yacht used in wolf of wall street

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How Jordan Belfort's 37m superyacht Nadine sank off the coast of Sardinia

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Coco Chanel was famously outspoken on many things, but yachting, in particular, attracted her ire. “As soon as you set foot on a yacht you belong to some man, not to yourself, and you die of boredom,” she was once quoted as saying.

Her solution was to buy her own yacht. A 37m with a steel hull, built by the Dutch yard Witsen & Vis of Alkmaar. The yacht passed through many hands, finally ending up belonging to the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, on whose watch she foundered and sank in 1996.

The yacht was originally built for a Frenchman under the name Mathilde , but he backed out and she caught Chanel’s eye instead. With a narrow beam, a high bow and the long, low superstructure typical of Dutch yachts of her era, she was certainly a beautiful boat. But she was also well equipped, with five staterooms in dark teak panelling, magnificent dining facilities, room for big tenders and, later, a helipad. A frequent sight along the Florida coast, she caught the eye of a young skipper called Mark Elliott.

“In those days, she was the biggest yacht on the East Coast,” he remembers. “Nobody had ever seen anything like it. I needed a wrench once and went up to the boat - Captain Norm Dahl was really friendly.” He didn’t know it then, but Elliott was destined to become the skipper of the boat himself and was at the helm when the storm of the century took her to the bottom off Sardinia.

Coco Chanel died in 1971 and sometime thereafter the yacht was renamed Jan Pamela under the new ownership of Melvin Lane Powers. He was a flamboyant Houston real estate developer, fond of crocodile skin cowboy boots and acquitted of murder in a trial that gripped the nation.

Powers sent Jan Pamela to Merrill Stevens yard in Miami, where a mammoth seven-metre section was added amidships. “We made templates for the boat where we were going to cut her in half, then she went out for another charter season,” remembers Whit Kirtland, son of the yard owner. “When the boat came back in, we cut it just forward of the engine room, rolled the two sections apart and welded it in.”

He remembers how the sun’s heat made the bare and painted metal expand at different rates. “You had to weld during certain time periods – early in the morning or late at night,” says Kirtland.

The result of the extension was a huge new seven-metre full-beam master stateroom, an extra salon and one further cabin – pushing the charter capacity to seven staterooms. During this refit, the boat’s colour was also changed from white to taupe. “No one had really done it before and it was gorgeous,” says Elliott. By 1983, Powers was bankrupt and the yacht was sold on again. She next shows up named Edgewater .

Elliott’s chance came in 1989. He was working for the established yacht owner Bernie Little, who ran a hugely profitable distribution business for Bud brewer Anheuser-Busch. “Bernie Little had always wanted to own the boat,” Elliott says. “He loved it. He bought it sight unseen – and I started a huge restoration programme, including another extension to put three metres in the cockpit.”

It was a massive task, undertaken at Miami Ship. “We pulled out all the windows, re-chromed everything, repainted – brought it back to life,” says Elliott. They also cut out old twin diesels from GM and replaced them with bigger CAT engines, doubling her horsepower to 800. “Repowered, she could cruise at up to 20 knots. She was long and skinny, like a destroyer.”

A smart hydraulic feature was also brought to life for the first time. Under two of the sofas in the main stateroom were hidden 3.6m x 1.2m glass panels giving a view of the sea under the boat. At the push of a button, the sofas lifted up and mirrors above allowed you to gaze at the seabed – from the actual bed.

Now called Big Eagle , like all of Little’s boats, she was a charter hit and her top client was a certain New York financier named Jordan Belfort. He fell in love with her and begged Little to sell to him. But he needed to secure financing, and in 1995, Little agreed to hold a note on the boat for a year if Mark Elliott stayed on as skipper.

With the boat rechristened Nadine after his wife, Belfort set about another round of refit work, restyling the interior with vintage deco and lots of mirrors, extending the upper deck this time, and fitting a crane capable of raising and stowing the Turbine Seawind seaplane.

Nadine also carried a helicopter, a 10m Intrepid tender, two 6m dinghies on the bow, four motorbikes, six jetskis, state-of-the-art dive gear. “You pretty much needed an air traffic controller when all these things were in the water,” says Elliott.

Belfort’s partying was legendary and Elliott clearly saw eye-watering things on board, but as far as he was concerned, he was there to safeguard the boat. “When Jordan Belfort became the owner, he could do whatever he wanted. I was there to protect the note,” says Elliott. “He is a brilliant mind and a lovely person. It was just when he was in his party mode, he was out of control.”

Nadine and her huge cohort of toys and vehicles plied all the usual yachting haunts on both sides of the Atlantic. But Belfort’s love story was to be short-lived. Disaster struck with the boss and guests on board during an 85-mile crossing between Civitavecchia in Italy and Calle de Volpe on Sardinia.

What was forecast to be a 20-knot blow and moderate seas degenerated into a violent 70-knot storm with crests towering above 10.6m, according to Elliott. Wave after wave pounded the superstructure, stoving in hatches and windows so that water poured below and made the boat sluggish. By a miracle the engine room remained dry and they could maintain steerage way, motoring slowly through the black of the night as rescue attempt after rescue attempt was called off.

Nadine eventually sank at dawn in over 1000m of water just 20 miles from the coast of Sardinia. Everyone had been taken off by helicopter, and there was no loss of life. Captain Mark Elliott was roundly congratulated for his handling of the incident. “The insurance paid immediately because it was the storm of the century,” he says. “I took the whole crew but one with me to [Little’s next boat] Star Ship . That was my way to come back.”

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The Real Story Behind the Yacht in The Wolf of Wall Street

Based on the eponymous memoir, the 2013 hit The Wolf of Wall Street told the story of Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker who was convicted of securities fraud and money laundering. Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, the movie was a smashing success through and through. Amongst its many impressionable scenes, one of the most memorable ones was the yacht party, where Belfort and his colleagues indulged in lavish excess. However, Belfort’s ex-wife, Nadine Caridi, has now spoken out about the real story behind the yacht.

Nadine Caridi, the Ex-Wife

Caridi, who was portrayed in the movie by Margot Robbie, gave an interview in which she revealed that the yacht scene was not entirely accurate. According to Caridi, the yacht that was shown in the movie was not the one that Belfort actually owned. Instead, it was rented for the filming of the scene. In reality, Belfort owned a different yacht called Nadine. Caridi claims that the yacht was named after her and that she played a significant role in its design and decoration. She says that the yacht was much smaller than the one shown in the movie, but it was still luxurious and served as a symbol of Belfort’s wealth.

