What happens when a man has more cash than he can ever spend and no rules on how to spend it? Stewart Rahr's answer: an unhinged, hedonistic bender filled with girls, guns and sex tapes
The 400 or so people on Rahr's blind-copied e-mail list have become used to such antics. Those not on Rahr's e-mail list also get to live voyeuristically. He's become a staple for the gossip pages, particularly the New York Post's Page Six. In Novemberfrom the midtown outlet of Robert De Niro's celebrity sushi joint, Nobu. Ten days later he was taken into custody for allegedly pulling a gun on an elevator operator.
Above his king bed's leather headboard Rahr shows off his most recent art acquisition, a painting depicting a reclined nude woman, those signature yellow sunglasses in hand,"Rah Rah Forever Young!" scrawled across her yellow skin, Basquiat-style. His two nightstands, meanwhile, display Rahr's evolution. The one on the left is all Rah Rah, chock-full of framed photos showing him with various members of the A-list , the drawers below stuffed with copies of Page Six.
"I wasn't born into the lucky sperm bank like a lot of these other people are," Rahr says, glossing over the fact that he inherited an established, albeit small, company.“What a great quote: ‘I couldn’t buy my way into success, I had to work my way into success.’” "It was a wonderful company with wonderful people, and I enjoyed my experience there immensely," Robert says in a telephone interview, each word uttered deliberately, as if he was reading from a statement."And I have the utmost respect for my colleagues and team members." Even his dad?"I'd prefer not to answer that question," he says.
He'd had his fill."I got up one morning, without telling anybody, and sold the business," Rahr says."[My wife] didn't even know, neither did my son. I just said, 'What the f---? I've been in this 42 years.'" Stewart Rahr describes his foundation goals the way a budding pageant contestant might. He wants to focus on"our youth, education and medical research." But a cursory glance of how he gives--much less his office's inner sanctum, where the photos of him and more than 300 celebrities line the walls like subway tiles--shows that his philanthropy is geared around one thing: fame, or access to it."I don't look at 'em as pictures," says Rahr.
Michael Milken, who has received $15 million in Rahr largesse, enough to fund an entire team of investigative doctors in Michigan, is still more effusive:"He's got a heart as big as the entire world. There's different levels of philanthropy. One thing is just writing checks; another is interacting with the individuals."
No matter: Make-A-Wish has more than 100 celebrities associated with it, many of whom turned out in June at its annual New York gala, where Rahr was the guest of honor. His table included Trump and his wife, Melania; R&B artist John Legend; Carmelo Anthony; and LL Cool J. Most impressive, Stewie Rah Rah brought into his tent two people who otherwise would seem to have nothing in common: Bill Clinton and America's fourth-richest man, conservative power broker David Koch.
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