Scamfluencers - Leona Helmsley: The Art of the Steal Part 1

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Leona Helmsley escapes Depression-era poverty by marrying billionaire real estate magnate Harry Helmsley. She takes over his Manhattan hotels and declares herself Queen of the Palace, then earns a royal reputation for berating, bullying, and firing employees at the drop of a hat. But when her tax bills come into question, everyone who’s worked under Leona gets their pitchforks ready to take down the Queen of Mean.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to scamfluencers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple podcasts. Sarah, who's the worst boss you've ever had? That is such a difficult question because there have been so many. But probably when I worked retail as a teenager, I had this manager who, like, who would clip his toenails with scissors at work. That was pretty bad. That is pretty bad.

I used to work for a guy who would pull my hair at my desk if he wanted to get my attention, and I genuinely have not been able to wear braids to work ever since. I kind of know who that is. You definitely know who that is. Well today's story I think will actually make you feel pretty good about every terrible boss you've ever had because I know you and I have some horror stories but we've never had to work for the queen of Mean.

It's 1984 and Mike Wallace is at the Helmsley Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue in New York City. Mike is in his mid 60s with dark, coiffed hair and stern brown eyes. And for the last 15 years, he's been hosting 60 Minutes, one of the highest rated shows on television. He's interviewed dictators, presidents and generals. rated shows on television. He's interviewed dictators, presidents, and generals, but today's interview is with billionaire hotel mogul Leona Helmsley. And though she may not be ahead of state, she's just as intimidating. Mike and his camera crew capture Leona descending a grand marble staircase in the Palace Hotel's lavish lobby. She's 64 years old with full lips and high cheekbones. Her dark hair is styled with a diamond tiara,

which matches the huge earrings that dangle almost to her shoulders. She spins around in a red silk skirt and throws her arms in the air. Leona's posing for a photo that will be used in the massively popular Queen of the Palace ad campaign that's been running for more than a year now. It positions Leona as the demanding head of an elegant and iconic hotel.

The full page, full color ads show Leona in gorgeous outfits greeting guests, testing meals from the kitchen, and bossing maintenance staff around. And they call the hotel the only palace where the Queen stands guard. The campaign has made a big splash, and it's turned Leona into a household name. She was recently featured in a New York magazine cover story and the tabloid press obsesses over her every move. And that's why Mike is here to shadow her. The cameras capture the photographer asking Leona if she's comfortable and she says, am I comfortable? I make a living. The spotlight of her new national fame has also brought attention to the way she rules her domain,

with an iron fist. She's got a habit of blowing up at employees for the tiniest mistakes, and she regularly makes people cry. She fires people at the drop of a hat, and she loves to make it personal, kicking someone while they're down by mocking their appearance or their background.

The New York Daily News recently named her one of the city's pushiest women. The Post even has a nickname for her, the Queen of Mean. Mike might be hoping to catch some of that famous cruel streak on camera, and he's not disappointed. He and his crew follow Leona down the palace's gilded hallways.

Every housekeeper and bellboy stands at attention as she passes. She picks out employees, seemingly at random, and berates them. All of this behavior has earned Leona a reputation. So Mike asks her... So when they call you fascist... Who calls me a fascist? Well, come on. They say I'm tough. They don't say a man is tough.

They say he's a great businessman. Uh, the classic line, women who are doing something wrong love to say, well, if a man was doing it, it's like, yes, true, but also we're talking about you right now. Yeah, true and yet wrong. Well, Mike presents Leona in all her brash Brooklyn glory. It makes for great TV, but it also showcases the very real turmoil at her company. Secretly, an army of employees, vendors, and contractors are planning a rebellion.

Because they know something the cameras don't. Leona maintains her decadent life by stiffing them and then fudging the books to avoid paying taxes. And when the little people decide to rise up, they'll settle for nothing less than her head. Have you ever felt like escaping to your own desert island? Well, that's exactly what Jane, Phil and their three kids did when they traded their English home for a tropical island they bought online.

But paradise has its secrets, and family life is about to take a terrifying turn. You don't fire at people in that area without some kind of consequence. And he says, yes ma'am, he's dead. There's pure cold-blooded terror running through me. From Wondery, I'm Alice Levine, and this is The Price of Paradise, the real-life story of an island dream that ends in kidnap, corruption and murder.

Search and follow The Price of Paradise now to listen to the full trailer. Business can mean a lot of things. For some, it's earning reports, the top MBA program, but business is in everything we do. Side hustles that explode into the next billion-dollar company. Unconventional ideas that change the world. Whatever business means to you, listen to top podcasts like How I Built This

and Business Wars Early and Ad Free only on Wondery+. Wondery means business. From Wondery, I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagy. And this is Scamfluencers. Come and give me your attention. I won't ever learn my lesson. Turn my speakers to 11. I feel like a legend.

