Celebrities Who Spent Money On The Most Pointless Stuff
There are two schools of thought when it comes to having a lot of money: Invest it wisely, because you don't get rich by spending, or spend it on what you want, because that's what it's there for. Many celebrities generally fall into the second group — showing off, glitzing it up, and generally making everyone without seven-figure incomes feel boring. And what better way to show off your cash than to spend it on something completely frivolous? While for most of them, that means really expensive haircuts, clothes, and meals, others go a little further into pointless-ville.
Bono really likes his hat
Bono, music's self-appointed definition of hypocrisy, never seems to see the irony of blowing his money on flashy clothes while simultaneously encouraging those with far less disposable income to give ours to charity. According to U2 fan site @u2, Bono was performing a charity concert in Modena, Italy, when he realized he had left his favorite trilby in London. Refusing to go on stage without his hat (because no one will donate if he's not wearing it, obviously), Bono blew $1500 to have it delivered. But apparently, next-day delivery wasn't fast enough, so he put in a taxi to the airport in London, then bought it a first-class seat on a British Airways flight to Bologna (though it rode in the cockpit with the pilot), then another taxi to Modena.
When the rest of us leave something behind when we go on holiday, we either do without it, or buy a replacement when we get there. Bono had the same options, just also $1500 to blow on his solution. This isn't to say that he didn't also give money to the charity he was performing for, but asking others to do so while simultaneously blowing four figures because he lost his most favorite-est hat shows an incredible lack of empathy, not to mention an incredible surfeit of vanity.
Madonna likes to stay hydrated
Performing is pretty draining work, so it's expected that many stars keep a bottle of water around to stay hydrated. Apparently, as Madonna has no doubt decided, exceptional performances don't happen if you're drinking regular water ... otherwise, they would be regular performances. So for awhile whenever she's away from home, Madonna chose to forego whatever local water is available (can't risk normal), and instead supplied her own.
Fortunately we're not talking about urine, but rather Kabbalah water. So, same thing. Kabbalah water was sold by the "Kabbalah Center," a cultish offshoot of a little-known Jewish tradition, which claimed the water had been specially treated through blessings, meditations, and other mystical pseudo-science, that gave it special healing powers at — yeesh — $5 a bottle. So it's expensive urine.
Madonna was a favored follower of Kabbalah, to the point where she was having cases of its water shipped to wherever she happened to be, racking up considerable expense in the process—$10,000 a month, according to to some reports. However, the claims of special powers in the water have since been thoroughly debunked, the water shown to come from a totally ordinary bottling plant in Ontario, Canada. Bottled water is already something of a scam, so it takes some creativity to make a scam out of a scam. It also takes a certain willingness to be scammed, such as with a fool like Madonna, who must be desperate to part with her money in just the stupidest ways.
Lady Gaga thinks she's haunted
Whether it's walking under ladders, or being on an aircraft, most of us can lay claim to at least one irrational fear. But since most people have a fairly large dose of real life to get on with, there isn't much incentive to do anything with those fears except try to ignore them—but all that changes when you have money to burn. Take Lady Gaga, who admits to certain paranormal beliefs, and clearly isn't short of people ready to help her dig a little deeper. That might be how she ended up owning a $50,000 "ghost detector," otherwise known as an electromagnetic field detector. Electromagnetic fields are produced by anything that contains, creates, or affects electricity. Humans aren't sensitive to electromagnetic fields, but an electromagnetic field detector is capable of detecting them and the ghosts that also cause them ... supposedly.
There is, however, no evidence that ghosts actually create electromagnetic fields, and in a room full of electronics, surrounded by the modern world in all its high-voltage glory, it'd be pretty hard to distinguish between a murder victim from the last century begging for justice, and your PA playing Pokemon Go. But that hasn't stopped Lady Gaga from "investigating" her hotel rooms prior to moving in for the night, and it makes one wonder how many suites got rejected because the guest in the next room was drying their hair. Guess they don't call her Gaga for nothing.
Elton John loves flowers
Flowers are pretty, they smell nice too. It's understandable why we buy bunches of them for people we like, or simply to brighten up our homes. But they're also fairly expensive, which is why we can't do that all the time ... unless you're Elton John. who not only loves flowers, he can afford to have them around all the time.
In the late '90s, auditors found a £20 million hole in Elton John's finances, so he took some former business associates to court to get to the bottom of it. Unfortunately for him, this meant having his spending habits examined, and in among the receipts and bank statements was proof that Elton John really, really, really, loves flowers. In fact, over 20 months in the mid-90s, he spent £293,000 (around $400,000) on the habit. When questioned about this profligacy, he did what Elton JOhn does best: he totally owned it, saying, "I like flowers. I don't have any people to leave my money to, I'm a single man, I like to spend money. It's my money to spend." Just don't try using that excuse when the IRS comes looking for those back taxes you owe.
Nicolas Cage is a fan of history
We've all had that moment when you see something super-awesome that you know you just have to own. It's especially sweet if you're a successful actor that likes to own cool stuff, because the chances are you can afford to, more often than not anyway. And so, when Nicolas Cage came face-to-face with the skull of a Tyrannosaurus bataar, a relative of the T-rex, there was only ever going to be one outcome, and it only cost him $276,000.
Unfortunately for Cage, the greatest conversation starter in the world was not to be his for long. T-bataar fossils have only ever been found in Mongolia, and since Mongolia banned the export of dinosaur fossils in 1925, the only way an example could have found its way to the USA is if it had been illegally smuggled. When the authorities presented Cage with evidence of the criminal origins of his skull, he decided to give it back to the rightful owners.
