On the eve of historic legislation that will shower more money on the rich and slash health care for the poor, I find myself on the island of Malta, wandering the ancient walled city of Medina, where the Romans ruled for 600 years before their empire collapsed in a heap of decadence and fire. On the brink of history, I’m sweating out last night’s tequila in a blazing Mediterranean sun, the last traces of a psychedelic compound ebbing in my brain, and wondering how the hell I got here.
I pull up photos from my phone and open a random video: Kate Hudson pole dancing to thumping DJ track as Leonardo DiCaprio bobs to flashing purple lights with his 27-year-old girlfriend, Vogue cover model Vittoria Ceretti.
I wince. It’s all coming back.
I’d just spent the last 48 hours aboard a 790-foot boat with a head-spinning collection of Hollywood actors, models, pop stars, influencers, media moguls, and billionaire entrepreneurs. Our host was billionaire Mark Scheinberg, an Israeli-Canadian who made his fortune building the online poker company PokerStars, which he sold for $4.9 billion. today, he’s a luxury real estate investor haloed in VIPs.
Ricky Martin and Naomi CampbellSansho Scott/BFA.com/Shutterstock
Scheinberg’s ambition for the trip was simple: to amplify the creamily christened Luminara, the third in a line of luxury ships called The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. This partnership with the hotel chain and Oaktree Capital Management aims to make the super-rich’s yen for superyachting accessible to the merely rich. A bunch of celebrities and influencers would serve as the jewelry glittering like a necklace on Scheinberg’s investment. Perhaps you’ve seen them glittering on your social media feeds, #ritzcarltonyachtcollection.
For reasons that will remain a mystery to me, Vanity Fair was the only publication aboard, given unfettered access with very little by way of guidance. The publicist’s only stipulation—more like a request—is that Scheinberg would “NOT like to be the focus of any press story.”
And so on a hot afternoon, north of Rome, I boarded this svelte, shark-nosed vessel, a petite cruise ship with over 200 staterooms, 5 restaurants, 7 bars, a full-service spa and gym, a discrete shopping mall, and, according to my tour guide, 731 pieces of art curated by a team with offices in Fort Lauderdale and Malta. The guest list was, shall we say, insane: Dakota Johnson, Kendall Jenner, Tom Brady, Orlando Bloom, Pharrell Williams, Martha Stewart, Naomi Campbell, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Ricky Martin, Jaden Smith, Zoey Deutch, Tobey Maguire, Alicia Silverstone, Janelle Monáe, and Sofia Vergara. To name a few. In all, one hundred guests and their entourages, all expenses covered by Scheinberg, including endless food and drink, massages and facials, sound bath healings and yoga classes, Augustinus Bader face creams in every suite, each with a private veranda—a boondoggle to beat all boondoggles. There are three staffers for every guest, “suite ambassadors” and “suite attendants,” who hover outside the cabin doors, eager to iron and rearrange the toiletries just so. The cost of influence—including first-class flights and limousine services to and from the ship and suites and spas and fuel and booze and chefs and staff and flower arrangements, plus a film crew and concert production company—will surely run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.
The boat is scheduled to embark from the port city of Civitavecchia at 4 p.m., but it’s already running an hour and a half late. The limos and SUVs have deposited the guests, ushered aboard by an attendant holding an umbrella over everyone’s heads for shade. I’m idling on the front deck with Naomi Campbell and her entourage after enjoying an iced latte with Martha Stewart. Rumor has it that a single guest is holding up the boat. Is it Pharrell, the creative director at Louis Vuitton Men’s, coming in from Jonathan Anderson’s Dior show? Or maybe Tom Brady arriving from Venice with Brooks Nader, who, rumor has it, is his on-again girlfriend?
I’m walking past the Piaget shop when DiCaprio and Ceretti swing around the corner, held up by traffic on the way from the Rome airport. The Titanic star perks up when he runs into two-time Oscar nominee Colman Domingo and his partner, Raúl Domingo. They laugh and embrace, a Hollywood reunion in Italy.
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