The Sinking of the Nadine Yacht

Nadine Caridi recently spoke about the sinking of the yacht in June 1996, an event that inspired a scene in the movie. The yacht’s sinking during a storm off the coast of Italy was a terrifying experience for everyone on board. The waves were violent and relentless, hitting the yacht repeatedly. Rescue services had to be called in to rescue the passengers and crew, including Belfort and Caridi. In a recent TikTok video, Caridi shared real-life footage of the rescue, showing the fear and chaos that ensued during the storm, while expressing gratitude that everyone survived.

Can a Circle of Salt Paralyze a Self-Driving Car?

Autonomous vehicles are truly within the grasp of humankind. But the brain of a sci-fi geek can wonder whether it’ll bring an apocalyptic scene, where a troop of autonomous cars is pursuing human prey across a desolate landscape. Well, of course, it’s not going to happen, but luckily, if it did, there’s a strangely simple solution for that. And it involves nothing but salt!

The Salt Trap

Back in 2017, artist James Bridle demonstrated how an understanding of road markings using salt could paralyze a self-driving car midway by delivering confusing messages. You need to draw two circles of salt, one in a block line and the other in broken stripes. When the car comes to the middle of it, the markings will direct it to go right ahead and also not to cross, simultaneously. The result is the fabulous “Autonomous Trap 001.” Future models may be able to overcome this fun technological quirk, but it has surely raised a valid question about the possibility of the success of the trick. It’s astonishing to find out that there may be a simple way to manipulate the environment to disrupt the self-driving capacity of an autonomous car.

The Response

This salt circle trap has caught the attention of none other than Elon Musk, the Tesla boss and newly-appointed CEO of Twitter. As an avid enthusiast, Musk is known for dabbling in autonomous vehicles. Responding to the demonstration, he explained that the salt circle trick will probably be able to trap a Tesla car with the production Autopilot build. But he suspected that it won’t work its magic on the FSD models or the cars with Full Self-Driving capabilities. Musk further suggested that making a ring of traffic cones would be effective on the FSD cars. So, if you ever find yourself facing a murderous fleet of autonomous cars, all you need to do is just take your salt bags and traffic cones out! Easy-peasy, right?

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Jordan Belfort Yacht: The True Story and The Wolf of Wall Street Version

The true Jordan Belfort yacht story is as strange and unbelievable as the hit movie The Wolf of Wall Street depicts it to be. There are several insider stories behind the sinking of the mighty yacht that are not widely known but are quite interesting and different from the reel version in several ways.

What happened to the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine?

As the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street shows, the superyacht Nadine sank close to the coast of Sardinia in 1997 while battling what many calls “the storm of the century”. Jordan Belfort narrates the event in detail in the memoir describing his life in the 90s, which is what the Martin Scorsese movie is about.

Before getting into the details of the sinking, it is worth noting that the 37m yacht had a long and interesting history. She carried renowned celebrities like Coco Chanel before reaching Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie) and was one of the largest yachts in the East Coast’s waters.

While the yacht was initially manufactured for a French native and given the name Matilda, he backed out of the deal. This led Coco Chanel to buy the beautiful yacht with the low superstructure that Dutch yachts are famous for.

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The yacht took on different names as it passed through famous hands, even those of the murder trial acquitted Melvin Lane Powers. Belfort named the yacht after his wife and renovated it with the capacity to carry a helicopter, 6 Jetskis, 4 motorbikes, and much more. Under Belfort’s ownership, the yacht witnessed a series of wild parties that were like unlimited glamour and fun in a package until disaster struck unexpectedly.

Did the yacht scene in The Wolf of Wall Street actually happen?

The Jordan Belfort yacht sinking scene in The Wolf of Wall Street was heavily inspired by a real-life event, though the movie did take some creative liberties. For one, the yacht was called Naomi in the reel version since the name of Belfort’s wife (played by Margot Robbie ) was changed in the movie. In reality, the yacht was named Nadine.

The movie further depicts Belfort’s helicopter getting thrown off the yacht by strong waves. In reality, the yacht’s crew went up to the deck and pushed off the helicopter so that Italian navy seals would have a space to land. The yacht’s itinerary was altered a bit by the movie’s director Martin Scorsese to add to the drama, though the power of the storm was scarily accurate.

Belfort admitted that the yacht’s captain Mark Elliot explicitly warned them not to sail to Sardinia on that fateful night. But according to the movie, there was a business opportunity in the city that Belfort could not bear to miss out on despite his wife’s protests.

Some sources claim that in reality, the passengers were simply eager to hit the golf course at Sardinia the next morning. They refused to pay heed to the captain’s warning and asked him to go through the storm, which eventually led to the famous Jordan Belfort yacht sinking incident. Therefore, unfortunately, if someone wants to have a yacht rental in Dubai or any other destination, they have missed their chance with this yacht.

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Interesting insights on the sinking as portrayed in the movie

The movie captures the fear and stress that each passenger felt when the yacht got caught up in the 70-knot storm. There is some hilarity when Belfort starts yelling for his drugs to avoid the horror of dying sober.

Several rescue attempts were made, but due to rising risks, each of them was called off. By some twist of luck, the yacht’s engine room remained mostly undamaged for a while, because of which they were able to make their way through the sea.

In the end, everyone survived the incident without any major injuries. At dawn, the Nadine made its way 1000m under the water only 20 miles away from Sardinia’s coast. Now, the movie’s audience gets to watch the Jordan Belfort yacht story unfold on the screen with a pinch of humor.

The Nadine’s captain Mark Elliot’s heroic actions did not go unnoticed. He was praised for leading all the passengers to safety, though he was able to get out of the yacht only 10 minutes before it sank. The captain also admitted that the insurance was granted immediately considering the ferocity of the storm. As for the yacht, many still wonder about the highly expensive equipment that had to be thrown into the water and is probably rusting away at the bottom of the sea.

The best features of the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine

The 167 ft Nadine, as its former passengers claim, was a beautiful yacht. When owned by Coco Chanel under the name Matilda, the yacht had five staterooms, large dining areas, and a helipad. The interiors were furnished with dark teak paneling. Each new owner customized the yacht’s name and interiors based on their tastes.

Belfort decorated the Nadine lavishly with a variety of mirrors and set a vintage deco theme. He renovated the upper deck to fit a crane that was able to stow his Turbine Seawind seaplane. The yacht carried the best dive gear available in the market plus a variety of Belfort’s ‘toys’ such as his motorbikes and jetskis.

Which model was portrayed as the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine in the movie?

Martin Scorsese got the yacht Lady M to represent Nadine onscreen. While Nadine actually had a luxuriously vintage charm to it, Lady M is a modern vessel with contemporary features. Lady M was manufactured in 2022 by Intermarine Savannah, while Nadine was built in 1961 by Witsen & Wis. The 147 ft Lady M is currently worth $12 million and is similar to Benetti yachts in its glamorous design.