Leona Helmsley rose from depression era poverty to the pinnacle of the New York social scene, and she broke every rule to reach the top. But the only thing America loves more than a scrappy go-getter risking everything to climb the ladder is bringing someone down when they've reached the peak. This is a story about a woman who ruled

the greed is good era and became a national punching bag and scapegoat when the ostentatious 80s came to an end. This is Leona Helmsley, the art of the steel, part one. It's a Saturday afternoon in the early 50s and Leona is at one of New York's wildest dance clubs. She's in her early 30s with a million dollar smile, and she glides across the dance floor, and every man in the joint is in awe of her confidence.

But Joe Lubin isn't intimidated. He walks right up to her and asks her for a dance. Now, he's not really Leona's type. He's thin and bald, and he's not that much taller than she is, but she's impressed by his chutzpah. And then she discovers this guy can dance. When the music stops, he begs her to go to dinner with him.

She says she has other plans. Leona runs out of the club, hails a cab, and is soon settling into a booth at a restaurant with her husband, Leo. Oh, okay. Not her husband for long. Yeah, that's exactly right. There's actually already tension in Leona and Leo's marriage. The main problem is that Leona loves to go on shopping sprees and Leo does not. But money is important to Leona in part because growing up she just

didn't have a lot of it. Her parents immigrated from Eastern Europe in the early 1900s. Her dad ran a hat making business and was barely scraping by even before the Great Depression. So when she was just 20, she decided to get married as a way to escape poverty. Leo was a lawyer and Leona saw opportunity. She wanted to rise up like the skyscrapers reshaping New York City's skyline. She married Leo about a decade ago and about a year after that, they had a son, Jay.

But things began to fray pretty fast because Leo isn't really interested in the finer things in life. He seems all too happy to settle for a middle-class existence. And Leona refuses to plateau. Sitting there with him at the restaurant, her thoughts drift back to Joe, her dance partner from that afternoon. And then, like magic, he appears.

He followed her and is now sitting just a few tables over. His eyes fixed on her. Sarah, I personally find this very creepy, but not Leona. She's impressed. Joe's going after what he wants, just like she does. Oh my God. I mean, it would also be very scary to me, but I feel like Leona's just kind of looking for an out at this point.

Yeah. And I also think like, psycho sees psycho. Yeah, exactly. Game recognize game here. They're finding each other. Well, a few days later, Leona gives Joe a call. They start meeting in the city to dance and more. Even though they're both married, they can't keep their hands off each other. They meet in secret for a while. And eventually, Leona and Leo decide to call it quits.

She and Joe get hitched in a jazz club two years after their first dance. But the romance begins to fade soon thereafter. It turns out Joe won't let Leona buy everything she wants with his money, and Leona is not pleased. And then, even worse, he gets a business opportunity in North Carolina, and he decides he wants to move there. Leona is disgusted.

Her dream life does not involve moving south and becoming a country girl. So, she gets another divorce. I mean, it seems like she really does what she wants. She really does. She's like a house cat. Like, there's no telling her anything. Yeah.

Well, Leona is in her early 40s, and she's struck out in marriage twice now. And by this time, her son, Jay, the only other man in her life, is out of college and starting out on his own. But Leona's not ready to give up her dream of climbing the New York social ladder. By now, she's learned that she can't get what she wants

by being a housewife. So she's ready to take on a career of her own. In 1963, a little more than a year after she and Joe split up, Leona is in the lobby of one of Manhattan's fanciest new buildings. It's an 18-story white brick tower on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park. The building has more than 60 mini-mansions with parquet floors and marble counters.

And Leona is in charge of selling them. Now, it turns out she's a bit of a natural. She sells every one of the units in the building within a year. And she's quickly promoted to running sales departments at other apartment buildings as well. It probably helps that she always looks put together with floor-length fur coats and a briefcase. She's good at selling the dream of living in luxury because it's one she's had her whole life. Even while selling these fancy apartments, Leona is still frustrated that she's not yet living in one herself. And she must feel the sting of being so close and yet so far from the world of wealth and glamour.

I understand that to a degree. It's like having to deal with rich people so much and speaking their language and then going home and being like, cool, I just helped someone do something I cannot do. Well, the problem is that Leona seems to take her frustration out on her staff. She isn't afraid to make secretaries and receptionists cry in front of the whole office, and she even takes it out on her family. At one point, she gets into such a bad fight with her daughter-in-law that her son, Jay, totally cuts her off, even from seeing his kid. So Leona doubles down on work.

