At home with The haves...and the have yachts
As TV’S most dysfunctional billionaires return, we ask experts if Succession is really how the richest live
They’re the billionaire clan that became a small-screen sensation in a blizzard of f-bombs, back-stabbing, PJS (private jets) and so many schemes and stitch-ups, Machiavelli would consider them a little bit slippery.
But as the final season of razor-sharp drama Succession begins tomorrow night, who will emerge victorious in the boardroom of Waystar Royco, the Roy family’s global media empire, as tycoon Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, fends off his vengeful children?
Yet there is another question many viewers outside the top 0.5% of society would like answered: how realistic is the lifestyle of the fictional clan? Here, we ask the experts.
THE BILLIONS
Tessa Williams is a contributor to Channel 5 TV show The World’s Greatest Hotels and author of Hotel Of The Stars. She divides her time between her family’s country estate in Aberdeenshire and her research visits to the globe’s most iconic and luxurious retreats.
Rubbing shoulders with millionaires and billionaires is now second nature so she knows more than most the quirks and nuances of what she calls the “elite circles and clubs” of the super-rich. However, it’s not what you might think. “Succession is really so well observed and the main thing they get right is the confidence of the super-wealthy,” she explains. “That’s the thing you notice most about people with money. It’s not what you would assume, like their clothes or appearance that really sets them apart. Quite often you see the absolute uber-wealthy dressed in tracksuits and a cap – as with Kendall Roy in Succession. It’s the self-assurance that often only comes with having money because you can do anything you want.
“I came across a quote recently by the writer, William Somerset Maugham, in which he says ‘money is the sixth sense, without which you can’t make a complete use of the other five,’ and that really struck me. In the line of work I’m in, I can see how much of the world’s beauty money actually can buy you. But sometimes people who have the money to enjoy the world are the ones who end up appreciating it the least, as is so well portrayed in Succession. “You see them on these yachts, on these jets, experiencing these incredible places and yet they’re not aware of it. Instead they’re just scheming. All they care about is making more money and being more powerful.”