Jordan Belfort’s life today

The entrepreneur and speaker Jordan Belfort’s shenanigans are well-known thanks to his detailed memoir and the hit movie based on some parts of his life. He spent 2 years in prison and now, at 59 years of age, has a practically negative net worth. Yet, his extraordinary motivational speaking skills continue to attract and inspire people even today.

It is easy for anyone watching the movie to wonder if many of the incidents are exaggerated. But considering Belfort’s eccentric life, even the Nadine sinking incident remains another regular anecdote shared in the movie.

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Charter Yacht 'LADY M' featured in new ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Film

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By Editorial Team   6 January 2014

The 45m/147’ charter yacht 'LADY M' is the setting for a number of scenes shot with Leonardo DiCaprio for his new Martin Scorcese-directed film ‘Wolf of Wall Street’.

Scenes on board motor yacht LADY M were filmed in North Cove Marina, New York for the highly-anticipated movie due out in cinemas later this month. ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ is based on the rise and fall of high-flying, fast-living real life stock broker Jordan Belfort, played by DiCaprio as he raked in more than $50 million a year on the stock market.

Belfort set up boiler room Stratton Oakmont in the 1990’s and enjoyed an outrageously excessive lifestyle of drugs, women, planes and of course superyachts before being imprisoned for 22 months corruption and fraud.  LADY M is used in the film to represent Belfort’s own superyacht ‘NADINE’, named after his second wife, which was a 41m luxury motor yacht originally built for Coco Chanel in 1961.

‘NADINE’ sank in July 1997 following an instruction from Belfort while he was high on drugs to the Captain to head into a storm on a cruise from Porto Cervo to Capri. The yacht was battered by 15m waves and sank along with a number of toys including a seaplane, helicopter and eight jet skis however all passengers were successfully rescued by the Italian Coast Guard.

Built in 2002 by Intermarine Savannah , LADY M made for a luxurious setting for the film with her classically elegant interior that offers accommodation for up to 10 guests in five staterooms comprising a master suite, VIP, two doubles and one twin cabin. She is offered for charter at weekly rates starting from $125,000, contact your yacht broker for more details. 

'Wolf of Wall Street’ yacht scenes were filmed on board LADY M in North Cove Marina, New York for the highly-anticipated movie due out in cinemas later this month.

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Martin Scorsese ‘Kept Fighting’ for ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Yacht Scene to Be in Final Cut

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Martin Scorsese was determined that “ The Wolf of Wall Street ” would have a sinking ship onscreen.

The blockbuster, Oscar-nominated 2013 film which starred Leonardo DiCaprio as real-life disgraced stockbroker Jordan Belfort, was originally a whopping four hours long. While the film was eventually trimmed down to 180 minutes, screenwriter Terence Winter revealed that Scorsese refused to cut an expensive yacht sequence.

“Because [the script] was so long, you know, the fear was there were going be things that we were gonna have to cut — like the sequence where the boat sinks and they get rescued at sea,” Winter told The Hollywood Reporter . “It was on the chopping block for the longest time because it was so wild and so expensive. To his credit, Marty just kept fighting and said, ‘We have to have that. I have to have that.'”

The scene involves Belfort (DiCaprio) and his wife Naomi ( Margot Robbie ) having to be rescued by helicopter when sailing from Italy to Monaco in a desperate attempt to stop federal investigators from accessing bank accounts.

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“There was actually a four-hour cut of that movie initially and it was just a lot more insanity — if you can believe there was room for any,” Emmy winner Winter continued. “But I was absolutely thrilled that everything got in there. Every possible thing… including the kitchen sink… is in that movie. I could not have been more happy with it.”

Acclaimed editor and longtime Scorsese collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker previously told IndieWire that the four-hour cut is beloved by those who had seen it, and Scorsese even considered releasing it in two parts. “Well, we thought about it,” Schoonmaker said. “But the film doesn’t work split in half. It has to have a certain arc.”

Actress Robbie recently revealed that the overnight success of “The Wolf of Wall Street” was overwhelming at times, saying, “Something was happening in those early stages and it was all pretty awful. I remember saying to my mom, ‘I don’t think I want to do this.’ And she just looked at me, completely straight-faced, and was like, ‘Darling, I think it’s too late not to.’ That’s when I realized the only way was forward.”

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Meet The Real Wolf Of Wall Street Superyacht Built For Coco Chanel

The yachting disaster is one of the most dramatic scenes in Martin Scorsese's blockbuster The Wolf of Wall Street , and like many of the tales in the Leonardo DiCaprio flick, it's based on a true story. In real life, predatory tycoon Jordan Belfort bought a yacht in 1993 called Big Eagle and renamed her Nadine , after his English-born second wife. The vessel had been built in 1961 by Witsen & Vis in Holland for fashion icon Coco Chanel, but had undergone many transformations by the time Belfort got his mitts on it. Originally 121 feet long, in the 1970s she was extended by nearly 15 feet, and in 1988 she was cut in half and had another 29-foot section grafted on, finally totaling 167 feet.

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The luxury yacht used in Scorsese's film actually bears little resemblance to the  Nadine , being a far more modern vessel. The director hired the 148-foot  Lady M , built by Intermarine Savannah in 2002 and refit in 2011, for filming. It features luxury accommodations for 10 guests, and a marble and granite interior with gold accents.

In Coco Chanel's day the yacht was mainly used to cruise from Monaco to Deauville for the summer horse racing season. The real  Nadine  sank in 1997 during a storm off the east coast of Sardinia while crossing from Porto Cervo to Capri, much as the movie depicts. Belfort has said that his insistence on sailing in a storm caused the yacht to capsize. Luckily, everyone on board at the time was rescued by the Italian coast guard. 

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Jordan Belfort Yacht: The True Story and The Wolf of Wall Street Version

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The true Jordan Belfort yacht story is as strange and unbelievable as the hit movie The Wolf of Wall Street depicts it to be. There are several insider stories behind the sinking of the mighty yacht that are not widely known but are quite interesting and different from the reel version in several ways.

Nadine yacht model

What happened to the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine? As the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street shows, the superyacht Nadine sank close to the coast of Sardinia in 1997 while battling what many calls “the storm of the century”. Jordan Belfort narrates the event in detail in the memoir describing his life in the 90s, which is what the Martin Scorsese movie is about.

Jordan belfort yacht sailing

Did the yacht scene in The Wolf of Wall Street actually happen? The Jordan Belfort yacht sinking scene in The Wolf of Wall Street was heavily inspired by a real-life event, though the movie did take some creative liberties. For one, the yacht was called Naomi in the reel version since the name of Belfort’s wife (played by Margot Robbie) was changed in the movie. In reality, the yacht was named Nadine.

Interesting insights on the sinking as portrayed in the movie

The movie captured each passenger’s fear and stress when the yacht got caught up in the 70-knot storm. There is some hilarity when Belfort starts yelling for his drugs to avoid the horror of dying sober. Several rescue attempts were made, but each was called off due to rising risks. By some twist of luck, the yacht’s engine room remained undamaged primarily for a while, because of which they were able to make their way through the sea.