Even if she is a total asshole, it's impossible to ignore how good she is at her job. After five years of working at this real estate company, Leona accepts a job at a competing firm with a big promotion as executive vice president of sales. The news even gets covered in the New York Times. Sarah, take a look at this headline from 1968. Yeah, it says,

Sutton and Town elects woman to a key post. And then, you know, it's like a headshot of Leona. She has short, fluffy hair, and she's wearing pearls. She looks very proper. But it was crazy back then for her to have this position, so I guess no one really knew how to talk about it. It was still very proper. But it was crazy back then for her to have this position. So I guess no one really knew how to talk about it. It was still very exciting. Leona is killing it in the corporate world,

and she has the positive press and now the paycheck to back it up. She's got almost everything she's ever wanted. Money, influence, and a complete reinvention from her humble roots. But there's one thing Leona's after that money can't buy. A man. In 1970, Harry Helmsley scans the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria in midtown Manhattan.

Harry's 60 years old and tall and trim. He wears his gray hair slicked back and has a pencil thin mustache and wire frame classes. He's at the wall door for the Realty Foundation of New York's annual dinner. The room is packed with real estate professionals and Harry is one of the most powerful people here. He started building his Manhattan empire from scratch when he was just 16,

working at the bottom rung of a real estate firm. Before he turned 30, he became a partner there. In the decades since, he's built it into one of the biggest real estate management companies in the country. It's reportedly worth more than $2.5 billion. His firm owns some of the most iconic properties in the city, including the Empire State Building. You know, it is crazy that someone can own the Empire State Building. Someone owns it. It's like, you're just like, wait a second.

That's a thing people own. That's so silly. Well, Harry obviously is a total workaholic. He's always thinking about where he's going to make his next million. And that is just fine with his wife of 30 years because she prefers to stay home with a good book. But lately, Harry has felt the need to cut loose and that's exactly what he wants to do tonight.

And then he notices a woman walking towards him. She's got bright, fierce eyes and cheekbones that could cut glass. And in her husky Brooklyn accent, she asks the question he's been waiting for all night. Does he want to dance? Harry says yes, and he leads Leona to the dance floor. He finds her captivating and funny,

but there's something else. She makes him feel alive. He stops worrying about drawing attention to himself, because even though Harry is a billionaire, he's known for living modestly. His wife is literally a Quaker. At fancy dinners, he sometimes orders just two baked potatoes.

I understand the optics of that, but it is simply not enough food. I need more than that. There's other cheap stuff you can get that's more filling, get beans, you know? You would have really thrived during the depressions, that's all I'm gonna say. Well, like Leona, Harry grew up in the shadow

of the Great Depression, but he's probably starting to think about what he wants for his golden years. Maybe he's ready to enjoy the wealth he spent his whole life acquiring. We don't know what he's thinking in this moment, but we do know he dances with Leona all night. And she has no problem being the center of attention.

When the band finally plays their last song, Harry knows he wants to see Leona again. Soon enough, he ends up offering her a job as senior vice president of one of his real estate brands. Leona has gotten the attention of the most important person in New York real estate. And now she's got to prove that she's his perfect match. After Leona moves into an office at Harry's firm,

she quickly gets to work redecorating. A coworker later tells the New York Post that she's covered the space in beigey pinks and garish French furniture. She's heading up the company's new division, which is focused on converting rent-controlled units into co-ops. Now that means she has to talk a bunch of tenants into buying the place that they've been renting. And it takes a hell of a salesperson to convince someone to give up their stabilized rent and trade it for a mortgage. But Leona is up for the challenge.

rent and trade it for a mortgage. But Leona is up for the challenge. Under New York law, apartment buildings can't be converted into co-ops unless at least 35 percent of the tenants agree to buy their units. After that, the building's owner can legally evict all other tenants. I mean, that is just incredibly manipulative landlord shit, right? Yeah, it's classic gross landlord shit. And Leona has her work cut out for her. She sets up an office in the 20 story building

that she's been assigned to convert. It's in a chic part of Manhattan called Sutton Place, where Jackie O used to live. And Leona is not above using intimidation tactics to get what she wants. She's known to corner little old ladies in the elevators and feed them lies. Like that everyone else is ready to buy and that if they don't, they'll be out on the

street. She makes the same claim in phone calls to tenants and in pamphlets that she slides under their doors. Leona also sends tenants letters claiming that someone already put an offer on their apartment and that they have 15 days to either buy their unit or be evicted. Her tactics are scary and for some tenants, it's enough to make them agree to do what she says. It is insane because it's also based on lies.

She's just scaring them because she knows they can. And also, everyone does this now, all the time. Yeah. Like landlords are constantly doing this. Yeah, they do. Well, after long days of harassing tenants, Leona meets up with Harry at a fancy restaurant near Central Park.

The two of them talk for hours and hours about real estate. Harry is about to shift from buying and managing drab office buildings to a more glamorous venture, developing luxury hotels. He asks for Leona's opinions and listens to her ideas. And it isn't long before their dinners turn romantic. But when Harry opens his first hotel, the Park Lane, Leona is upset to find that he isn't giving up on his wife completely.

