It’s been an insanely lucrative though tremendously tumultuous and, lately, reputation damaging couple of years for Thomas Wesley Pentz, the 42-year old songwriter and music producer who is known to friends as Wes but is more commonly and mononymously known around the world as the three-time Grammy winning DJ Diplo.
The Mississippi-born musician, one of top top-earning DJs on the planet, with a Forbes-estimated average haul of more than $20 million per annum over the last five years, was lambasted in 2019 for live-streaming the Las Vegas wedding of Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner on Instagram. (He said he didn’t think it was a “serious wedding“, they understandably complained he ruined their of nuptials.) And, shortly after the pandemic lockdowns took effect last year, he revealed, via Instagram, of course, that he’s the surprise father of beauty queen and model Jevon King’s newborn baby, Pace. (He also has two other creatively named children, Lazer and Lockett, from a previous relationship.)
Then, late last year all hell broke loose when 19-year-old TikTok star Quenlin Blackwell told fans she was living with Diplo — she later made clear it’s all platonic, and he called her his tenant — and shortly after that he was slapped with a restraining order due to allegations he used intimidation tactics and distributed revenge porn to keep an L.A. woman quiet about their relationship.
Amidst all the mysterious baby making and lurid allegations of grooming young women, last fall the Major Lazer member, who has collaborated with a laundry list of music artists including Sia, Madonna, Justin Bieber, Bad Bunny and YouTube star turned 2021 Grammy nominee Poppy, ponied up more than $13 million for a big house in Malibu — it was formerly owned by Kid Rock — and has lightened his real estate load with the slightly more than $2.8 million sale of a stunning contemporary villa above L.A.’s historic and beautiful Beachwood Canyon.
The Hollywood Hills listing was managed by Eric Lavey at Sotheby’s Int’l Realty, and the buyer was represented by Katie Crain of Crain + Podhor at Compass.