CELEBRITY SECRETS EXPOSED!
Rihanna, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue … They’re all on a very exclusive list, and each has a price tag to match. For Kylie it can be up to $1.8 million. For Gaga, a bargain at $175,000. This is the cost a select few are prepared to pay to meet their idols, and Karim Gharbi is the man to make it happen.
“My clients are very wealthy and there is a large demand for unique experiences,” he tells New Idea. “They need us to create these for them, like the first ever helicopter flights over Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks we’re working on at the moment.” Karim, who appeared in Sydney’s Crazy Rich Asians during Network Ten’s pilot week, set up his company, The VIP Sydney, five years ago. Since then, billionaires and Hollywood royalty have knocked on his door wanting custom-made experiences.
The most popular request is a private mansion, because celebrities and the very rich want more privacy than a hotel can offer. Karim’s most recent client was Hollywood actor Chuck Norris, he tells – but not all are as easy as the action star was.
“One client was here on holiday and saw a home he wanted for his next trip. It was a $35 million house that wasn’t for rent,” Karim recalls. “We had to persuade the family living there to move out for a week. There was a cheque for $300,000. It must have been the most ever paid for a week’s rent in Sydney.”
“If it’s legal, we can make the right calls and do whatever it takes to make it happen.”
Karim lives the dream alongside his clients – a definite perk, even if it does mean working 24/7 to make some “particular, rather than difficult” people 100 per cent happy.
“My last trip was to LA with a rich Russian lady,” he says. “We did private tours of Warner Brothers and Universal Studios, ate in the best restaurants, took a helicopter to Burning Man where a private chef and butler were waiting. She wore two outfits a day, each designed by Lady Gaga’s designer. I was so exhausted I could hardly speak afterwards but the joy I got from it was as much as if I was doing it for myself. I’m very passionate. I care about what I do and that’s the key to my success.”