Actually, it turns out that Harry's wife plans to live in the penthouse with him. She won't be way out in the suburbs anymore. She will be a permanent fixture. How much time will Harry have left for Leona? So Leona comes up with a plan. When Harry arrives at her apartment one day, she wears a diamond ring on one hand and flaunts bouquets of flowers. And she shows Harry a letter. She says it's from a man in Atlanta who's crazy about her. He wants to marry her and has given her 10 days to decide. She gives Harry an ultimatum. If he doesn't leave his wife and marry her, then she'll say yes

to this southern gentleman. Harry does not take long to decide. He sees something in Leona that he's resisted his whole life. A desire for fame, luxury, and fun. So he agrees. He'll leave his wife and marry Leona. Leona is over the moon. Finally, she'll have the money, the power, and the love that she's always wanted. And this time, she'll hold nothing back, because all's fair in love and Manhattan real estate. I'm Matt Ford. And I'm Alice Levine.

And we're the hosts of British Scandal. In our latest series, we're visiting one of the rockiest sibling relationships ever. Okay, so I'm thinking Danny and Kylie. No, no, no, I'm thinking Anne Boleyn and the other Boleyn. No, no, Barry and Paul Chuckle. No, it's Noel and Liam Gallagher. Now these two couldn't be more different, but they're tied to each other in musical dependency.

Despite their music catching the attention of people around the world, Liam's behavior could destroy their chances. However, their manager saw an opportunity to build a brand around their rebellious nature. It's got fights on boats, fights on planes, fights on land. They just fight everywhere. If you like fights, you'll love this.

To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts. Or listen early and ad-free on Wondry+, on Apple Podcasts or on the Wondry app. I'm Afua Hash. Apple podcasts or on the Wondry app. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we delve into the life of Alan Turing.

Why are we talking about Alan Turing, Peter? Alan Turing is the father of computer science and some of those questions we're thinking about today around artificial intelligence. Turing was so involved in setting and framing what some of those questions were, but he's also interesting for lots of other reasons, Afro. He had such a fascinating life. He was unapologetically gay at a time when that was completely criminalised and stigmatised. And from his imagination, he created ideas that have formed the very physical, practical foundation of all of the technology on which our lives depend. And on top of that, he's responsible for being part of a team that saved millions, maybe

even tens of millions of lives because of his work during the Second World War using maths and computer science to code break. So join us on Legacy, wherever you get your podcasts. And I feel like a legend. In the fall of 1971, Leona gets more good news. The owners of the Sutton Place building say they've gotten enough tenants to convert it into a co-op.

Leona is thrilled. All of her bullying has seemingly paid off, but little does she know that some of her tenants have started talking to each other, and they're beginning to realize that Leona lied to them. Pretty soon, they report her tactics to the New York attorney general, who takes action. He files paperwork accusing Leona lied to them. Pretty soon, they report her tactics to the New York attorney general, who takes action. He files paperwork accusing Leona

of engaging in coercion and fraud. Three months later, in February, 1972, the state Supreme Court nullifies the Sutton Place conversion and demands that Leona pay back the tenants who were coerced into buying. Even worse, her real estate broker's license is suspended. Leona's embarrassing setback becomes headline news

and tabloid fodder. It's the perfect example of comeuppance for a wealthy, powerful landlord trying to take advantage of their tenants, and New Yorkers are eating it up. OK, this actually makes me so happy to see tenants be like, no, we have rights and to screw her over in this way. But also she is so rich, it doesn't matter.

Yeah. I mean, she's about to become Mrs. Leona Helmsley, wife of billionaire Harry Helmsley, a woman with a house in the sky and the city at her feet. Two months later, at 51, Leona marries Harry in the penthouse she wrestled away from his ex-wife. They say I do in front of just a few friends. Sarah, aren't they cute? I mean, she is definitely a striking woman.

She has that old, timey beauty. She looks very sophisticated. This looks like a photo you'd see of a white friend's grandparents, you know? Yeah. Do you remember when billionaires had normal faces? This is just a normal-faced billionaire. We don't get those anymore.

Yeah. You wouldn't look at these people and think billionaires because plastic surgery did not exist. Yes, you are right. Well, Leona and Harry are so ready for their grand third act together. They promise to love each other in sickness and in health till death do them part. Leona's finally able to live her dream life, madly in love and filthy rich.

And she wants the whole world to know it. Leona quickly settles into married life. She and Harry go dancing multiple nights a week. She orders a new wardrobe of custom-made dresses. And without her job keeping her busy around the clock, dancing multiple nights a week, she orders a new wardrobe of custom-made dresses, and without her job keeping her busy around the clock, she has enough time to redecorate the penthouse. She covers the walls with art by Dufy and Pissarro, and orders an enormous custom rug.

She and Harry take a private jet to their penthouse in Palm Beach almost every other weekend. For her birthday on the 4th of July, Harry changes the lights on the Empire State Building to red, white, and blue. For his birthday, Leona throws a party inspired by a Broadway song. It's called, I'm Just Wild About Harry. I'm just wild about Harry,

and Harry's wild about me. The party begins with champagne and caviar in the penthouse pool room and then moves to the downstairs ballroom for, what else? Dancing all night. Everyone's given pins that say, I'm just wild about Harry, while the birthday boy wears an enormous pin that just says, I'm Harry. This kind of goes off.

