lot of what goes on in Saint Barts stays in St. Barts, because there is an entire ecosystem of people who are paid very well to protect the privacy of the people who go there. So the, you know, the concierges, which are both hotel concierges, but also concierges for the people who rent villas, you know, they might tell me the story about the maid who walked in one day and one of the guys in the house was snorting cocaine off the bare bottom of one of the women in the house, or the clothes were all over the place, and who knows who was in what bedroom, but they're going to protect their clients. So. And, you know, really, there's something kind of banal about all of that, but at the same time, there, you know, this is an island where hedonism has reigned for decades. And there was a point when all of that was very, very public. So there's a whole section in the middle of the book about the era from the 70s to the 80s, when Saint Barts was overrun with drug smugglers, models, fashion photographers and rock stars. And that was one of the things that, you know, there were a whole series of waves of people going there that put Saint Barts on the map. First, there were multi. Multimillionaires like David Rockefeller and Edmund de Rothschild. So, you know, you had the American and the French uber rich guys. Then you had the kind of Connecticut pioneers, Republicans, who liked to sail, who build houses. One of those houses that was built by a fellow who was later the mayor of Wilmington, Delaware, became the Den of Iniquity, the most raucous, louche hotel club on the island. It was called Auteur des Rocher. It was ostensibly owned by Jimmy Buffett, although Buffett was really just a front man. He owned about 2%, 3%, but Buffett described it as the scene of some of the worst behavior I have ever seen. And he was a rock star. So, you know that he's seen a lot of bad behavior in his life. And there. So there's a very long section of Treasured island in which things that went on there are described. And a lot of it is not fit for a family podcast.

[B]

No, this is not a family podcast.

[A]

Oh, good. So there's the guy. There's the guy. There's the bartender who had sex with so many girls in the bathroom that they ripped the sink off the wall three times. He had a reputation for going down on women for an hour and a half at a time, so they would hand him from one to the next. Girls left their boyfriends to be with this guy. Drug dealers traded girls. You know, they would be having sex on the pool table while snorting cocaine from somebody, handing it in through the window into the nightclub. It was wild. And when I asked one of these drug smugglers whether a night like that was the worst thing he ever saw, he kind of paused for a second and he went, no.

[B]

Now, in. In all this research, was it never darker than that? Like, it wasn't. This wasn't never Epstein island type stuff? Or was there some of that where girls would come that maybe were not 18 years old but were in the modeling world and looked older? They themselves were trying to get on the yacht. You know, we always hear everybody's like, oh, I want to go on a yacht. I want to be a yacht girl. I want to find friends who have, you know, girls that could bring me on a yacht. And then people are like, be careful when you get on that yacht. You know, they're not just. They're not looking to find out about what your, you know, high school career was like before you got on this yacht. They don't give a shit about that.

[A]

Between the late 1990s and the 2000s, there was a period when almost every MeToo perpetrator on Earth was going to St. Bart's usually again during Christmas week. Easy to avoid. You just don't go during Christmas week. But Harvey Weinstein was there, Puff Daddy was there. Russell Simmons was there. There's a PR woman in New York who's kind of been disgraced by her association with Jeffrey Epstein. And just out of curiosity, this was long after I'd written the book, but the Epstein files came out, and I plugged St. Barth's into the Epstein Fil. And she was constantly trying to get him to go from the Virgin Islands to Saint Barts. And interestingly, he was like, well, you know, what do I need that for? I've got my own island and I have my own girls. So I guess Jeffrey Epstein probably only went there a few times, but all of the rest of them were there. So there's an entire roster of the canceled who are on the scene on St. Bart's list. So did bad things go on there? I'm sure they did. I'm frankly more interested in financial skullduggery, in real estate skullduggery, in the machinations of uber rich people trying to impose their vision on an island that will tolerate them and take their money, but really doesn't want them running things. And so those kind of larger Societal forces are what I paid more attention to.

[B]

You know, what I wonder about is, like, sometimes when I think about, like a Saint Bart's, like, let's just say I wanted to go and plan with my friends. I mean, I'm. I'm a little bit famous, but not much. I always panic. Like, how on a busy time, how am I ever going to get a reservation anywhere? Like, how does it work out that all these people. Because each person is more powerful than the next that can say, no, I want an 8 o' clock table. Whatever. I want a 2 o' clock table on the beach at this place. The big round table near the guy playing the trumpet. Like, how does it always work out that, that everybody seems to get their spot?

