It's hard to overstate how poorly this VH1 The Fabulous Life Of… segment aged
Aux Features The Fabulous Life Of...
A lot of things age terribly: meat left out in the summer sun, Justin Timberlake’s bleached perm, most ’90s stand-up comedy, Justin Timberlake in general… but few things have aged more poorly than this 2007 segment from VH1's The Fabulous Life Of… Wall Street Billionaire Ballers. Like, seriously. And we know how much that sentiment is tossed out these days, but it’s sincerely difficult to put into words just how deep this clip should have remained buried in the bowels of the Internet. Prepare yourself.
First brought to our attention by Eoin Higgins on Twitter and unfortunately verified through multiple venues, this is a very real episode of the very mid-2000s wealth-worshipping series, The Fabulous Life of…, which was an unholy successor to the seminally awful, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. After about 15 excruciating minutes, we’re treated to lavish praise draped upon none other than Jeffrey goddamn Epstein.
We’re not sure where to begin: the reminder that Epstein was once a schoolteacher, the name-dropping of Kevin Spacey and Bill Clinton, the hindsight realization that our current hellscape was foretold that long ago. Let’s simply start (and end) with the adoration heaped on Epstein’s Boeing 727 jet, shall we?
“He has a Boeing 727. I’m just wondering, ‘Now, what do you need with a commercial-sized airliner for?” muses Mickey Boardman, editorial director for Paper magazine. “It comes in handy when you have powerful friends to fly around,” the show’s narrator chimes in, failing to mention the open secret in powerful circles that Epstein’s 727 was purportedly nicknamed the “Lolita Express” for reasons both obvious, awful, and not worth rehashing here.
Goddamnit. Just… goddamnit. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to go scream into a pillow for the rest of the afternoon.
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118 Comments
Billionaires are just like us! Except they became who they are by blatantly exploiting people and they get away with their vile crimes for decades!
I doubt that non-billionaires got where we are because we’re just that much better people, considering how many non-rich people’s attitude toward the rich is “If I work hard enough I could do that too!”
The idolatry of billionaires nowadays is cockeyed as ever- I came across some guy recently that was angry that somebody said Elon Musk is evil for his spreading of Covid conspiracies- that he’s never done that, that Elon just promotes “vaccine skepticism”. After I shared a comprehensive list of Elon’s conspiracy peddling, he told me I was too emotionally involved to see the truth and blocked me.Who needs the circus any more when the clowns are yelling at you from a little brick in your pocket!
One weird thing about that, though, is that one of the big COVID conspiracy theories is that it’s a plot by megabillionaire Bill Gates.
Yeah, I won’t pretend I’ll be able to unwrap the world of the Covid conspiracist in any comprehensive fashion; only a lick of it is based in reality, and the rest of it is thoroughly stupid.
Yeah, I won’t pretend I’ll be able to unwrap the world of the Covid conspiracist in any comprehensive fashion None needed. It’s “I need to feel like I’m smart and I matter, so I ‘m going to believe that I am.” Like, the Q documentary was all well and (kinda) good, but I want to see a follow up on the Q adherents 3-5 years later. I want to see how many (if any) come back to even marginal reality.
where do you think the birthers and tea partiers are now?
Tons of the flat earthers became Q people, so I assume they’ll move on to whatever other idiotic conspiracy they need to feel smart.
That would be really good! I liked Into the Storm for its pretty broad coverage for those that don’t live as online as I do, and collecting such a broad amount of kooks, cretins, dipshits, and Fredrick Brennan in the same place, but ultimately it doesn’t reveal much that I didn’t get from Behind the Bastards, or Reply All, or just online in general. It’d be very interesting to see how the QAnon movement (read: insane conspiracy) continues without its goofy mythos supported by a Republican White House. If Cullen Hoback returns to the story later on, that’d be cool, but I’d be even more interested in further commentary from Dan Olson- his video essay In Search of a Flat Earth does a great job as a prelude into the QAnon goofiness, perhaps there’ll be something interesting that the Calgary boy will be inspired on further.
