The sad part? I actually thought it was cute at the time.
See, a couple of months ago, word got out that LeBron James, a demi-god of professional sports, was cheap. Like, extremely cheap. The joke was that his Pandora account still had all the advertisements in it, because he wouldn't spring the extra ten bucks a month for an unlimited subscription.
And while this seems like the appropriate time to mention that James' basketball salary alone for 2017 exceeded 30 million actual dollars (and his endorsements deals border a cool billion overall), that's none of my damn business, quite honestly.
But the real rub? When Pandora found out about this...
...they upgraded him for free. I mean, why not, right? Why should the crazy-rich have to pay for anything?
I'll never be crazy-rich, super-rich, or average rich for that matter, so, clearly, I don't get it, but J.P. Getty does. As the protagonist in Ridley Scott's thrilling All the Money in the World, Getty was, at the time, the richest man on the planet. Portrayed by Christopher Plummer (at the buzzer, from way downtown), Getty is the cheapest of cheap-skates, amassing an incredible fortune but hardly willing to spend a f--king dime of it.In fact, he's not even going to lend you a dime. Nope. Not a single ten cent piece, not even to make, say, an important phone call from a payphone. You know, like the one he had installed in his f--king house.
When his (favorite?) grandson Paul is kidnapped in Italy and held for ransom, the stubborn old cocks--ker refuses to pay up. Flatly. The same way you or I might quickly dismiss the nineteenth request to help save a homeless pet (oh, f--k off Petco), Getty ain't even gonna make that fake move for his wallet. He has fourteen grandchildren and as even an average businessman could figure, obviously, that's fourteen ransoms. Pay now, and he'll be paying forever. And he's got three responses to that scenario: Stop, no and don't. Or was that Eazy-E? I always get them confused.
