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4.2.12
WC: 191694

Leona Helmsley

Leona Helmsley was not a good client. She too was boring and rather stupid. She was called the queen of mean, and I can only disclose incidents that occurred in public. Here’s one that shows how she earned her title. We were having breakfast in the dining room of her hotel, when a waiter brought me a cup of tea. She noticed, but I didn’t, that a little bit of the tea had dripped onto the saucer. It was certainly no big deal. When she saw it she grabbed the tea and the saucer and threw it on the floor in the direction of the waiter, shattering it into many pieces. She then screamed at the waiter, “Now clean it up and beg me for your job.” I simply walked away, not wanting to be associated with that kind of public rudeness.

When my daughter was born, Leona had her private jet fly a large stuffed bear to Boston, where it was placed in a limo and brought to our home. My daughter loved the bear and several years later had an opportunity to thank Leona for sending it. Leona replied: “It’s stolen merchandise. I stole it from Donald Trump.” She then explained how she had sold a hotel to Trump that included a pastry restaurant called Rumplemyers, which was decorated with large stuffed animals. The sale included the stuffed animals, but Leona took the bear, which belonged to Trump, and sent it to my daughter. I told Leona that I would either have to return the stolen bear or get Trump’s permission to keep it. She said, “tell the Donald I stole it from him. See what he says.” I told Trump. He laughed and said “I’m not surprised. Let your daughter enjoy the bear.”

One day my brother, who was another of her lawyers, was invited to a birthday party at her house. He brought my mother along. Leona knew that my mother did not want to be confronted with the reality that my brother is not kosher outside of his house. My brother, sensitive to this, always eats only kosher food in her presence. He was on line with my mother at the buffet choosing among the smoked salmon and vegetables when Leona came over to my mother and brother and in her booming voice yelled, “In front of your mother you eat salmon. In front of me you eat lobster. Ha ha ha.” It was entirely gratuitous, hurtful and all too typical.

Although my brother and I—who were her appellate lawyers—saved Helmsley several years imprisonment by winning the state appeal—Helmsley refused to pay our final legal bill. We should have demanded up front payment for all our services because she had a reputation for “negotiating” all of her bills. (“I’ll give you 25 cents on the dollar. If you don’t like it, sue me!”) My brother eventually sued her but dropped the suit after she said she would spend “a large fortune beating him into the ground.”

Once when we were waiting to go to court, Leona told me a joke about two competitive Russian neighbors who hated each other. One day, the first one tripped over a lamp and a genie popped out. “You get the usual three wishes, but here’s the catch: everything you ask for and receive, your neighbor gets double.” He asked for a thousand rubies, and the next day the neighbor boasted, “I got 2,000 rubies.” He asked for a beautiful woman, and the neighbor bragged he got two women. Finally, in frustrations he asked the genie, “Would it be too painful to cut off one of my testicles?”

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