The best features of the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine

The 167 ft Nadine, as its former passengers claim, was beautiful. When owned by Coco Chanel under the name Matilda, the yacht had five staterooms, large dining areas, and a helipad. The interiors were furnished with dark teak paneling. Each new owner customized the yacht’s name and interiors based on their tastes.

Which model was portrayed as the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine in the movie?

Martin Scorsese got the yacht Lady M to represent Nadine onscreen. While Nadine had a luxuriously vintage charm, Lady M is a modern vessel with contemporary features. Lady M was manufactured in 2022 by Intermarine Savannah, while Nadine was built in 1961 by Witsen & Wis. The 147 ft Lady M is currently worth $12 million and is similar to Benetti yachts in its glamorous design.

Jordan Belfort’s life today

The entrepreneur and speaker Jordan Belfort’s shenanigans are well-known thanks to his detailed memoir and the hit movie based on some parts of his life. He spent 2 years in prison and now has practically negative net worth at 59 years of age. Yet, his extraordinary motivational speaking skills continue to attract and inspire people even today. It is easy for anyone watching the movie to wonder if many of the incidents are exaggerated. But considering Belfort’s eccentric life, even the Nadine sinking incident remains another regular anecdote shared in the movie.

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Meet the Real Wolf of Wall Street Superyacht Built for Coco Chanel

The yachting disaster is one of the most dramatic scenes in Martin Scorsese’s blockbuster The Wolf of Wall Street , and like many of the tales in the Leonardo DiCaprio flick, it’s based on a true story. In real life, predatory tycoon Jordan Belfort bought a yacht in 1993 called Big Eagle and renamed her Nadine , after his English-born second wife. The vessel had been built in 1961 by Witsen & Vis in Holland for fashion icon Coco Chanel, but had undergone many transformations by the time Belfort got his mitts on it. Originally 121 feet long, in the 1970s she was extended by nearly 15 feet, and in 1988 she was cut in half and had another 29-foot section grafted on, finally totaling 167 feet.

The luxury yacht used in Scorsese’s film actually bears little resemblance to the  Nadine , being a far more modern vessel. The director hired the 148-foot  Lady M , built by Intermarine Savannah in 2002 and refit in 2011, for filming. It features luxury accommodations for 10 guests, and a marble and granite interior with gold accents.

In Coco Chanel’s day the yacht was mainly used to cruise from Monaco to Deauville for the summer horse racing season. The real  Nadine  sank in 1997 during a storm off the east coast of Sardinia while crossing from Porto Cervo to Capri, much as the movie depicts. Belfort has said that his insistence on sailing in a storm caused the yacht to capsize. Luckily, everyone on board at the time was rescued by the Italian coast guard. 

Jared Paul Stern

Jared Paul Stern, JustLuxe's Editor-at-Large, is the Executive Editor of Maxim magazine and has written for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, the New York Times' T magazine, GQ, WWD, Vogue, New York magazine, Details, Hamptons magazine, Playboy, BlackBook, the New York Post, Man of the World, and Bergdorf Goodman magazine among others. The founding editor of the Page Six magazine, he has al... (Read More)

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Jordan Belfort’s ex-wife tells the real story behind the yacht on The Wolf of Wall Street

The ex-wife of jordan belfort shed some light on the infamous scene.

Ben Thompson

Jordan Belfort's ex wife, Nadine Macaluso, has set the record straight about the scene in The Wolf Of Wall Street where Belfort splashes out and buys his wife a yacht on their wedding day.

I mean, when you have a lot of money , what better way to treat your new spouse after saying I do?

After their lavish wedding, Belford ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) covers Nadine's, or Naomi as she's known in the movie, eyes with a blindfold before revealing the huge yacht, which has been christened the 'Naomi'.

And Naomi (played by Margot Robbie ) cannot contain her excitement.

"Are you serious? A f***ing yacht?!" she exclaims.

However, it seems that the real Belfort wasn't very serious, as Macaluso revealed on TikTok that her ex-husband, who she was married to from 1991 to 2005, 'did not' actually buy her a boat on their wedding day.

She said: "Actually what happened I think we were married for a few years and we were always chartering yachts, because he loved to do that.

"And I had given birth to my beautiful daughter Chandler and he said 'I want to buy a yacht'."

However, this idea didn't sit well with Macaluso at the time.

She continued: "I said 'I don't think we should buy a yacht, we have a baby and I don't feel comfortable.

'She can't swim.'

"I had visions of her falling off the boat and I was actually terrified.

"I did not want to buy the yacht ironically. And he was like 'Nope, I'm buying a yacht and I'm calling it the Nadine'. And I was like 'Okay, here we go'.

"And you know how that went."

Macaluso's final line is a nod to a scene in the film, in which Belfort and Naomi need to be rescued from the yacht after it gets caught up in a storm.

This scene was indeed based on the real life sinking of the ship in June 1996, which resulted in a rescue by the Italian Navy Special forces.

The yacht was sunk after violent waves repeatedly hit it, but luckily everyone on board was able to escape the ship in time.

Macaluso has previously commented on the scene's accuracy , where she admitted in a TikTok video that the yacht sinking scene was 'totally true'.

Speaking of the memory, she said: "It was horrific, horrifying, we were in a squall for 12 to 18 hours and we lived, thank god, for my kids."

She even showed real life footage of her, Belford and their friends being rescued by the Navy.

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Iconic Scenes: The Wolf of Wall Street – The Yacht Bribe

I love The Wolf of Wall Street . I think it is a spectacular film that seems to grow more relevant as time passes. I also think that the central character and narrator, Jordan Belfort, is not the most important or key character – that is Agent Denham. So I’m looking at the brilliant scene where Belfort and Denham first meet.

What Happens

Multi-millionaire and thoroughly corrupt stockbroker Jordan Belfort invites two FBI agents to his luxury yacht after he learns that they are investigating him. Agent Denham, and a virtually silent partner, arrive for what starts as a very friendly meeting. Belfort hands over some of the information the FBI has been trying to get while constantly trying to impress them with his wealth and insisting he’s done nothing wrong. Belfort draws Denham into a conversation and it seems the FBI agent is not happy at being given the case and would be willing to play ball with Belfort. At which point, Belfort tries to bribe Denham, and then the tone changes. It’s immediately obvious that Denham is not willing to play ball and is determined to bring Belfort down. The conversation gets increasingly acrimonious and ends with Belfort literally throwing lobsters and handfuls of cash at the departing FBI agents.