It’s just because Gates is a center-left guy (in the loosest terms, he seems indifferent to allowing taxes to raise on himself) and has a foundation that was vaccinating in Africa and abroad. So he was already on the radar of the anti-vaxx people and when COVID hit it just snowballed into a broader ‘well, he clearly must be behind it!’ It’s the same way George Soros got involved in like 2 cycles of the Dems back in the late 2000s/early-2010s around Obama and has become the permanent go to name for the right even though he never gave as much as the Koch Bros or Adelson in a single cycle let alone combined. It’s all about projection and self-loathing, pretending you’re not the puppet of extreme wealth, your enemy has to be it.
Sounds like he’s the one who’s “too emotionally involved”!
Indubitably! I think it comes with the territory of idolizing people that are generally despicable- being delusional and thin-skinned to rationalize why billionaire god-kings can let us plebs down.
And like a clown car, that little brick can fit in so many more of them than you’d think possible.
i need the circus now more than ever… but like a bad parent it’s gone and left me alone in a cruel, confusing world. 🙁
I’m sure Elon Musk will be a hilarious host and performer on SNL this weekend. Thin-skinned egotistical billionaires are so great a sketch comedy.
“and blocked me.”Never discount your small wins.
.
I think it’s cool that Jeff Bezos has about 6,000,000 times more money than me because he works 6,000,000 times harder.
Oh no! Chris Tucker was hanging out with Clinton and Epstein and Spacey at the same time??? I really don’t want to have to never watch Rush Hour again. Please tell me he’s not included with the diddlers of Lolita
Chris Tucker also hung out with Michael Jackson a lot.
Just…throwing that out there.
Ehh I don’t really see a high likelihood of MJ diddling kids with others. His whole thing was weird lack of childhood and emotionally stunted personality. Idk if he was, like, setting up diddler retreats like Epstein, but then again, I don’t know shit.
Like I said, I hope that’s not the case.
Diddler Retreats also one of the jaegers cut from Pacific Rim.
I have to admit, I am still not 100% convinced Michael Jackson diddled kids at all. I think there is actually some small to medium possibility that he was so emotionally stunted that he just played with them. All the child stars he hung out with have defended him, including Corey Feldman, who has not been shy about accusing people of molestation. I think he was wierd with them, and did inappropriate things, but whether he actually molested anyone, I am not entirely convinced.
That’s fair. It is strange that the families/kids who are most financially stable don’t seem to accuse Michael, but ultimately much of his interaction with children was inappropriate and unsupervised. Giving kids wine is bad, no matter if they played xbox and passed out or if he diddled them. Michael is a complicated person, with an extremely complicated life, but I also don’t want to negate or refute the stories of people he might have abused but thought they weren’t famous enough or whatever to be believed, whereas the rich celeb kids would have probably had more of an audience. all conjecture, no expertise whatsoever.
I particularly have doubts about the wine accusations. Feldman said he was very straight edge, I don’t think he would have had wine in the house. He got addicted to painkillers after his burns, but he was hardcore against recreational use of mind altering substances.I think, much like the Kennedy Assassination, that the waters have been sufficiently muddied by enough people that we can never be sure of exactly what happened.
that last statement I 100% agree with, and tbh, I also kind of see the point where a guy who might not have been sexually abused but definitely physically and mentally as a child would not sexually abuse another child. I don’t know enough about the psychology of childhood trauma and stuff, either.
please don’t throw it out there – keep it in your pants.
Also going to point out that Rush Hour was directed by accused sexual assaulter, accused sexual harasser, and alleged rapist Brett Ratner, so even if Tucker didn’t do anything wrong, that film is still pretty tainted.
It’s hard to overstate how poorly this VH1 The Fabulous Life Of… segment aged
I think VH1’s mission from the start was to be MTV for the poorly aged.
I do think VH1 still had some enjoyable stuff through the ‘90s (I used to enjoy 8 Track Flashback, Pop Up Video, even the early Behind the Musics). Once they started going into the increasingly skeevy reality shows and those awful smugfest talking head shows (like the one above, which may be the cheapest looking thing I’ve ever seen on television), I lost all interest.
“VH1 Storytellers: Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson” is one of my favorite albums.
Hey, remember “Hey, remember the 80’s”?
Wasn’t that made in like 1992?
