As always, the super-rich Russians are the ones having socials with the most swag. This time, the Russian oligarch and owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich had a star-studded New Year’s bash at St. Barts lined up. To get VIP access to this bash that is bound to be full of bling, you have to be either very wealthy or very famous – and you have to be sworn to silence.
Shhh…
In Russia, not only the KGB gets sworn to secrecy – lately, party-goers are also expected to button up. Guests like Jake Gyllenhall, Carey Lowell, Jimmy Buffet and Amber Valletta were apparently informed that the party would have no press or social media coverage, and they were told in no uncertain terms to keep things under wraps.
Privacy is Pricey
This is not the first exclusive and private New Year’s bash hosted by Roman Abramovich. Last year Abramovich paid the king of pop Prince US$1 million to entertain 100 guests, who were also threatened to be banned from the next year’s festivities if they break their host’s privacy rules. It is rumoured that the billionaire football fan spent US$2 million this time around, of which a large chunk yet again went to entertainment – but this is where things went wrong.
Rule Killers
It would appear that a guest (who was sworn to secrecy like all the other guests) loved the American rock band The Killers so much; they couldn’t resist making a 37 second video of their performance at the party – along with former Beatle superstar Paul McCartney signing ‘Helter Skelter’. The clip was leaked onto Facebook on The Killers’ page at around 1am and was captioned, ‘So far, so good’. So much for no social media!
Don’t Worry, the Russian’s are on it…
Abramovich is obviously not happy with this breach in trust and had his security squad launch an investigation into which one of his guests disrespected the rules. There is no way of knowing what repercussions there would be, should the culprit be revealed. They will certainly not be invited for next year’s shindig.