When you sail on a yacht fit for a Bond villain, sometimes you gotta act the part

DiCaprio is sensational in this scene. Despite getting very good advice not to contact the FBI and try some scheming, this is exactly what Belfort does. They meet on his insanely luxurious yacht, where Belfort has beautiful women lounging on chairs, he is dressed in bright white “yacht clothes” and constantly turning on his beaming smile. He offers them lobsters and drinks. It does not seem to occur to Belfort that showing off his immense, and ill-gotten wealth, might not be the best idea when you’re being investigated for crimes in the stock market.

Belfort’s attempt at bribery is fantastic. Basically detailing a story where he advised someone in need of money in what stocks to invest in and that person making a fortune and how Belfort “would be willing to do that for anyone”. When challenged about this being a bribe Belfort reveals he researched what legally constitutes a bribe and that wouldn’t count. Again, it’s a little suspicious for someone to be able to recite the criminal code of a crime if they’re not a lawyer.

Good for you, Little Man

Oh, Agent Denham, you film stealing hero. Denham is played by Kyle Chandler who, and this is important for the Denham role, is your go-to guy for American decency (if you need someone younger than Tom Hanks), he is probably best known for his role in Friday Night Lights where he played an honourable, upstanding and inspirational football coach. Denham’s casual chatting with Belfort seems to suggest he is not interested in the case and possibly dissatisfied with his job, the attempted bribe being when he flips to his real character.

As Belfort becomes more aggressive Denham responds in kind and leads to one of the all-time best deliveries, “Good for you, little man,” when sarcastically congratulating Belfort on becoming a Wall Street douchebag without any help from anyone else. Belfort is stunned by this comment but mainly in that he can’t understand it…he’s rich, really rich, how can he be a “little man”, he’s a giant. A colossus. The embodiment of the American Dream. The thing is, of course, Denham is right.

Fun Coupons

A lot of this scene is purely about status. Of all the places Belfort could have met with the FBI agents he chooses his insanely expensive yacht. He is obsessed with money and how much the FBI agents make, originally pretending to be sympathetic but quickly changing to just mocking them. Belfort assumes that because Denham works for the FBI for what to him is an insignificant amount of money he is a loser. The idea that Denham might believe in what he’s doing is either inconceivable or at best a pitiable weakness. To me, this is the best and most interesting scene in the whole film – not the drug-filled hedonistic parties, not the cult-like team talks Belfort gives his employees, not the incredibly charismatic phone calls Belfort makes when selling stocks but this scene where Denham sizes up Belfort and sees right through him.

Years ago David Cross and Bob Odenkirk made a sketch show called Mr. Show , which contained a sketch based on the premise “someone who makes more money than you is better than you”, so Van Gogh, Einstein and Galileo are actually pretty unsuccessful people. This is Jordan Belfort’s philosophy – he is better than just about everyone he meets because he is richer.

The Hero I’m Going To Be Back At The Office, When The Bureau seizes this boat!

All Belfort manages to do in this scene is upset the FBI and probably convince them that yes, he is absolutely breaking the law. It’s an interesting look at the dynamic of power in America (and indeed the whole world) – who is the more powerful person? Belfort with his huge personal wealth or Denham as a federal officer, a representative of the most powerful country on Earth. There was a lot of discussion at the time about if people actually saw Belfort as the hero of this film, that people liked him and wanted him to win. I saw this as Goodfellas but for white-collar crime. In this scene Belfort helps further his own downfall, antagonising the FBI. In the final moments of this scene, Belfort has just finished throwing money at Denham and his arrogance and deluded grandeur fade as he realises he has just made a terrible mistake.

Also Read: Iconic Scenes: American Psycho – Business Card Scene

Richard Norton

Gentleman, podcaster and pop culture nerd, I love talking and writing about pretty much all pop culture.

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The true story of Wolf Of Wall Street’s yacht ‘Nadine’

Jordan Belfort’s antics are so legendary that sinking a multi-million dollar yacht is just another act of depravity that Martin Scorsese manages to weave among The The wolf of Wall Street grotesque film adaptation. Those who know the wolf of Wall Street book will have read Belfort’s account about it in more detail, but the backstory of the superyacht Nadine is a lesser-known tale with unexpected twists.

Despite Jordan’s notoriety for unbridled bacchanalia, Nadine was sunk by natural forces far greater than even the fiercest drinking bout he could muster. In the middle of a pedestrianized Mediterranean cruise, a storm unexpectedly turned into a raging storm with high winds and huge swells to send the pride and joy of the wolf into Davey Jones’ locker.

In fact, this type of storm is so specific that it has its own name. The mistrals get their name from the winds that blow from the French Alps into the Mediterranean. This convection cycle is caused by warm air rising from African deserts and colder air from the Alps rushing through the void for sustained round trips of 12 to 40 hours. Nothing like a strong relentless wind to generate a dangerous swell. And the kicker? Mistrals are difficult to predict.

RELATED: Asymmetric superyacht hits market for $ 47 million

En route from Riva de Travino to the island of Sardinia, off the west coast of Italy, what should have been a routine race (which usually takes around 7 hours) ended in the fiasco that International Yachts described as ‘Mayday in the Med.’

“When we set off,†said Captain Mark Elliot, “the forecast told us to expect wind and choppy but small seas. Knowing that this wouldn’t be an ideal crossing, the captain asked if the guests wanted to delay until the next morning. The answer was a definite ‘no’ as they were all eager to head to Sardinia for a round of golf the next morning. So, they cast off and set sail for another corner of paradise.

Hours later, the guests were enjoying the sunny afternoon weather of another dream day in the Mediterranean… when a rogue wave reached the bow and wheelhouse, inundating a hostess from head to toe. Immediately after this warning sign made contact, a transmission was received via radio warning of unexpected gale force winds in the area. The mistral had announced. The swell heights doubled, the winds intensified, and the shit became real.

However, before Belfort throws next-level parties aboard his elegant ship and charters it across the Mediterranean to Sardinia on that fateful day, Nadine had already lived many lives. In truth, the luxury yacht seen in The Wolf of Wall Street movie bears no resemblance to the period ship owned by Jordan Belfort. Scorsese hired a yacht called Lady M for these stages, which was originally built by Intermarine Savannah in 2002.

On the other hand, the real one Nadine (Where Mathilde as it was originally called), was built in 1961 and delivered by the Dutch shipyard Witsen & Vis for none other than fashion mogul Coco Chanel. At the time, Mathilde had five dark teak cabins, exceptional dining rooms and a helipad.

“At that time, it was the largest yacht on the East Coast,†recalls Captain Mark Elliot. “No one had ever seen anything like it.”

After Coco’s death in 1971 the yacht was renamed Jan Pamela by its new owner, Melvin Lane Powers. While not as decorated as his predecessor, Powers was a notorious and ostentatious Houston real estate developer known for wearing crocodile skin boots and driving a golden Cadillac after being acquitted of the murder of her lover’s husband. The New York Times described his 1966 trial as “one of the most spectacular homicide trials of all time.”