[A]

Well, first of all, you don't have to compete with me because I would never go to those places. Okay, but, but, you know, first of all, where do you live? Where do you work at?

[B]

I live, I'm in, just outside of la.

[A]

Okay. It's just like it used to be to get a table at Morton's or at Craig's or whatever the place right now is. If you're somebody, you'll get a table. If you know somebody, you'll get a table. If all else fails, money talks. The better thing to do is plan ahead. You know, I hate this, but I know now that there are certain places on St. Barts where I have to call a week or two in advance and email and make reservations and plan ahead. I was much. I remember years and years ago, I wrote a cover story for a travel magazine about the island of Capri off of the Italian coast. And when I went to Capri, it was in a slow moment. It had been a very famous place in the 50s and 60s and it had kind of fallen off the map of rich people. And I wrote a cover story about it. And it's. I'm not giving myself full credit for this, but it started to come back until it became the place again, full of yachts and rich people and Jeff Bezos and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, we would wake up in the morning on Capri, walk down to the concierge desk and say, which way is the wind blowing today? And that was how we knew whether we wanted to go to Luigi, which was on one side of a mountain, or Scalinatella, which was on the other side of the mountain. Which way was the wind blowing? Where was the water going to be nicer? You know, unfortunately, unless you go places that are not yet discovered, you can't do that anymore. You have to either plan ahead, be immensely wealthy, be somebody or know somebody. And that's just again, the way the world works. Or be very lucky and walk in just when somebody really rich who had that big table on the beach cancels.

[B]

Yeah. That's why I wonder, like, are there ever groups of very attractive girls that go there in the hopes of having a great time, going to villas, going to parties, getting on yachts. But it seems to me like most people that go, it's men that bring a girlfriend with them or bring a wife or a mistress or whatever. It's not like a. It's not like going to Vegas and meeting a group of guys playing poker at the steakhouse or whatever.

[A]

Have you found that one will see groups of incredibly beautiful women in incredibly skimpy clothing sitting in highly visible places on Saint Barts and some of them are even amateurs. But yes, that happens. It's going to happen anywhere where a lot of money congregates. It's part of the scene. But I think that you are right. Most people who are going to St. Barts will bring a date.

[B]

Yeah. And then what do you feel about people bringing kids? Has that always been a factor where they bring the kids and the nannies? Or was there a time when it was like you saw very little children on vacation there?

[A]

But remember I told you about that hotel where the hotel owner would leave it empty in order to appear exclusive? He once sent Madonna away when she showed up with a baby and a nanny because he didn't want the baby and the nanny there. But most places, Most places on St. Bart's you see children all the time. It's also, it's a family, it's an island where there is an entire society that lives there. There's that beach I mentioned with the, with the Instagrammers called Shelby Johnste Galette. There's an elementary school right next door to that beach. There are children all over the island. There are children friendly hotels, there are children friendly beaches. It's a very sophisticated place and so well behaved children do not stand out. And especially on the weekends when the islanders have the day off and they're going to the beach, you see kids all over the place. It's really kind of sweet.

[B]

Yes. It also says, you know, right now locals are dealing with insane over development, ecological threats, hospitality groups are taking over. So where does that leave it now?

[A]

Well, it's an ongoing battle right at this moment. A few years ago there was an election where development friendly candidates were running against development unfriendly candidates. And the slate that was elected was kind of right up the middle. So there's an acute consciousness of the fact that Saint Barts could become the victim of its own success. And there's a very careful process going on which includes a lot of political battles between, you know, the Saint Barts equivalent of the left and the right. Although they're not left or right on Saint Barts, they're pro development or they're pro preservation. And I think that what's going to happen is they're going to find a balance. But at the moment it's a political argument, it's a tug of war. And so when you go there, there are lots of construction trucks, there's lots of construction. But the process of allowing, of issuing permits to allow new construction has slowed way down. So what's happening now is all the permits that are outstanding, those places are being built. But for instance, you're no longer allowed to build a villa just to rent it. If you're a family and you're building a villa for your family to live in, no problem. 60% of the island has been declared green. It will never be built on. And boy, does that frustrate some people who own land, let me tell you. So it's a process and it's ongoing. And again, that's the underlying narrative of my book is the story of progress, profit, preservation, all of these things, you know, greed, it all is in this stew of St. Barth's and it just makes it the most fascinating eight square miles in the world to me.