Pop-up video was their greatest achievement and they never figured out how to make a channel around it…
awwkward.
Everyone knew he was child trafficking, your government didn’t stop him. Why scream into a pillow unless you’re a frantic baby? Everybody knew in every upper power level and everyone was cool with it. I think you should just feel cold and find a teddy bear to hug or something. Child sex laws and consent laws are for the poor schlub normies. Might wanna’ be more outraged about none of these people or their corporate CEO friends paying taxes ever while running roughshod over every law and moral principle America has ever pretended to care about. The rich don’t have to abide by the laws the rest of us do. They don’t have to pay their taxes, can have sex with children, it’s fine. But you have to work in a job you hate like hell just to make rent and not be homeless. Consider that. When Republicans say dErEgUlAtIOn, do you get horny? Guess who the problem is. You can vote for accountability, the choice is yours. Billionaires getting away with crimes hurts all of us.
You can vote for accountability, the choice is yours.No you can’t. You can vote for candidates who promise reform, then go practice your disappointed face in the mirror for when it never comes.
Well, you could, and this might seem a little unorthodox, actually look into the voting records of established politicians, you could also look at where campaign contributions are coming from. Ya know, actually make an effort instead of just judging the book by it’s cover, and putting all your faith into the carefully constructed talking points and slogans meant to draw in the average american who is too stupid to rise any higher than kitchen manager at McDonalds.
Rich people don’t pay taxes? Damn, now I really want to be one.
Well yeah. The very rich pay few taxes. Indeed many get paid tax dollars.
RepublicansEpstein was propped up by both parties and it’s dangerous to pretend otherwise.
He wasn’t propped up by both “parties,” he had “friends” who happened to be from both parties. Neither political party supported him.
It’s dangerous – and a bald-faced lie – to pretend that an entire political party supported this person. Republican or Democrat. And it makes me sick to say that, because I would LOVE to tar the entire Republican party, and frankly, they deserve it, but a lie is a lie, politics be damned.
At multiple points, those friends included the heads of each party in the form of the president. No, he obviously didn’t have unilateral support, but it’s fair to say people in extremely high places, regardless of political affiliation, turned a blind eye to him.
No it really isn’t. Stop making claims that you have zero insight into.
Bill Clinton didn’t know!! Bill Clinton didn’t know!!Well, actually. Yeah. He probably did know.
Based on he flew on his plane a few times? I’m kind of intrigued with the obsession people have regarding Bill Clinton….
I didn’t realize I was obsessed with Bill Clinton. Thanks for letting me know!
Long as I’m here to service you, I’m glad. Getting free upvotes for making wild accusations is easy.
God, I just long for those upvotes from complete strangers. They mean so much to me as a healthy, fully-employed man with a beautiful wife and two great kids.
Did that feel good? I mean, you realize I pointed out bringing up Bill Clinton was odd and kind of pointless, you seized the general statement of it since Bill Clinton wasn’t generally named in the article and was basically thrown up by conspiracy theorists as justification of why Epstein avoided justice and was used as a ‘both sides’ excuse because Trump was clearly aware and then I just leaned into you being an asshole.Can you walk into more rakes for me? Seriously, I don’t think you get how much of a tool you genuinely look like here…PS: I can’t believe you really think this is a victory…like, I’m legitimately blown away you actually think this is how you handle this. I want to climb inside your head to figure out the strawman response and then the ‘good life’ trope. I mean, not to get to meta on you but this is shit anybody who’s spent 5 minutes on the internet understands is going full blown Karen on a fucking nothing comment…
I see you encountered a walking shtick in the wild. 😀
Chelsea??
The irony burns…
LMFAO! He said he “serviced” you. Did you tip? Or was it the whole shaft? LOL!
Well, actually. Yeah. He probably did know.FIFY!
Is this what reading a Twitter rant sounds like? I don’t care for it.
You’re, uh, certainly throwing out some … opinions there.
mmmm… haven’t checked av club for like 6 months. this was the first comment i saw. spicy. delicious. thank you.
This a weird take. You’re upset that the article expresses frustration at the way the rich flout the law because … the rich flout the law?Also, do you really think the AVClub is a hotbed of people hoping for “deregulation”? Who are you talking to?