Powers ordered a huge refit and extension of the ship, but in 1983 it hit rock bottom and Jan Pamela was sold before being renamed Waterside . In 1989, it was Bernie Little’s luck, and he bought her sight without seeing her. She then underwent another refit, before becoming Great eagle under the command of Mark Elliot once again. In this form, she caught the attention of Jordan Belfort, who took possession of it in 1995. Of course, he had to undertake his own additions and renovations, before renaming the ship after his second wife, Nadine .

However, the reincarnation of this historic yacht as Nadine was to be short lived. After 35 years of leisure, sailing on the most beautiful coasts and welcoming the great names of the time, Mother Nature would have the last word.

Back in the Mediterranean, hours later, roaring gusts ripped the $ 100,000 tender from its tow lines. Captain Mark Elliot calls to abandon yacht, as turning point Nadine against the crashing waves would have courted disaster. Abandoning the course to try to outrun the mistral was out of the question for the same reasons. They are there now – every captain’s nightmare – with seventy knot winds and 35 foot ridges to negotiate.

Then, Nadine’s The moment of “perfect storm” pointed its formidable head. The huge wave crashes all over the ship, tearing off the hatches and deck fittings, triggering a death knell that can only end with a day of disaster. The remaining supply crashes into the dining room window, causing it to collapse wave after wave flooding the living room.

“I knew at that time that Nadine had received a fatal blow. Once I assessed the damage, I walked over to the deck and used the satellite phone to contact the Italian Coast Guard known as “Gruppo Marine Italian,†says Captain Elliot.

First aid stations. Guests are gathered in a secure central location and escorted one by one to their cabins to collect passports and any valuables that can fit in a small bag.

Half an hour later, a rescue helicopter attempts to bring down a diver to pick up guests. However, the gusts of wind turned out to be too violent, and after almost losing the said diver, the helicopter aborted. Imagine the heartbreaking feeling of those on board Nadine , as the Coast Guard abandon ship, defeated by the rampaging elements, and return to the safety of the coast as the sun sets below the horizon and night sets in.

Hurricane-force winds, severe flooding and a 15-meter-high sea are now pounding Italy’s shores in what will be known as the storm of the century. The situation is so tumultuous that when a large merchant ship attempts another rescue attempt a few hours later, it almost crashes in Nadine , before setting off again and again, abandoning the crew and the frenzied guests.

The liferafts are deployed as a precaution… until the roaring wind also tears them from the sea, leaving the crew completely stranded on board.

Below deck, the flooded kitchen has become an electrified death trap, and the chef and engineer receive jolts from the current before pulling the ass out of there to the (relative) safety above. It should be noted that this is probably around the time when a deranged and drenched Leo shouts at Jonah Hill with the unforgettable line: “Get the ludes downstairs!” I will not die sober! To have. The. Whore. Ludes! ”

Times of crisis. With no options left, Captain Elliot calls to throw the helicopter off the bridge to free up space for another rescue attempt. He unhooks the tie-downs and rolls the ship twenty degrees, throwing the expensive equipment overboard and into the Mediterranean, where its rusty skeleton undoubtedly lies to this day.

At around 5 a.m., the Coast Guard returned and began to hoist the guests, then the crew to safety in the reassuring light of dawn. The weather calmed down as the winds and waves calmed down, but the damage was done. The last to leave the ship he commanded for so many years, Mark Elliot takes stock of the wreck before finally accepting his loss, closing the engine room controls and seizing the buoy rescue package handed to him by the coast guard.

Nadine is swallowed up by the sea, just ten minutes after Captain Elliot left his decks.

While all the guests and the crew of 11 survive, the prestigious motor yacht and its collection of toys (including eight jet skis, four motorcycles, snorkeling gear, a helicopter and a seaplane) sink into the deep end. at the bottom of the Mediterranean, over 1000 m deep. the water.

“The insurance paid off immediately because it was the storm of the century,†said Captain Elliot.

Back on dry land, Mark Elliot was hailed as a hero after showing courage and leadership in such a dire situation. He was then offered command of Bernie Little’s famous yacht Vessel , and today works as a broker in Miami as one of the most experienced and capable men in the business.

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Wolf of Wall Street's Jordan Belfort: 'The lessons of the crash have been forgotten'

The convicted fraudster who inspired Martin Scorsese’s film of Wall Street excess is back with a new book and a warning that a big market correction is on the way

T he Wolf of Wall Street forgives but he never forgets. Ten years ago when I last met Jordan Belfort, convicted criminal, aspiring author and shortly to be a man at the center of a fierce bidding war for his biography, I suggested his hair was “the sort of dark brown that only passes for natural in LA”. Also his skin was a little too taut and maybe he wore lifts.

A decade on the 55-year-old still looks 10 years younger than his age. And his hair is still a rich mahogany. But he’s keen to point out it’s all natural. “I swear to God,” he says. “Do I dye my hair?” he asks Anne Koppe, his partner, as they sit in their Manhattan hotel suite.

Koppe – the sort of blonde who probably gets described as “willowy” and spends part of the interview curled round Belfort like a cat – points at his chest hair, peaking out from his polo shirt. That’s definitely brown. “It’s all an expensive dye job,” I say. The couple laugh. “You’re killing me,” he says.

Back in his native New York for a family visit Belfort seems very happy. It’s over 11 years since he was released from jail having served four years for running a “pump and dump” share selling scheme at his broker, Stratton Oakmont, that prosecutors said led to losses of approximately $200m. Life has moved on for him, and how.

His drug-fueled crime spree, in which he crashed a helicopter (while high on quaaludes), sank a yacht and arranged midget-tossing in his office, was turned into a film by Martin Scorsese starring Leonardo DiCaprio , that became an international box office hit.

He remains friends with DiCaprio. He taught the actor, who has never done drugs, how to act when he was portraying the scenes of Belfort out of his mind on his usual cocktails of narcotics. It was: “Valium for breakfast, marijuana for lunch and quaaludes for dinner,” one of his associates said.

Now he has another book out, Way of the Wolf , that promises to teach anyone how to be an ace – and ethical – salesman, and is in the early stages of turning his life story into a Broadway musical. Crime does pay!

Belfort, 20 years sober, lives a charmed life. It took almost seven years for the film to be made after it was optioned and even that delay worked in his favor. The script originally ended with Belfort in jail. By the time it was made, Belfort had rebuilt his business, giving seminars about his “straight line” sales techniques and the film ended with him giving one of those talks. It was “amazing” he says. “In a way the fact it was so late really worked.”

Now living in Los Angeles, Belfort says he leads a quiet life. “We are very boring,” he says. “All these delivery services, Doordash, Grubhub. They make it too easy to stay home and have bed picnics. That’s our favorite thing to do.”