[B]

Question about building a house. You're building a villa for your family, for yourself. Is it one of those things where you can only rent it out to one person a year or you cannot rent it out to anybody. You have to be there with your guests.

[A]

Well, now there's an effort being made to stop the construction of purely rental housing. There's also a huge shortage of housing for staff. So you have these five star hotels where their staff can't find any place to sleep, which is a huge issue on the island. And again, this is all stuff that is in the process of being worked out. Most people on the island, they thought that beachfront property was kind of yucky because beachfront property made you subject to hurricanes and bad weather. Beachfront had mosquitoes. Beachfront wasn't considered good property. They lived back from the beach and up from the beach and then they saw these people coming to go to the beach and so they built houses on their properties on the beach that they Rented. And the joke was that they would move out and sleep in the backyard in a hammock back in the 80s. But, you know, nowadays, I mean, I rent a little tiny house from a family that has a compound where mom lives in one house, daughter and husband live in a second house. And my wife and I rent the third house. That's very frequent. There are people who have houses that they use once a week.

[B]

And they.

[A]

Once a month, once a year, excuse me. And they rent it out the rest of the time. There are a million rental agents. There used to be one, it used to be a. There used to be two. It was a duopoly. And it was a much more civilized society when that duopoly was in charge. Nowadays, it's a real estate free for all. And so you have, you know, there's a house around the corner from the one I rent that is, I think, $80,000 a week during high season. But if you want it for Christmas, you have to take it for two weeks at $250,000 a week.

[B]

Wow. Now, has anybody or, you know, been such a drunk asshole Something that you get like banned from the restaurant or banned from the island or anything like that, even though you're super wealthy?

[A]

Funny you should mention that. That same restaurant hotel where Madonna was turned away, which, by the way, was famous in the 1980s for having the world's most expensive lentil salad. He once threw Puff Daddy out for being too rambunctious. And that exact same weekend, Puff Daddy's yacht rental company took the yacht he had rented away from him because he was trashing the yacht. So the answer to your question is yes, it at least happened to Puff Daddy.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, I think. I think he had a good sense of judgment, this guy, as far as that goes. And seeing that this was not going to get better or this wasn't a one time incident.

[A]

But to show you how tolerant St. Barts is, that guy, the guy who threw Madonna out and threw Puffy out. That guy has been in jail, has sold his hotel to two different people, has been engaged in all kinds of contractual skullduggery. And is still a very beloved person on the island. So Saint Barts is tolerant of bad behavior, but only up to a point.

[B]

So you live most of the time in the city? In New York City?

[A]

I live right near the UN In Manhattan, yes.

[B]

And so how often then do you go to Saint Barts?

[A]

Used to be once a year. Lately twice a year. My wife and I travel all the time. We're back and forth to Europe all the time. We go all over. But St. Bart's is an every year thing. I've reserved the house that I rent on St. Bart's through 2028. So I'm a true believer.

[B]

And what's the time of year that you say you like to go?

[A]

Anytime from October to early December. So around Thanksgiving is really nice. Then we used to go from Chinese New Year, which is the end of January, anytime, right up to Easter, which is very nice. I try to go during slack times of year when the island is a little less crowded and a little less high pressure.

[B]

And so when is kind of not the ideal time to go, weather wise?

[A]

Well, you know, you don't want to go. You probably don't want to go in September and October because there are these little things called hurricanes. And, you know, there's a treasured island tells the story of a number of these hurricanes that basically devastated the island. And then the island is very quickly rebuilt. And in certain instances, those hurricanes have been moments of reset for the island when the culture changes a little bit. Like Hurricane Irma in 2019 was a moment when people began to take stock of overdevelopment for the first time. So probably September, October, not ideal times to go. The European crowd tends to go on in August, which is European vacation season, and they don't want to go to Saint Tropez because it's overcrowded. So they come to Saint Barts because it's underutilized at that time of the year. And, you know, you had said about the weather. Well, in August. I went once in August and at 3 o' clock every single afternoon, like clockwork, there would be a torrential rainstorm and it would last for 15 minutes and then the sun would come out again.

[B]

That's not too bad.

[A]

No.

[B]

What about like the Real Housewives of New York and places like those reality shows that come to the island and film, Are they restrictive of that kind of thing now, or did they do it once and regret it?