It kind of slaps. If someone threw a party for me where everyone was wearing pins that said, I'm just wild about Sarah. And then it's like, I'm Sarah. I think that'd be fun. I'm not going to lie. I think you should do it for your next birthday. I can't do it for myself. Someone has to do it for me, Sachi.

Thank you. OK. Well, the party becomes a tradition. And over the years, the guest list includes hundreds of New York's wealthiest and most glamorous, like Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Rockefeller. At one point, a young New York real estate nepo baby shows up to the party, and he is desperate to make a huge name for himself.

Yeah, Sarah, I'm sorry to say, it's a young Donald Trump. Wow. Good for him. -♪ LAUGHS. -♪ Imagine being Donald Trump in this story, and you're not what we're here to talk about. Yeah. He's just a guy at this point. He's just a guy at this point. He's just a guy at a party.

The Donald is a brash young developer who wants to be just like Harry. So much so that Leona will later accuse Donald of modeling his wife, Ivana, after her. But Leona isn't just the first lady of a real estate empire. She talks with Harry about the business constantly, and she's got some big ideas. She wants to do a makeover on 230 Park Avenue, one of the city's most historic office buildings, and Harry agrees. She decides to cover the building statues

and ornate clock in gold leaf and shines floodlights on them all night. She also convinces Harry to rename it from the New York General Building to the Helmsley Building. It looks great and people really notice. Sarah, can you read what the New York Times architecture critic wrote about it in 1978?

Yeah, they say, it is clear that there is a lot of pride in this building and that the owner recognizes that this building has value, not only for his balance sheet, but for the city at large. That's reason enough to welcome the new identity for the Helmsley Building. That is shocking. I really thought it was gonna be, like, a total mess

because, you know, a lot of what she's decorated has seemed to be kind of over the top or not very tasteful. Yeah, I guess, like, it's New York in the late 70s and the early 80s. They kind of love it, right? Yeah, it's like her over-the-top-ness kind of works for something like this. Yeah.

The project is a big success, and Harry is so impressed with Leona's instincts that he looks around for something else she can tackle. What he finds will make Leona a household name and create an icon for the over-the-top 80s. She's about to reach the apex of New York high society, which only means she'll have a lot further to fall. It's a Sunday night in September 1980, about two years after Leona and Harry unveiled the Spruce Stop Helmsley building. Leona is dressed in a strapless silver gown

and diamond rings. She stands outside the ballroom of their latest and most luxurious project. This one is called the Helmsley Palace Hotel. She and Harry are throwing a black tie gala to celebrate its grand opening. The hotel started as a group of Franco-Italian mansions on Madison Avenue, behind St. Patrick's

Cathedral. Harry and Leona spent the last two years renovating it. They refurbished all the original marble, frescoes, carved wood, chandeliers, and Tiffany glass. And they added a ballroom, a bar, and 51 floors of guest rooms. There are a thousand rooms in total, all designed by Leona. And inside the ballroom, guests are seated at tables with candelabras, a band is playing while dinner is served, caviar, lobster, liver, and duck, you know, the usual. And Leona is

waiting to make an entrance. Everyone looks up from their plates as the band starts playing New York, New York. The ballroom doors fly open and Leona walks in, beaming, hand in hand with Harry. Just a few months earlier, he named her the new president of Helmsley Hotels. This is her coronation. Sarah, can you read what Leona says about the decision to give her this job? Yeah, she says, Harry said I was so involved in the business, I might as well be president and he'd be chairman. He said the best thing about it was that the board of directors meeting was over when we got out of bed.

Oh, these two... These two are bad. Oh, gross. The way she says things makes everything sound so scandalous, you know what I mean? Like, she really does have a way with words with all of these quotes. Listen, I'm not here to say that she's not very funny,

cause she is. She's got something. Yeah. Well, the Palace Hotel's grand opening is a huge success. Leona thanks her staff with a champagne toast. She even hugs all of them. But within a month, Leona's warm and fuzzy side disappears. Her old management style returns.

She stalks the halls, screaming at housekeepers that beds are not made to her liking, complaining that the towels are too thin, and demanding someone be fired for letting the ladies' room run out of tissues. The staff soon learns that no offense is too small to warrant a firing. And on at least one occasion, Leona tries to boss around someone who is actually just a guest. Here's a picture of her from a New York Magazine

feature that ran around this time. Can you describe it? This is so funny. I mean, first of all, everything about it is so 80s. Like, the cut of sweater she's wearing, you know, she has the long pearl necklaces, everything's kind of peach toned, and she's on the phone and she's obviously yelling, her hands on her hip. It's like a stock photo of an angry rich woman.