You’ll notice by their “your government” they aren’t a US citizen, so they are someone who enjoys looking down their nose at the US and all it’s citizens. Probably European. Probably from a country that has looser sex restrictions around minors than the US does, too. Probably would defend Roman Polanski.
Everyone knew he was child trafficking, your government didn’t stop him.Please show your evidence. I think people really do conflate the concept of an ‘open secret’ with ‘everybody knew’ because I can guarantee you that while Trump made a side comment on page 6 years prior regarding Epstein it isn’t exactly something anybody reported on to authorities until they reported on to authorities. The whole thing was that he had a veneer of justification for what was trafficking and was being monitored for years to find the evidence.
Trump cabinet member Alex Acosta was a federal prosecutor who agreed to an overly generous plea bargain in secret meetings with Epstein’s lawyer. Epstein got one year of “prison” where he went to work at his office every day instead of life in prison. The justification was that the underage girls were prostitutes, so Epstein was guilty only of soliciting prostitutes, not child rape or sex trafficking.Acosta resigned from the cabinet in shame but Trump’s Justice Department let him off the hook. You seem eager to defend the child rapist and his enablers, but you need to understand that all of this was real.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/jeffrey-epstein-alex-acosta-florida-plea-deal/2020/11/12/c960d078-243a-11eb-8672-c281c7a2c96e_story.html
Ah yes, the ‘anybody who seems to grasp that Epstein wasn’t easily caught because he had power and wealth and not simply because rich people knew and ignored it is really a sexual predator themselves!’Does that ever work? I mean, be serious with me, did you think saying that would make me backpedal and not simply call your shit out?
First, I never said you were a sexual predator, I merely stated that you seem eager to defend a child rapist and his enablers. Second, I did not expect you to backpedal because actual facts never work on a certain class of shithead. My comment was more for any potential shitheads-in-training who might see your idiocy in between hours spent listening to Joe Rogan and might yet be turned away from the deepest, darkest depths of shitheadery.
First, I never said you were a sexual predator, I merely stated that you seem eager to defend a child rapist and his enablers.So, you said an equally depraved and stupid lie and felt I wasn’t going to call you on your shit? Cool.The fact that you backpedaled after realizing I called you out for simply pointing out how reality works rather than sticking a foot in my mouth like you did is hilarious. Now you’re just posting cautionary tales to remind people that unless you vigorously make up lies to assuage your lack of understanding on an issue you’ll be called a sexual predator supporter. Truly powerful stuff there, champ.Most people take their L like an adult, I see you’re not there yet.PS: Your rogan reference is even lamer, as I resent that man for existing and is further to your left in every economic and social sense, you stupid twit…
Ah, I get it now, you are merely a troll. Please enjoy your spare time fucking off.
Wow, a troll who projected after I called him out for being trash…Thank goodness nobody will ever figure out you’re a pedophile who has to declare extreme opposition, right? Nobody will guess all this is merely projection to hide your own predilections…Oh well. ^_^
He did not defend Epstein at all. How did you arrive at that conclusion?
Yes, but that was after 2007.
This is mostly true, yes. But it’s certainly not just billionaires who are running around having sex with kids. Given what a tiny percentage of the population they represent, and how common abuse is, the vast majority of people having sex with kids are those same schlubs working jobs they hate just to make rent. They are in our churches and communities.Our family had one of them and he didn’t go to jail either. It was just one of those dark family secrets that no one openly talks about until someone has an emotional breakdown or something.I’m kind of glad Epstein “killed himself” but on the other hand that’s small consolation for his untold number of victims.
Who are you talking to
If a hyperbolic statement from an entertainment blog has you so pressed maybe you should go cry in the bathroom at work like a fucking adult.
Isn’t there an old folks home you should be at dying?
Hi stalker! Go on with your old lady fetish!
The government didn’t stop him? What’s he up to right now?
Everyone knew he was child trafficking, your government didn’t stop him. Why scream into a pillow unless you’re a frantic baby? Everybody knew in every upper power level and everyone was cool with it.I cannot star this comment enough. Gay men in the UK had been sounding the alarm bell about Kevin Spacey for years before you Americans deigned to say “Oh maybe this man is a bad person”. You have to ask: did the bloggers go scream into their pillows for that one too?