But the bizarro world of the Wolf continues. The US government now owns the TV rights to his story (but not the Broadway ones) after the film’s producers, Red Granite Pictures, reached an agreement with federal prosecutors looking to recoup some of the billions they claim were stolen from the Malaysian government and used, in part, to finance the film.

Belfort says he had a strange feeling about those investors from the start. “The way they spent money, I have never seen anything like it,” he says. The Malaysian investors flew Kanye West out for the film’s launch party. When you steal money, he says, you just want to spend it. “It’s like a weird compulsion,” says a man who should know.

For his own part, Belfort says the high-spending days are over. He wants to pay back Stratton’s investors (he’s already paid about $20m) and get on with his life. But his celebrity – and his past – do get in the way.

All the harping on the past can be a bit annoying. “The movie came out a few years back but it depicts events from my life almost 30 years ago. I’m not the same Jordan Belfort. I continue to pay back money and I am hopeful that I will pay back all the money. It’s frustrating because you want to reinvent yourself and you feel you have. And he knows your past is always there.”

The book, he says smoothly moving into sales pitch mode, is about that. “It’s really about a strategy for coming back from failure,” he says.

“I should have written this book a long time ago,” he says. The problem is he hates writing. Anne shows me a video of him typing away in bed (they clearly spend a lot of time there). He holds the laptop in one hand and types one finger at a time. “Even better,” he says out loud in the video. “Better yet. Better though.” He pauses. “Once you’ve been. Once you HAVE been …” It goes on and on and looks excruciating. Anne says it helped him sleep. A lot.

But the result is fun, with more insights from the world of Stratton Oakmont and allusions to The Italian Job and Forrest Gump. It’s the sort of easy read that will no doubt fly off the bookshelves at airports around the world. It’s not just for sales people, he says. Everyone is always selling themselves. “There are so many people out there who are brilliant, hardworking and industrious but lack the art of persuasion,” he says. “And because of that they end up dying with their music on their lips. It’s crazy.”

If he wants to make the switch from villain to hero, there are others to take his place. In the pantheon of Wall Street villains Belfort has been eclipsed by Martin Shkreli, the “pharma bro” who hiked the price of a lifesaving drug 5,000% and is now in jail after calling on his Facebook fans to steal a lock of Hillary Clinton’s hair . “There has got to be something wrong with that guy,” says Belfort. “Is he crazy?”

But it’s not the players, it’s the bigger picture on Wall Street that worries him these days. He says bitcoin is a bubble waiting to burst. “It’s artificially created scarcity,” he says. “The problem I have with bitcoin right now is that it’s very much like at the tail end of of 2007, 2008 right before the mortgage market blew up. You’d be getting your haircut and he’d be like: ‘Oh yeah I also do mortgages on the side.’ Everybody was a broker. Everyone’s flipping houses. Now everyone’s buying bitcoin. I promise you the end is near.”

He also thinks that the stock markets – which seem to reach record highs on a daily basis – are in for a fall. “I think the lessons of the crash have been forgotten,” he says. “It feels like we are going back into a cycle of irrational exuberance. Like with Trump. How can the country be that unsure of him, how can we be that unsure of him and the markets be so high? If there is that much uncertainty then there is risk,” he says. “The market itself might not be linked to reality any more,” he says. “It’s the ‘greater fool theory’. If there is a greater fool that will buy it from me at a greater price then I did good.”

Something is off and there is going to be a big correction, he says. “There is North Korea and yet … What are they going to do with the national debt? Something is going to happen.” Whatever it is, you get the feeling it’s going to work out just fine for the Wolf of Wall Street.

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• Mauritanian, The
• McFarland, USA
• Megan Leavey
• Men of Honor
• Military Wives
• Million Dollar Arm
• Miracles from Heaven
• Molly's Game
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• Mothman Prophecies, The
• Mrs. America
• Munich: The Edge of War
• My All American
• Next Goal Wins
• Not Without My Daughter
• Old Man & the Gun, The
• On a Wing and a Prayer
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
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• Only the Brave
• Operation Finale
• Operation Mincemeat
• Oppenheimer
• Ordinary Angels
• Outlaw King
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• Pain & Gain
• Pain Hustlers
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• Patch Adams
• Patriots Day
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• Penguin Bloom
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• Pianist, The
• Pope's Exorcist, The
• Prayer Before Dawn, A
• Promise, The
• Public Enemies
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• Queen of Katwe
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• Railway Man, The
• Remember the Titans
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• Richard Jewell
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• Rookie, The
• Saving Mr. Banks
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• Slender Man
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• True Spirit
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• Victoria and Abdul
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• We Own This City
• Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
• Welcome to Marwen
• When the Game Stands Tall
• When They See Us
• White Boy Rick
• White House Plumbers
• Wicked Little Letters
• Wolf of Wall Street, The
• Woman in Gold
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• Zookeeper's Wife, The

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Did jordan belfort really meet his future business partner in a restaurant.

What was the name of Belfort's brokerage house?

The Wolf of Wall Street true story confirms that, like in the movie, Stratton Oakmont was the name of the real Jordan Belfort's Long Island, New York brokerage house. Belfort and co-founder Danny Porush (played by Jonah Hill in the movie) chose the name because it sounded prestigious ( NYTimes.com ). The firm would later be accused of manipulating the IPOs of at least 34 companies, including Steve Madden Ltd. (their biggest deal), Dualstar Technologies, Paramount Financial, D.V.I. Financial, M. H. Meyerson & Co., Czech Industries, M.V.S.I. Technology, Questron Technologies, and Etel Communications.

What exactly did Jordan Belfort do that was illegal?

Belfort's Stratton Oakmont brokerage firm ran a classic "pump and dump" operation. Belfort and several of his executives would buy up a particular company's stock and then have an army of brokers (following a script he had prepared) sell it to unsuspecting investors. This would cause the stock to rise, pretty much guaranteeing Belfort and his associates a substantial profit. Soon, the stock would fall back to reality, with the investors bearing a significant loss. -NYTimes.com

How many employees worked for Jordan Belfort's brokerage firm?

At its peak in the 1990s, Stratton Oakmont, Belfort's firm that he co-founded with Danny Porush, employed more than 1,000 brokers. -TheDailyBeast.com

Danny Porush says the movie's dwarf-tossing scene (above) never happened. Even Belfort's book only discusses it as a possibility. Did Jordan Belfort really host an in-office dwarf-tossing competition?

No. "We never abused [or threw] the midgets in the office; we were friendly to them," Danny Porush (the real Donnie Azoff) says. "There was no physical abuse." Porush does admit that the firm hired little people to attend at least one party. Jordan Belfort's memoir The Wolf of Wall Street only discusses the tossing of little people as a possibility, not something that actually happened. -MotherJones.com

During what years did the events in the movie take place?

