Lavish living multilevel marketing millionaires JR and Loren Ridinger have rich people problems.
Their company, Marketing America, founded in their Greensboro, N.C. garage in 1992, was mired in a lawsuit that alleges violations of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and in 2020 an investigation by the nonprofit advertising watchdog organization Truth in Advertising found that the company made hundreds of deceptive claims about the income potential of distributors, which resulted in the company removing about 750 marketing claims from their promo materials and social media sites.
On Christmas eve, their 207-foot yacht Utopia IV, which can be rented at a whopping $505,000 a week and is up for sale at $51.5 million, rear-ended and sank a gas tanker in the Bahamas. The Ridingers were not aboard the six-stateroom and 13-crew luxury liner that was out on charter at the time of the incident. (There were no injuries, thankfully, and various government agencies are investigating and reviewing what impact the tanker’s cargo may have on the environment.)
As if all that isn’t enough to make being stupendously rich seem like kind of a drag, the Ridingers are lined up to lose almost $4.5 million, not counting carrying costs, improvement expenses and real estate fees, on a high-floor duplex condo at a much-ballyhooed Jean Nouvel-designed tower in New York City’s artsy Chelsea neighborhood; they scooped the place up in late 2009 for $19.4 million and now have it on the market at just under $15 million.
Taxes and common charges for the mansion-sized condo total more than $32,000 per month, according to listings held by Steve Gold at Corcoran, and residents of the building, defined by its mosaic grid of windows, are afforded a laundry list of creature comforts: full-time doorman and concierge services, an indoor/outdoor pool; a state-of-the-art fitness center; a screening room; on-site parking.