Not just the UK. When I was working in NYC theatre in my early 20s (I’m 37), Spacey was rumored to be attending a cast party, and multiple people essentially told me to watch my ass.
You know, call it a hunch, but I’m starting to think this Jeffrey Epstein fellow might have been hiding something.
Just giving him enough rope to hang himself
And yet, he still won’t do it.
He was always the shiftiest of the Sweathogs.
“He didn’t kill himself” signed: Epstein’s Mother
Hey, he had a note
He wasn’t hiding it.
Man you’re dumb huh?
Well, we’ll certainly find out when he goes to trial, and all the facts….oh, right.
Even without the Epstein, Spacey & Clinton (and…Chris Tucker?! What’s he doing there?!!) segment, celebration of this kind of obscene wealth is disgusting. We shouldn’t be applauding these people and dreaming of being them, we should be storming the gates to seize that wealth and spread it throughout the populace.
Distributing wealth to the masses is difficult when that wealth is in the form of an airplane.
I’ll take a wing! You like the leg or the wing?
I want a wing piece.
Take your wing piece you greedy bastard.
That airplane is DEFINITELY the extent of his wealth. There’s nothing else.
(and…Chris Tucker?! What’s he doing there?!!)They need to fill up the token quota.
Much easier to just watch all the housewives and kardashian shows.
What is that accent the voiceover is doing? It’s like he’s stuck between Austin Powers and Mayor Quimby
That was the standard “masturbating over obscene wealth” narrative voice back in the day, following Robin Leach’s influence.
my masturbation voice is much more rugged and american.
You just never knew where that inflection was going to land.
When you order Robin Leach from Wish.
Maybe it was Steven Toast.
wave after wave of random out there American media.
You’re next, Chris Tucker
Tucker is his name and hobby.
Tucker? I hardly knew ‘er!
Annnnnnnnnd this would be why there’s a hyper focus on due diligence at work now.
“Flying around friends like Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, and this really interesting guy named Gerald that he met at a truck stop one time.”
I have bad news, pillows have been ruined too.
And blatantly featured crucifixes (I’m looking at you too Kayleigh McEnwhatever).
“They ruined everything! Seriously, they ruined everything. They ruined the sound of
children playing, and they ruined all of our living relatives, and they ruined people who wear sunglasses, like, even during the day. They ruined going to dinner, which they know we love. They ruined colors. They ruined pillows. They ruined ribbons. They ruined everything!”
Epistein aside, The Fabulous Life and Lifestyles weren’t as gross as the star-worshipping garbage they’ve evolved into. I’d rather hear facts and figures about Elon Musk’s apocalypse bunker and how much Mark Zuckerberg pays to have a stylist snap on his Lego hair than watch housewives throw wine at each other or a bunch of human couch cushions sitting around a mansion literally doing nothing for 20(!) years. The legacy of turn-of-the-century American culture won’t be Wall Street dipshits on some dumb show no one watched, it’ll be the fame mongering family who made their fortune helping a millionaire get away with murder and vast majority of the public who talk about Real Housewives as if it’s Hammerstein. By comparison, Robin Leach is nostalgically quaint.
The writing on this site is so atrocious now. Literally indistinguishable from buzzfeed.
It’s all AI now.
Advanced
Idiocy
I’d seen this clip before but I didn’t realize when it first aired. According to IMDb, it was August of 2007. That was at least a month after Epstein was first indicted! Jesus, did they not think to edit it out of the episode?!
I think you have to just experience bloodless and find a teddy bear to hug or some thing. baby sex laws and consent legal guidelines are for the poor schlub normies. would possibly wanna’ be extra outraged about none of these humans or their corporate CEO friends paying taxes ever whilst strolling roughshod over every law and moral principle america has ever pretended to care approximately.https://www.anatrax.com/
A few years before the Epstein thing blew up, I saw Chris Tucker do a brief set at the Comedy Store in L.A. The bulk of his short set was about flying around with his “friend” on a private jet. Yikes!