And the caption says, not amused, the queen delivers a royal dressing down. That she took a photo like this is so crazy. I mean, objectively, it's just a woman on the phone, but like all of the stuff around it is so goofy. It's amazing. Well, Leona has risen further than she's ever dreamed, but no matter how rich and powerful she gets,

she never seems satisfied. Around this time, Leona decides to treat herself to some new jewelry. So she goes to her favorite place, Van Cleef in Arpel. She picks out a diamond necklace that costs almost $400,000. But as she's being rung up, she balks at paying the tens of thousands of dollars in sales tax. Leona also has a house in Florida, and she knows that if an item purchased in New York is intended for use out of the state, the store can drop sales tax entirely, which is exactly what Leona thinks the store should do now. After what was probably a high-pitched

tirade, Leona and the sales clerk come to an agreement. She can wear the necklace out of the store, and the jeweler will ship the empty box to her place in Palm Beach. Leona doesn't just do this with diamonds. She pulls this scheme again and again, saving herself a small fortune in taxes. At one store, she reportedly orders an employee to simply ignore the sales tax, laughing and saying, that's how the rich get richer.

Leona's finally made it, and she's not gonna let anyone take her money. But she's about to lose something even more precious. In March 1982, a couple of years after the Palace Hotel opens, Leona gets an urgent message from her secretary. Her son, Jay, is in the hospital, and it isn't looking good. Leona reconciled with Jay a few years earlier after he went through a divorce.

She felt so bad for him that she gave him a job running a company that stocks the Helmsley hotels with all kinds of products, from furniture to soap. She even arranged for him to live in a house paid for by one of Harry's companies. She and Harry book a flight and jump in a limo to go to the airport, but on the drive over, they get a call from Jay's new wife, Mimi.

She gives Leona the worst possible news. Her son is dead from a heart attack at just 42 years old. Leona is utterly destroyed. And in her grief, her habit of lashing out at people around her gets even worse. She accuses Mimi of causing Jay's death by never cooking him healthy meals. And later, after the memorial, she reportedly tells her oldest grandson that Jay's death is his fault.

It gets worse. Leona and Harry kick Mimi out of her house, saying it belongs to their business. And Leona sues Mimi for the cost of shipping Jay's coffin to New York and to force her to return some of the jewelry that she gave her as a gift. It is really remarkable how vindictive she is even when she doesn't really have anything to gain from it. Like, business stuff I get more, but punishing your daughter-in-law? This is so wrong. It's so nasty. Yeah. Well, back in New York, Leona deals with her grief by throwing herself into work.

Things are not going well at the hotels she's overseeing. Occupancy rates are as low as 20%. New York's hotel industry has been hit hard by the recession. But Leona thinks she can buck the trend. So she hires an advertising firm to help drum up business. The firm is led by an influential executive named Joyce Bieber. She's in her mid-50s, wears chunky jewelry, and styles her hair in a blonde, highlighted bob. She went to journalism school, and she's known for immersing herself in her clients' work,

then coming up with campaigns to highlight it. Joyce starts shadowing Leona, observing how she runs her hotels. She takes notes as Leona tells a staffer that they need to order bigger towels. She reads a guest's comment card about how loud the air conditioning was during his stay, and then calls the guest to personally apologize.

Joyce is inspired by Leona's no-nonsense attitude. She sees that Leona insists on the best for her guests and wants everything to be up to her own personal standards. So Joyce comes back with a pitch for a print advertising campaign that puts Leona front and center. The ads will show Leona showing off the hotel's amenities, which are unusual for the time.

It has telephones in all the bathrooms and those magnifying mirrors that show you every pore of your face. Each ad claims that there are things Leona can't herself go without. So as the tagline goes, why should you? Here, Sarah, take a look at these ads. There's so much text that I'm surprised this was effective at all. So one of them, she's sitting on a bed in a purple suit and there's fur on her.

She's like a fur stole on her shoulder and she says, I won't sleep in an uncomfortable bed. Why should you? She is asking the salient questions. Yeah, then the ad goes, you don't have to put up with the rock hard or marshmallow soft beds of ordinary Manhattan hotels. For the same price, you can stay at the Harley,

New York's newest hotel. Yes, all of this is true, but also it's kind of like, that should be the minimum, you know? If someone's advertising a hotel and they're like, our beds are comfortable, I'm like, yeah, okay, as they should be. I mean, honestly, beds from the 80s were terrible. True, it was a different true. It was a different time

It was a different time. They were sleeping on stacks of hay. Well, Leona loves the ads She gives Joyce a multi-million dollar budget to run them in the New York Times the New Yorker Business Week and a ton of in-flight magazines They reach tens of millions of readers and within just a few months occupancy rates at the hotels more than triple And within just a few months, occupancy rates at the hotels more than triple. Leona is impressed. So she asks Joyce to come up with a campaign

specifically for the Helmsley Palace. This leads to the ad campaign that we talked about at the beginning of the episode, the Queen of the Palace. Sarah, here, take a look at these examples. You know, this photo is a whole story because there's a couple seemingly guests at a table and they're looking up at Leona and the staff is looking at Leona scared. So much fear.

