By now, we learned that yachting is popular with celebrities, (aspiring) models, and Hollywood hopefuls. We also learned there's a dark side to that world. Now we're going to discuss the Cannes Film Festival's connection to yachting and that dark side.
Nice-based yacht broker Valeria Alekhina calls crewmembers “the world’s most discreet people because they have to be.” They often work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, scoring tips that can average $5,000 a week — a reward for the unique challenges of serving the world’s wealthiest and most entitled. “All you really need to know is that it’s not about the boats and the sea for these guys,” she says. “They’re out to one-up each other, and they can be awful to work for. The yachts are just extensions of their dicks; it’s a big status game.”
For Moore, the final straw came during a cruise on the Amalfi Coast on a yacht chartered by a Russian billionaire who brought two prostitutes with him. He proceeded to hole up alone in his stateroom, almost drinking himself to death. After coaxing him out, says Moore, “I spent about an hour in there, scrubbing vomit off the walls and sheets, picking up the broken glass and pulling out all the bottles rolling around in the drawers. He apologized to us in the end, but it was too late for me. It was time to get out. The tips weren’t worth it.”
Cannes Film Festival
Just a few years ago, a young steward working on one of the glossiest superyachts anchored at Cannes for the film festival threatened to call the police on a well-known movie producer who was badly beating two prostitutes during sex in the master stateroom. “He couldn’t believe I’d actually do it,” said the man, who no longer works on yachts but signed a confidentiality agreement that precludes him from being identified. “But it was the only way to stop him. He was violent and out of control. The girls were screaming, and he didn’t care. He did care about the cops being called.”
Women installed on yachts in Cannes during the film festival are called “yacht girls,” and the line between professional prostitutes and B- or C-list Hollywood actresses and models who accept payment for sex with rich older men is sometimes very blurred, explains one film industry veteran.
Carole Raphaelle Davis — a longtime French-American film and TV actress (2 Broke Girls, Angel) who grew up in international circles in Paris, London and Thailand — says the women she knew “traveled the world like jet-setters,” and one of them eventually ended up marrying one of the richest men in France. “This woman didn’t even enjoy sex, she told me,” says Davis. “But she didn’t mind it, either. She didn’t mind sleeping with men who were repulsive. She said it never lasted more than five minutes, so it wasn’t that bad.”
Even Paul Allen‘s annual party aboard his yacht Octopus, once the festival’s hottest ticket, has lost its allure. “Nothing but hookers on that boat now,” says one longtime attendee.
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