The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove reports on the weird trial unfolding in New York this week, as Prince Jefri's suit against his former employees finally gets in front of a jury. According to Grove, the prince's family has spent at least $100 million in legal fees on the proceedings—which is a lot of money even for rich Southeast Asian monarchs—over about $6 million in misappropriated funds.
But, I know, you want to hear about the erotic statuary—photographs of which may be used as evidence in the trial, though God knows of what. Apparently, Jefri commissioned the statues from J. Seward Johnson Jr., the 80-year-old disowned heir of the Johnson & Johnson empire. You probably know Johnson's work: He's the guy who makes those awful lifelike sculptures of people, like, sitting on benches.
According to Johnson, he was hired by a holding company and was never aware that a Brunei royal was behind the commission. But he knew what he was sculpting, which was naked people, having sex, in positions drawn from the Kama Sutra. Unbeknownst to Johnson, who worked from artists' models, the people having sex were the prince and his fiancée, Micha Raines. Johnson was paid almost a million bucks, but Jefri appears to have been somewhat disappointed that the statues didn't look enough like him, and needed to be modified in certain ways (like adding a mustache, you perv).
So, that's how the Prince of Brunei ended up with half-a-dozen sculptures of him and his fiancée having sex scattered around the swimming pool of his estate on Long Island. Which he apparently never slept at once. Rich princes are so weird, aren't they?
[The Daily Beast; photo of Prince Jefri via AP]
Send an email to Max Read, the author of this post, at max@gawker.com.
How a Prince Commissioned Life-Sized Statues of Himself Having Sex
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