And the tagline, it's the only palace in the world where the Queen stands guard. Okay, scary. I'm scared of her. This makes me scared. Yeah, and Leona likes that people think about her that way. Quickly, the Palace becomes the place to stay, and Leona is the host. Guests include the biggest stars of the day like Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and Billy Joel. Leona is thrilled.

The ad campaign is good for business and it's turned her into a celebrity. Leona is queen of all she surveys, and she's starting to look even outside the bounds of New York City. But when this queen expands her territory, she invites a lot of new trouble. Hello, I'm Emily, one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the

lives of our biggest celebrities. Some of them hit the big time overnight, some had to plug away for years, but in our latest series we're talking about a man who was world famous before he was even born. A life of extreme privilege that was mapped out from the start, but left him struggling to find his true purpose. A man who, compared to his big brother, felt a bit, you know, spare. Yes, it's Prince Harry. You might think you know everything about him but trust me, there's even more. We follow Harry and the obsessive, all-consuming relationship of his life, not with Megan, but the British tabloid press. Hounded and harassed, Harry is taking on an institution almost every bit as powerful as

his own royal family. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wandery+, on Apple Podcasts, or the Wander Way app. It's June 1983, and Leona stares out the window of a limousine as it pulls up to a brick manor in Greenwich, Connecticut. Leona has lived her whole life in the city. And now that her hotel empire is on the upswing, she wants to treat herself to a little rest and relaxation. So she's been scouting for a country getaway. And she immediately falls in love with this one in Greenwich. It sits on top of a lush green hill, and it's so regal that it has its own name, Dunn-Ellen Hall.

It's got 28 rooms, marble floors, and two pools. And Leona decides that she has to buy this place. She tells Harry and he pays $11 million for the house and everything in it, making it the second most expensive home ever bought in the United States at the time. Leona is so excited. She's lived in apartments her whole life. Now she's gonna have a real home with a lawn and a driveway.

It's really funny that you can be so filthy rich in New York, literally own the Empire State Building and be like, but what I really need is a driveway and that's when I'll be happy. I know, we're so suburban-pilled. I'm like, I had one my whole life. Well, the Helmsley set about renovating Dunn-Ellen immediately.

Leona wants an enclosure built over one of the swimming pools so that they can use it year round. And on top of it, she wants a dance floor, made of marble and lots of jade everywhere. And she wants a herd of sheep so that they can run around the grounds. But when she starts hiring contractors for the renovations, she realizes this is all going to be way more expensive than she thought. Their penthouse in the city is technically a business expense, so they write it off.

But Denellen is a personal expense, and she's freaking out about what it's going to cost. When she sees the $3,000 utility bill, she calls a light and power executive and screams at him. She accuses him of overcharging them just because they're the Helmsleys. She says she'll only pay half, and then she hangs up. This is so odd, because she clearly is so rich and knows she's so rich. Why else would she buy this?

But then it's almost like she can't really accept that things are expensive, that are nice, and instead makes it other people's problem. And a utility bill is a utility bill, I just don't really understand her logic here. Well, that's how Leona starts to approach all the incoming bills. She and Harry hate to feel like they're getting fleeced.

So they end up ignoring, and in some cases, never paying, bills from carpenters, masons, and bricklayers. Some of them are for more than $100,000. Leona won't let anyone get the best of her, from the gardener to good old Uncle Sam. About a year after the Helmsleys by Dunnellan, Steve Chang stands with Leona in the backyard. Steve is in his mid-40s and he immigrated to the U.S. from Korea more than a decade earlier.

He oversees the engineering departments of several Helmsley hotels. And now Leona has brought him to her private property to talk about something very important to her. Speakers. She says that she wants an outdoor sound system like the one at Disney World, and whatever Leona wants, Leona gets. So Steve finds a company to install the speakers and passes their invoice over to the CFO of Helmsley Hotels.

But not long after, Steve gets a call from the CFO. He wants Steve to change the details on the invoice. He wants him to write that it's for a security system at one of the Helmsley's offices, a building that already has one. Steve feels uncomfortable. He doesn't want to lie, and he knows this is fraud. The speakers are not a business expense. They're for the pool, the tennis court,

and the barbecue area of their private estate. When Steve admits his reservations to the CFO, the CFO says, do you want me to tell Mrs. Helmsley that you feel uncomfortable? That is not a question. To me, that is a threat. Yeah, pretty ominous. Well, Steve also is disturbed, but he doesn't want to lose his job. So he forges the invoice.

