APRIL 2008
How do I donate 100 billion dollars to help rescue our planet? The fate of Melinda Gates, the richest wife on earth Both of them love jigsaw puzzles, but otherwise they don’t have a lot in common. And in many respects, Melinda Gates outclasses her husband, Bill: She received a better education, is more athletic (she runs marathons, climbs 4000-metre mountains) and has greater empathy for other people. The latest issue of the PERSONALITY MAGAZINE PARK AVENUE (out on 19 March), reveals why multi billionaire Warren Buffet entrusts his assets to her and says, “Bill really needs her”! “I had always thought when my youngest child started full-day school I’d step up,” says Melinda Gates. And that’s exactly what she did. Now she invests more than 30 hours a week in the Foundation. What do they do there? “We check the list of the world’s greatest injustices and give wherever we can make the biggest difference,” says Mrs Gates. If her mother had had her way, the Gates would not be married today. Never marry your boss, was her opinion. But on Easter Sunday 1993, Bill proposed to his employee Melinda while Warren Buffet played the bugle. “Bill certainly was funnier than I expected him to be,” Melinda confesses. How boy bands’ “Big Poppa” Lou Pearlman ended up in jail “Look, isn’t that the guy from the Backstreet Boys?” There’s a 10-million-dollar reward on Lou Pearlman’s head when Thorsten and Carina Igborg recognise him having breakfast on Bali. Thorsten Igborg secretly takes a photo for proof and sends it to the FBI. The boy group producer is arrested that same day. The all-important photo – Pearlman enjoying his last breakfast in freedom – goes around the world. The latest issue of the PERSONALITY MAGAZINE PARK AVENUE (out on 19 March) reports. Also on why Igborg will nonetheless never see a cent of the 10 million dollars. Nude photos and visits to the sauna – sexual favours from at least one boy in every band. The rumours are all about inappropriate physical contact and private enrichments. But that’s not why Big Poppa, as Pearlman likes his protégés to call him, is up in court. He’s on trial for fraud on a grand scale, a pyramid system built on bank loans and sham companies that just a little investigation could have uncovered. Yet Pearlman sounds off from his prison cell undeterred: “I am proud of everything I’ve done. I’ve just enjoyed all of the people throughout my career. We brought a lot of joy to the world.” How designer Marc Jacobs was saved by art Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton’s creative director, is vulnerable to addictions and extreme in everything he does. “I was drinking and taking drugs, and clearly it is a problem that I cannot do these things in moderation.” Last year he completed his second course of rehab treatment and has since been better. He also listened to his psychiatrist’s advice to develop a good appetite for life! Contemporary art? Marvellous! Today the darling of the New York fashion scene and the favourite of tout Paris says, “In art I have finally found a stimulus that does not have a self-destructive effect”. He asked his employer for an advance in order to buy a picture by Ed Ruscha and he has two Warhols as well as pictures by Richard Prince on the wall at his town house in Paris. In the personality magazine PARK AVENUE (out on 19 March), Jacobs tells how in the ’80s he would meet Keith Haring or Jean-Michel Basquiat for dinner in New York, but did not dare to approach the gallery owners when visiting exhibitions. “I did not feel clever or culturally educated enough to join in on a conversation.” Only gradually has he overcome his inhibitions and begun to do form his own opinions. Today he judges artworks according to whether or not they appeal to him. “If they speak to me, fine. If they don’t, then they don’t.” About PARK AVENUE PARK AVENUE is Germany’s first PERSONALITY MAGAZINE, combining independent journalism with fascinating and exclusive society reporting. Its readers discover unexpected and unknown facets of national and international personalities – people that play a part in shaping their time and environment; personalities from the worlds of politics, business, culture and society. PARK AVENUE places the emphasis on the especial closeness of its authors and photographers to the personalities they portray. Prominent top writers and international photo artists guarantee this title’s consistently high standard of quality and outstanding visual design.