One of the investors in
Billionaire, the famed club for the megarich on Sardinia's swank
Emerald Coast, says the club should be shuttered because of the current economic climate. Billionaire, a favored haunt of tycoons who come to frolic with the likes of Dolce & Gabbana,
Kate Moss and Sean Combs, is controlled by rakish Formula 1 mogul
Flavio Briatore (above), but Italian entrepreneur and politician
Daniela Santanchè has a 10% stake.
Santanchè says that the ultra-exclusive club, where methuselahs of
Cristal go for $50,000 a pop, is an offensive relic of a more wasteful age, the London
Guardian reports. "With people struggling to get by, Billionaire should be consigned to history," Santanchè says. "I myself have put my
Aston Martin in the garage and get around in a Fiat 500."
"Daniela has been in the sun too long,"
Briatore, who has dated the likes of
Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, fired back. "What she's saying is absurd. If luxury is suddenly a problem let's close Bulgari and Cartier, or even all the discos, restaurants and the whole of the Emerald Coast." That may not be necessary, in any case. The
New York Times recently
reported that the hotspot has lost a lot of its exclusivity lately and that some recent visitors aren't even millionaires, let alone billionaires.