What Steve doesn't know is that this scheme is being used for more than just the speaker systems. In fact, everything that Leona and Harry buy for their personal home, Dunn-Ellen, has been invoiced as a business expense, down to the food in the fridge, which comes right from the Park Lane Hotel. Steve and tons of other employees, vendors and contractors, they know the Helmsleys are building a Leona Dream House at the expense of the US government. But they don't dare blow the whistle.

Leona's reputation and Harry's power are too intimidating. About six months after Leona demands a Disney World speaker system, Steve's Probably Watching a 60 Minutes airs its episode all about Leona. And when Mike Wallace asks Harry why he doesn't pay Leona a salary, he says, What am I going to pay her for? She'd put it in my bank account anyhow. I have it back again. Then I'd have to pay tax on it because she'd be earning it. Leona and Harry are getting cocky. And while they might see themselves as the ultimate American bootstrap story, not everyone feels the same.

Almost a year after the 60 Minute Special airs, New York Post reporter Ransdell Pearson is stuck manning the office while everyone else is at a Christmas party. Ransdell is in his early 30s with thick brown hair and a slight southern accent. And he's probably bored out of his mind until the phone rings. Here's how he remembers it later for Barbara Walters' American scandal. The phone rang and I picked it up and some voice at the other end said, Leona Helmsley is a crook. And would you like to win a Pulitzer Prize? Oh my God.

If someone said that to me, I'd be like, yes, I would too. That's an easy yes. Well, Ransdell says yes to. He meets the source in the middle of the night and eventually gets his hands on a bundle of documents, allegedly fake invoices and bills, all with Leona or Harry's initials on them. It's a gold mine of information. But Ransdell has been trying to talk with Helmsley employees, vendors, contractors, anyone with no luck.

People are too scared of the Helmsleys to talk. Ransdell has been digging and digging, but winds up short. So he decides to put the story aside. But then, nine months later, in November 1986, the New York Times publishes a bombshell. Leona Helmsley is said to evade sales tax. It reveals that Leona was one of many Van Cleef and Arpels customers to benefit from the so-called

empty box scam to avoid sales tax. The paper reports that when the state attorney general indicted two of the store's senior officers, Leona agreed to cooperate to avoid charges. Ransdell's instincts are tingling. Now that Leona's been exposed for cheating on taxes, more people might be willing to talk. And sure enough, this time when Ransdell makes calls,

people open up, especially people who Leona had recently fired. This is why people like Leona, and there are so many people like her, who have a lot of power and are very mean, and that's how they get stuff done. They never think about when there's one tiny little crack, the people you've wronged,

they will do anything to take you down. Yeah. Well, on December 2nd, 1986, about a year after he first started digging, Ransdell's story hits the cover of the New York Post. The headline? Helmsley's scam bared. The article details how millions of dollars in renovation bills were allegedly falsified as business expenses, and that Helmsley employees had gone through with the scheme under direct orders from Leona and Harry.

The two immediately deny everything and they fly to Barbados. Then, the stream of shit talking about Leona turns into a flood. People who have worked for Leona are all desperate to dish, and Ransdell isn't the only one listening. The IRS and the New York Attorney general both announced investigations into the claims. All these years of reigning as a tyrant are about to come back to haunt Leona, and soon she could be trading her penthouse for a jailhouse.

That's next time in the finale to our two-part series on New York's Queen of Mean. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Scamfluencer's ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself

by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. This is Leona Helmsley, The Art of the Steel, Part One. I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagge. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at scanfluencers at wondery.com. We use many sources in our research.

A few that were particularly helpful were The Queen of Mean, The Unauthorized Biography of Leona Helmsley by Randstill Pearson, and The Helmsley's The Rise and Fall of Harry and Leona by Richard Hammer. Colleen Scriven wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagge. Sarah Eni is our story editor and producer and Eric Thurm is our story editor. Fact-checking by Meredith Clark. Sound design by James Morgan.

Additional audio assistance provided by Adrienne Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Freeze On Sync. Our managing producers are Desi Blaylock and Matt Gant. Janine Cornelo and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Perry. Our producers are John Reed, Yasmin Ward, and Kate Young. Our senior producers are Ginny Bloom and Jen Swan. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marshall Louie, and Erin O'Flaherty.

For Wondry. Business can mean a lot of things. For some, it's earning reports, the top MBA program, investments, but business is in everything we do. Side hustles that explode into the next billion dollar company. I need to create my own product that I control what the marketing is for. Unconventional ideas that change the world we live in. AI is everywhere, with venture capital pouring in. From Elon Musk, he took a massive axe

and swung it through Twitter's workforce. To Taylor Swift, she is unstoppable as her eras tour stimulated local economy. Your favorite coffee shop down the street to the vacation house you rented last weekend. Whatever business means to you, Wondui is the destination for business podcasts. Listen to top business shows like How I Built This, Business Wars, The Best One Yet, Business Movers and many more. Everything from top daily news, to deep dives on the biggest successes and failures of our time. Wondery means business.