Cage originally outbid Leonardo DiCaprio to win the skull at a March 2007 auction, but if he had known he would be paying almost $300,000 just to rent the thing for a few years, he probably wouldn't have bothered. O maybe would have. It is Nicolas Cage, after all.
Paris Hilton spoils her dogs
There can't be too many charitable explanations that would excuse how much Paris Hilton spends on her dogs. Not that loving your pets is a crime, and we all buy our poochies a treat or a good grooming now and then. But when you decide to spend $325,000 to build your pooches a 300-square-foot doggy house in your backyard, then you probably need your head examined.
Paris' pooch palace is designed to mimic the style of her own home, with two stories, windows, working AC and heat, a chandelier, wrought iron railings, miniature furniture, and actual ceramic tiles on the roof. But despite all the features, it's hard to see where all the money went. It did snag Hilton a write up in Life and Style Magazine, which may have been the goal all along.
Paris Hilton is the great granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton hotel chain, so perhaps building luxury accommodations is in her blood. But despite putting a roof over the head of some spoiled rich kids, it's hard to imagine that if her great grandfather were still alive, she wouldn't be in the doghouse herself.
Beyonce and Jay-Z go rich-parent van shopping
You can't own a two-seater sports car if you're about to have kids: tradition, practicality, and numerous movie tropes require that you sell it and buy something sensible, like a mini-van. Luckily, if your name is Beyonce or Jay-Z, and you have a $1 million to spend, you can pick yourself up a fun Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Limousine van. Unluckily, you are probably not Beyonce or Jay-Z.
Obviously not content to make do with a minivan like everyone else, Beyon-Z bought a specially-customized Mercedes van to carry their new family around in. It doesn't look very easy to park, it's definitely not sexy, and despite the obvious practicality, it's actually hard to figure out why they even need it. It's not like they'll be avoiding the cost of flights by driving cross-country, and even if they did, they'd probably have an army of assistants to deal with the diapers, and a string of expensive hotel rooms to wash off any vomit that does make it through the defense screen. It actually seems more like a parenting status symbol: expressing in the relationship between price, boring practicality, and ultimate pointlessness, their willingness to pay whatever is required to make everyone else feel like inadequate parents.
Justin Bieber bought himself a Batmobile
Justin Bieber likes his cars, and Batman, so why not combine the two and build yourself a Batmobile? Many of Bieb's cars are custom-made, and feature a flat black paint job that makes them hard to see on a dark street, so he clearly sees himself as the Bat already. He currently has a flat black Range Rover, a flat black smart car (the only car that doesn't make him look even smaller), a flat black Mercedes Benz Sprinter van, and a flat black MV Agusta motorbike ... sensing a theme yet?
Usually when someone wants some custom work done by a shop like West Coast Customs, they buy the car and take it to the shop ... except if you're Justin Bieber. When the Biebs wanted a custom Batmobile in 2011, he called the shop's owner and asked him to come to his recording studio, where Bieber says "I'm loving that new Cadillac CTS-V, I hear it goes fast. I think it's the perfect car for me. Do you think you can do that?" Inside three weeks, the Biebmobile was done, complete with — you guessed it — flat black paint, along with suicide doors (which most Cadillacs do not have), Batman logos, the singer's initials, and a killer sound system.
Now nicknamed the "Batillac," the car is rumored to have cost Batman's #1 fan a cool $100,000. But since he can now put on the Batman costume he wore at his 12th birthday party, and drive around doing super-cool impressions of the Caped Crusader, it was probably worth every penny.
Kim Basinger goes to town … and then buys it
Some celebrities buy large houses, some buy private islands, but Kim Basinger puts them all to shame, because she buys whole towns. You wouldn't think it would be possible to buy an entire town, but as it turns out it is, and it only cost her (and her silent partner) a cool $20 million.
Braselton, sited around 50 miles north of Atlanta, Georgia, was named for the original owner of the land, Harrison Braselton. In the 113 years since then the town grew, and his descendants didn't sell any of it. However, come 1989, the remaining Braseltons were getting too old to run the town any longer, so they put it up for sale, and Basinger put in an offer. The original scheme was to turn Braselton into a tourist attraction and film studio, which would have brought a much needed boost to the local economy. But when Kim Basinger came to Braselton, she brought her problems with her. She was sued in 1993 for walking out on a movie, and was subsequently forced to sell the town for a huge loss. In hindsight, the residents of Braselton would probably agree that having their town owned by a flighty actress was not, in fact, the boon they thought it might be.
Tamara Ecclestone takes a bath inside a giant crystal
Tamara Ecclestone is the daughter of Bernie Ecclestone, the 86-year-old "supremo" of Formula One racing. He also happens to be the fourth-richest person in Britain, so you know his daughter isn't worried about her retirement. What she is worried about, however, is her bath, because as she readily admits, she spends a lot of time in there. So much so, in fact, that she has decided to spend $1.5 million to "upgrade" it.
But we're not talking about installing a nicer faucet, or jets, but something rather more ambitious. In 2011, she sent an "expedition" up the Amazon in search of a crystal large enough to make a bath out of. The end result probably looks something like a smooth geode, but big enough for a whole human to bathe in. And apart from the cost of sending people to look for the shiny rock, it also needed to be shipped back to London, polished, and then the house needed to be reinforced to hold the weight, which goes some way to explain — if not excuse — the expense. Though if she ever gets bored of it, she can always cut it up and donate the pieces to pseudoscience.