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| Photo credit: Gawker.com |
Sex trafficking, money laundering, fake passports and blood diamonds are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this behind the scenes look into the celebrity sex trade. Backed financially by two Middle Eastern royal families the day to day logistics are run by a man I call Bani. Four months before Cannes and the start of the summer yacht season, Bani is in Hollywood negotiating deals and living up to his reputation as a man who can always find a price where a woman says yes. He is the sex broker between the stars and the men who want to fuck them.
Instead of shaming celebrities as they left swag suites loaded down with goods which will end up under Christmas trees later this year, two days prior to the Golden Globes I found myself roaming the 14th floor of the Beverly Wilshire looking for the correct suite. It was an entire floor of very large, very expensive suites and a staff member had to assist me with the elevator because it doesn't normally stop on the 14th floor. That always makes rich people feel special. I don’t normally even stop at the Beverly Wilshire. I boycotted the place a couple of years back when I got the bill for an omelet and orange juice and it topped $50. They don’t know I’m actually boycotting. More of a silent thing. Well, they probably do now. Do you think they read this? Probably not, but their buddies over on Doheny do.
I can’t believe I am already digressing. Two weeks before I set off to look at carpet patterns on this hotel floor I received an e-mail. It was from a man who said that he saw me on Secret Societies Of Hollywood and had some information about one of the topics I discussed. I would like to think I was his first choice but apparently my buddy Mark Ebner was busy chain smoking or maybe the e-mail ended up in Mark’s spam. Anyway, I ended up e-mailing the guy and we had a back and forth. He didn't want to go into much detail through e-mail and I didn't really want to expose myself to sunlight. He might have mentioned a meal in one of the conversations and as you know, I will pretty much do anything for a free meal. When he said he was the go to guy for transactions involving models, actresses and reality stars for some of the richest people in the world, of course I was going to say yes.
I had no photo to go by. The night before my visit he confirmed our appointment and over the month he was in town we met several times, almost always in his hotel suite, and always always with a guy named Ravi by his side. Apparently Ravi used to be a Navy Seal. Ravi didn't say it. Ravi didn't say anything. He barely blinked. He was right at six feet tall with a buzz cut that hid his blonde hair. The guy is all muscle. As in bounce a quarter off the guy muscle. My contact, the guy we will call Bani loved talking about Ravi and would not stop bragging about how he had a Navy Seal guarding him. At that point I wasn't sure why Bani needed security. All I knew was when he opened that door the first time we met, I couldn't help noticing the really nice view. It was just right there. I pointed it out to Bani who was dressed in a royal blue suit that must have cost more than I make in a month. His thick black hair was slicked back with some kind of product that made his hair look wet. It smelled a lot like olive oil. Probably something he found on the GOOP website. He is close to 60 but looked about ten years younger. Must be all the talking. The second I walked in the door Bani started talking about how his suite was the one Piers Morgan lived in while Piers worked at CNN. I think Piers had a different one, but Bani seemed pretty excited about it so I didn't want to make him feel bad. I would wait to see if he came through with a meal first.
I get a lot of e-mails. I get a lot of tips. I get a lot of tips through other people that give me tips. After the television show, the tips got out of control. After doing this for over eight years, you kind of get a sense what is real and when someone is not being completely honest or doesn't know what they are talking about. There was a lot of that after the show. A whole lot of Illuminati people and how Beyonce and Jay-Z are taking over the world. Then Solange beat the crap out of Jay-Z on an elevator and all that stopped. Anyway, some guy e-mailing me from the Middle East is usually about as reliable as the ones I get from Nigeria.
What made me want to visit the guy? He sent me his photo and name and said if it was not him when I got to the hotel room I could leave. Yes, it sounded like an escort ad, but then again, isn't that what the guy does?
I put his name into the Google machine and there he was. Right there smack in one of the royal families. Upper smack, not lower. Bani is what he agreed to be called. Kind of gives a clue, but also protects his identity. So, from my Google search, Bani was definitely in a position to be in the know about the celebrity sex trade, but was he the real deal? At the time, I wasn't sure. But, for a free meal, I have done more stupid things so off I went.
After Ravi thoroughly patted me down to the point I’m pretty sure he knows if I am circumcised or not, the ground rules were set. No recordings and no photographs. Oh, and no notes. That wasn't going to be possible. I agreed to the conditions but the first time I went to the bathroom I saw a hotel pen and I remembered a scene from the book or movie from All The President’s Men and grabbed that pen and wrote notes on toilet paper. Over my interviews with Bani, I must have gone to the bathroom 15 times. I’m pretty sure he thinks I have prostate cancer.
I had so many questions, and unlike the finale of Lost, I actually got some answers. With the amount of information I got from him, I think this will be easier if we at least start from the origins of it all and then bounce back and forth. Bani gave me hundreds of names of celebrities, models, actresses who have all at one time or the other had sex for money. The thing is, he also had proof. For every single person there was a receipt or photos or some other kind of written record that tied that celebrity to being paid for sex. I’m not sure how many names Bani went through in his books. At some points he would flip through pages like he was speed reading and other times he would slow down and even others completely stop what he was doing so he could elaborate on a person or a point I wanted him to clarify. Conservatively I say he gave me about 500 names. These names go back over four decades. From the last twenty years I probably knew eighty percent of the names. Prior to that, they had to be a big name for me to know. I was shocked by some and not by others. One of them married a friend of mine. Do I tell him? Out of the 500, there were about a dozen that made my jaw drop. I actually knew about two of the dozen, but it was nice to actually know I had been right. To see that paper in front of you that shows you that the sister of a Duchess manages to finance her life by frequent weekend visits to the Middle East and that the permanent A++ list celebrity who might be the biggest A++ list celebrity of all-time was not above some one on one time. Bani says that the latter person was at one point the highest paid person ever but that she has since been eclipsed by several others who don’t hold a candle to the A++ lister.
How did all of this begin? Bani says it all started with Grace Kelly and Prince Ranier. When the UAE was formed in the early 1970’s, apparently everyone in power wanted their own Grace Kelly. They didn’t necessarily want to marry the woman but they wanted their friends and associates to know they had been with someone like Grace Kelly and that it would also be good business. At the time, the Emirates in particular were trying to draw companies to the region and employees for those companies. Even Qatar, who is way more conservative got into this little game, but is just much better at hiding it. At least at home. See, that was one of the original problems. As liberal as the UAE might seem in the Arab world, it is still the Arab world and certain things don’t need to happen at home. Where could they go that they could make things happen? Why not right by where Grace Kelly lived at the time.
Hello Cannes.
Source: Crazy Days and Nights
My best guess
Two Middle Eastern royal families = Al Maktoum royal family (Dubai); House of Thani (Qatar)
Sister of a Duchess = Pippa Middleton
Permanent A++ list celebrity = Princess Diana