[A]

Well, you know, keeping. Was it Keeping up with the Kardashians? That's their television show.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. Keeping up with the Kardashians did an episode once and they spent a week there filming. And they rented a villa that had once been a hotel restaurant that was famous for its transvestite cabaret shows. So it was kind of appropriate that trashy people in high heels would film their show there and people on the island laugh at it. Nobody cares if you're decently behaved. No one minds. I don't know if There are rules about bringing a camera crew to the island. You don't see that very often. You see a fashion shoot far more often than that. But do reality TV people go there? Yeah, sure, but so do people who actually accomplish things in their lives. And writers and artists and musicians and politicians and billionaires.

[B]

Speaking of Real Housewives is something I cover, and I know that's not like your forte or anything, but they always want to get someone that is the billionaire's wife, the rich wife that's led this very, very fabulous life. But she's not an actress and she's not famous in her own right. But sometimes those women want very badly to be famous because it's the one thing they really can't buy. And then other times they're very hard to get because the husband or whatever is like hell to the no, we're not going to have our lives exposed and be a target for someone trying to fish into our financials. But in you dealing with these wealthy wives of, have you ever found that they do desire to have a higher profile than what is allowed of them as being the wife of.

[A]

In my experience, and to my knowledge, which is limited because it's not a world I cover, the kind of people that you're describing are second tier in whatever world they're in. If they're rich guys, wives, then they're second tier rich guys and they might even be second tier wives. There are people who haven't actually gotten to the top and they are looking for something, they're still looking for something better. And there's a level of desperation there that lots of people are willing to take advantage of. And you know, I'm far more interested in accomplishment. I'm far more interested whether it's business accomplishment or creative accomplishment. Those are the people who do things, are the people who interest me. So on St. Barts, I'm actually far more interested in the people who built hotels, who created restaurants, who built important houses and attracted other influential, important, accomplished people to the island than I am to the people who come in the third wave where they're like looking around going, I don't see any Rockefellers. So it's not. I don't think it's an island. I don't think Saint Barts is an island that would reject someone like that. But neither would they be an important person on the island or to the island.

[B]

Right. And one thing I've kind of. I was surprised that I discovered this because I didn't grow up in the world of this kind of wealth or even close is that billionaires kind of are attracted to other billionaires wives, whether they're divorced or whatever, that these, that these women, you know, you sometimes think yes, some rich guys go for the youngest, hottest thing for their third or fourth wife. But oftentimes they go for the woman that knows how to live this life already. And if it's sort of a competitive thing, that they would get some guy that was sort of in their league or maybe even a little above their league, their ex wife. Have you seen that at all? That dynamic?

[A]

Yeah, but again it's only interesting in terms of sort of the life of the French aristocracy in the 19th century. It's not, it's not in any way about good energy, creativity, accomplishment. All they are, you know, the wife who knows how to do things is really no different from the fashion model with the bodacious body. It's just another possession for the kind of person who would do that, the kind of man who would do that is simply looking for a better car. You know, a Lambo with a bigger engine, a house with a second swimming pool. It's banal. It's not a higher expression of human existence.

[B]

Yeah, it's so interesting that there's those kind of wealthy people, like you said, looking for the next thing. They want to have the best thing, they want to have the flashiest item or car. And then there's people that are just rich and relaxed because of it. And it's a peaceful life, it's a generous life, it's a fun life, it's a creative life. And you know, I've experienced both like it's so interesting, you know, and, and because it seems like, you know, it's such an a stratosphere of money that you cannot relate to. It's really interesting to see how certain people navigate that life, protect themselves, but are also still open to new friendships and things.

[A]

Well, and you know, on St. Barts that expression is more often through the bigger boat, the bigger party, the bigger house, the bigger piece of land. It's not so much, you know, the girl, the arm candy that you're walking around with. Sure, those guys have great looking women on their arms. But again, it might be important Christmas week, but the rest of the year, St. Barth's is really the heart of. St. Barth's is not about the money. The money is simply a means to a higher end in that context.

[B]

Yeah. Well, this was so interesting. I know everyone's going to love the book. It is called Treasured island comes out June 16th. Thank you. Michael Gross Check out his other books. You listed them and they all sound so juicy and interesting, which is why I'm glad you're on Juicy Scoop and A world that you know. It's fun to crawl inside and really get to learn about and know about and just kind of escape. And I'm really grateful for you being so open and what a life you've led. Thank you for coming on.

[A]

Thank you. And people can find out all about those books at my website, which is simply mgross.com and Treasured island comes out on June 16th and I hope people enjoy it.

[B]

Thank you so much. This is great.

[A]

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