John McCain Brings All the Billionaires to the YardJohn McCain is coming to New York next Tuesday for a giant fund-raiser to power his national campaign, reports Elizabeth Benjamin at the Daily News. It sounds like it’s going to be a doozy — the host committee includes Henry Kissinger, Alfonse D’Amato, Woody Johnson, Georgette Mosbacher, and Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain. Tickets are either $1,000 or $2,300 per person (get it? The most you can donate to one candidate?), and it will take place at the Plaza. So glamorous. But let’s get down to business (literally). How many billionaires will be in attendance? And how many billions do they represent? From Forbes.com’s most recent list, we count five: Henry Kravis (the world’s 178th-richest man, worth $5.5 billion), Ray Dalio (worth $4 billion), Louis Bacon (worth $1.7 billion), Marc Rowan (worth $1.5 billion), and Robert Fisher ($1.4 billion). That’s a total of over $14 billion in the room with the Republican presidential nominee. There are several dozen other multimillionaires on the list, plus Lord knows how many buying tickets — so we’ll conservatively push that number over the $15 billion barrier. At first, we wondered how on earth any of the Democrats could get that much money into one room. And then we remembered that all Hillary needs to do is have Warren Buffet hold another fund-raiser, and she’d be in the company of quadruple that amount. Nobody else would even need to show up.
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Cameron Diaz to Invade ChelseaCameron Diaz is looking to buy an apartment in West Chelsea and also hooked up with Felicity’s Scott Speedman in the Bahamas. Samantha Stein-Wells, daughter of murdered real-estate broker Linda Stein, is turning her 35th birthday into a charity event in her mom’s name. Padma Lakshmi told Dave Zinczenko that she’d cover her body in chocolate if he put her on the cover of Men’s Health. Portfolio magazine named Newsweek fashion scribe Dana Thomas its European editor. Michelle Williams has pulled out of her upcoming movie with Ryan Gosling because she’s too beat up over Heath Ledger’s death. Maybe-pregnant Angelia Jolie went shopping at a baby boutique in Tribeca.
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Rodentia? We Hardly Even Know Ya!Sources claim Judith Regan often compared Jews to “rats” and “rodentia,” but Regan (and her lawyer) deny it. Anybody who is anybody (Harold Ford! Harvey Weinstein! Taki Theodoracopolous!) has been spotted eating at Graydon Carter’s friendly neighborhood joint, the Waverly Inn. Madonna is keen on adopting another child from Malawi, though her husband, Guy Ritchie, is not. Josh Hartnett is in an open relationship with Scarlett Johannson, which is why it’s okay he was making out with Gisele Saturday night. PayPal dumped Vincent Gallo after he tried to sell more than, uh, T-shirts on his Website. John Mara, son of late, great Giants owner Wellington, got fired from a broadcast-booth job in 1978 for slamming his fist and knocking over equipment. Adam Levine allegedly got drunk and brought three girls back to his room at the Mercer, though his rep denies it. Republican fund-raiser Georgette Mosbacher had both Dems and GOPers over for dinner at her swank Fifth Avenue digs Tuesday. Ludacris ate with Cosmo’s Kate White at Michael’s. Hugh Jackman once gave his sister a stick of deodorant for Christmas. Liz Smith claims she’s responsible for the new Rocky getting made.
