10 Bizarrest Billionaires Ever

They say that money is the root of all evil. While that saying may have some merit, it’s more likely that money is the root of all craziness. When someone has a disposable income, they might buy something frivolous such as a bigger television when they already have a big one. When you have millions of dollars sitting around ready to spend, the goofy purchases get even goofier. And you thought that buying a new cell phone before your contract was up for renewal was crazy.

Billionaires have done some bizarre things with their money, and why not? When you are rich enough to make sure that your great great great grandchildren will all still be millionaires, you can afford to toss around a few bucks. And when we say few, we mean hundreds of thousands at the very least on some of the most absurd things that you can possibly imagine.

Could you imagine buying a dolphin, a spaceship, or a brand new face— just because you could? Unfortunately, you don’t have the money for it, but we found quite a few billionaires that have done just that. So who are the most bizarre billionaires that have ever lived and what did they blindly throw money into? Here is a list of the wackiest spending by rich people that you will ever see.

Jocelyn Wildenstein

Wildenstein is described as a socialite, which essentially is a nice way of saying gold digger. Wildenstein became rich after marrying a billionaire, then divorcing him shortly after she found out that he was sleeping with another woman. It ended up being an incredible expensive night for the mister.

So what is it that makes Wildenstein so crazy with her money? At one point, she spent $600,000 in just one year. That doesn’t seem too bad for a billionaire, but that $600,000 was just from her phone bill, food and wine alone. What’s even crazier is that Wildenstein has spent millions on plastic surgery to make herself look like….a cat. Wow.\

Robert Klark Graham

Normally after becoming a billionaire, the first thought in a person’s head isn’t “You know what, I think I’m going to start my own sperm bank.” That’s what Graham did, but it came with a bit of a catch compared to other sperm banks around the country.

Donations were only being accepted at Graham’s sperm bank from those that had won a Nobel prize. Not surprisingly, a lot of the donors opted to keep their anonymity to avoid ridicule. At one point, the 1956 Nobel Prize winner for Physics offered his “future donation”. When Graham passed away, that was the end of the bank, so future Nobel Prize winners such as Barack Obama won’t be making donations.

Ingvar Kamprad

You know the store Ikea, the one where you and your significant other get into a blood war about how to assemble furniture. Hey, at least it’s cheaper than buying furniture that is already assembled, right? That impending divorce after putting together an Ikea table might not be, however.

Unlike others on the list, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad is notable for not spending his money. To this day, he still drives a 1993 Volvo and sits with the rest of us on airline flights. Just like your crazy grandpa, Kamprad also steals condiments from restaurants and scoffs at spending full price anywhere. The master haggler has saved a fortune from his company, and probably thousands from being a tightwad

Bob Parsons

Bob Parsons is the CEO of the web domain host GoDaddy— that same sight that teases you every year during the Super Bowl into thinking that you will get to see a model naked on national TV, only to force you to go to their website to get the same disappointment.

Parsons released a video that showed him on his trip to the continent of Africa. It was there that Parsons hunted and killed a wild elephant. Later on in the video, the elephant was shown getting ripped to shreds and eaten. Parsons claimed it was a saint-like deed and that the elephant was destroying crops. The entire public has lost their trust in Parsons after the Super Bowl commercial, so nobody believed that claim.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah

There are a lot of princes in the Middle East, and the oil industry over the years has done nothing but pad their wallets to the point where ridiculous purchases are the norm. The Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah owns his own full sized Boeing 747, and it comes equipped with gold sinks. If you’re going to buy an airplane, why not go all the way with it?

In another form of buying a luxury item and making it even more luxurious just for the hell of it, the Sultan bought his son a Mercedes Benz. That’s pretty cool, but he covered the whole thing in diamonds to make it look like a 13 year old girl’s bedazzled cell phone case.

Clive Palmer

Clive Palmer watched the movie “Jurassic Park” and thought to himself, “I have enough money to make this a reality!” Because it worked out so well for the visitors of the island in the movie, right? After trying to clone dinosaurs (which, not surprisingly, didn’t work), Palmer opted for the robot dinosaurs you see at Disney World for his golf course, instead.

To add onto the “recreate a movie that didn’t end well” form of thinking Palmer has, he is currently planning on building a full sized replica of the Titanic. Palmer has dubbed it Titanic II, and there’s a better chance that it won’t sink. This guy needs to learn how movies end before running out of the theater and trying to recreate them.

Bidzina Ivanishvili

Bidzina Ivanishvili just has that type of name where you expect him to be the bad guy in a cheesy action movie. The former Prime Minister of Georgia first became a billionaire in Russia. Ivanishvili has the type of house you would expect from a movie villain, too.

The entire exterior of his house is made out of glass. He probably shouldn’t be throwing stones anytime soon. Just to make the house a little more unique, Ivanishvili added a small zoo dedicated to penguins inside. If that made you think of the Batman villain, “The Penguin”, then that’s just the icing on the cake

Leona Helmsley

Helmsley was a real estate mogul that didn’t make many friends. In fact, Helmsley was so bitter and rude that she was dubbed “The Queen of Mean” by other realtors. Since she didn’t make many friends or have much ties with her family to leave her fortune to, she opted for another source instead. One that will make you scratch your head.

The only thing Helmsley apparently loved more than money was her dog, Trouble. When Helmsley passed away, she left 2 of her 4 grandchildren out of her will, but didn’t forget about her beloved pooch. $12 million was the final sum that Trouble received from her owner passing away. Maybe it was Trouble that killed Helmsley in her sleep to make it look like an accident.

Howard Hughes

Howard Hughes was an avid airline pilot who must have been knocked crazy after an incident he had. When he was testing out his new airplane, Hughes ended up crashing it into one of the richest neighborhoods of Beverly Hills. Hughes must have wanted a closer look at all of the great pools in the area.

After that crash, Hughes would lock himself into his own personal theater without hopping in the shower…for months. Hughes wouldn’t even use the bathroom at all, even. He opted to use bottles to “relieve himself” in, and ate nothing but candy bars and chicken. You probably know people like this now, but since they aren’t rich, they are referred to as “eccentric”.

Robert Durst

Seymour Durst was one of the prime real estate players in New York City many years ago. He left his son Robert millions, which may not have been a good thing. Robert had to witness his mother jumping off of a roof and taking her own life when he was just a young child, so money didn’t keep the family together very long.

In the 1980’s, Robert had a wife named Kathleen who went missing. Investigators were never able to find her body and the case was closed. When the case was reopened in 2000, one of Robert’s friends was found killed in her home. Despite the signs that Robert was a serial killer (after another murder in 2003), Durst used a huge chunk of his money to hire the best legal team. The result? Durst was acquitted of all charges. And you can’t even get out of a speeding ticket.