The events in The Wolf of Wall Street movie took place during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Jordan Belfort and Danny Porush founded the brokerage firm of Stratton Oakmont in the late 1980s. The securities fraud and money laundering charges brought against the firm involved companies that Stratton Oakmont helped raise money for in public stock offerings from 1990 through 1997. In 1996, Stratton Oakmont was banned from the brokerage industry, which eventually forced the company to close its doors. -NYTimes.com

Was Jordan Belfort really known as the "wolf" of Wall Street?

No, at least not according to the former co-founder and president of the Stratton Oakmont brokerage firm, Danny Porush (portrayed by Jonah Hill in the movie). The real Porush says that he is not aware of anyone at the firm calling Jordan the "wolf." Porush says that it's just one of a number of exaggerations and inventions in both Belfort's book and the movie. -MotherJones.com

Is Matthew McConaughey's character, Mark Hanna, based on a real person?

Yes. In exploring The Wolf of Wall Street true story, we learned that Jordan Belfort claims to have met Matthew McConaughey's character's real-life counterpart, Mark Hanna, in 1987 when he was working at the old-money trading firm of L.F. Rothschild. His new acquaintance was an uproarious senior broker at the firm and introduced Belfort to the excess and debauchery that Belfort would later make a daily staple at Stratton Oakmont. Like in the movie, the real Mark Hanna behind McConaughey's character told Belfort that the key to success was masturbation, cocaine and hookers, in addition to making your customers reinvest their winnings so you can collect the commissions. -TheDailyBeast.com

Did Jordan Belfort really abuse cocaine and other drugs?

Yes. In The Wolf of Wall Street movie, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is shown snorting cocaine off a prostitute's backside and nearly crashing his private helicopter while high on a cocktail of prescription drugs, including Quaaludes, morphine and Xanax. In researching The Wolf of Wall Street true story, it quickly became clear that Belfort used drugs heavily in real life too. In his memoir, he states that at times he had enough "running through my circulatory system to sedate Guatemala."

Jordan Belfort did give speeches like DiCaprio in the movie (left). Right: The real Belfort speaks at a 1994 Stratton Oakmont Christmas party (right). Did Belfort really stand in front of his employees and give riling speeches with a microphone?

Yes. Belfort was known to stir his troops into action by belting out words of motivation through a microphone. However, his speeches were often filled with more self-adulation than DiCaprio's speeches in the movie.

Did a female employee really let them shave her head for $10,000 to pay for breast implants?

The real Jordan Belfort claims this is true in his memoir. The female employee let them shave off her blonde hair for $10,000, which she used to pay for D-cup breast implants. Co-founder Danny Porush also says that the shaving took place, "...the worst we ever did was shave somebody's head and then pay 'em ten grand for it," says Porush. -MotherJones.com

Was Jordan Belfort's Quaalude dealer in the movie, Brad Bodnick (Jon Bernthal), based on a real person?

Yes. The character in the movie, Brad Bodnick, who has a goatee and is portrayed by The Walking Dead 's Jon Bernthal, is based on Jordan Belfort's real-life Quaalude supplier, Todd Garret. In his memoir, the real Jordan Belfort claims that Garret sold him approximately 10,000 Quaaludes.

Was there ever a chimpanzee in the office?

No. According to co-founder Danny Porush (played by Jonah Hill in the movie), the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio's character pals around with a chimp is pure monkey business. "There was never a chimpanzee in the office," says Porush. "There were no animals in the office...I would also never abuse an animal in any way" (though he does admit to eating the goldfish, see below). -MotherJones.com

Did he really almost crash his helicopter in his yard?

Did Danny Porush really marry his own first cousin?

Yes. According to Jordan Belfort's memoir, the real Donnie Azoff (whose actual name is Danny Porush) did marry his first cousin Nancy "because she was a real piece of ass." After twelve years of marriage, the couple divorced in 1998 after Danny told Nancy that he was in love with another woman ( NYPost.com ). Danny and his ex-wife share three children together.

Did Belfort and his colleagues really have drug-addled nights and sexcapades with prostitutes on a near daily basis?

Though the movie and Belfort's memoir might seem like gross exaggerations of the truth, depicting heavy drug use and sexcapades in the office during trading hours, they're not exaggerations at all says the F.B.I. agent who finally took Belfort into custody, "I tracked this guy for ten years, and everything he wrote is true." Kyle Chandler portrays the agent in the Martin Scorsese movie. -NYTimes.com

Was Belfort really arrested for crashing his Lamborghini while high on expired Quaaludes?

Yes, but according to Belfort the car wasn't a Lamborghini like in the movie, it was a Mercedes. He was so high in a drug daze that he couldn't remember causing several different accidents as he tried to make his way home. In real life, one of the accidents was a head-on collision that actually sent a woman to the hospital. -TheDailyBeast.com

The real Donnie Azoff, Daniel Porush, says that he really did swallow a goldfish like Jonah Hill (pictured). Did Danny Porush really swallow a goldfish?

Yes. According to the real Donnie Azoff, whose actual name is Danny Porush, the scene where Jonah Hill's character eats a goldfish is based on a true story. "I said to one of the brokers, 'If you don't do more business, I'm gonna eat your goldfish!'" Porush recalls. "So I did." -MotherJones.com

Did they really tape money to a woman's body?

In one scene of The Wolf of Wall Street movie, bricks of cash are taped to a Swiss woman's body. "[I] never taped money to boobs," the real Danny Porush says (played by Jonah Hill in the movie). According to Jordan Belfort's memoir, the event did happen but his partner Porush wasn't there. -MotherJones.com

Was footwear mogul Steve Madden really involved in Belfort's scheme?

Yes. As shown in The Wolf of Wall Street movie, Steve Madden had been a childhood friend of Belfort's partner Danny Porush (renamed Donnie Azoff in the movie and portrayed by actor Jonah Hill). Their fondness for drugs and alcohol reunited the two of them. During the initial public offering of his footwear company, Steve Madden Ltd., Madden acquired a large number of shares of his company, which were actually being controlled by Belfort and his firm, Stratton Oakmont. Once shares became available to the public, Stratton Oakmont got down to the business of selling them to unsuspecting suckers. Billing Madden's company as the hottest issue on Wall Street, Belfort's brokers in turn drove up the price. Eventually, Steve Madden was to sell off his shares when the hype was at its peak, just before the stock began its inevitable decline. Similar to what is seen in the movie, Belfort still maintains that Steve Madden tried to steal his Steve Madden shares from him. However, Jordan Belfort did make approximately $23 million in two hours as part of the deal with Steve Madden, who would later be charged as an accomplice to Belfort's scheme. -NYTimes.com For his part, Steve Madden was sentenced to 41 months in prison and was forced to resign as CEO of Steve Madden Ltd. He also resigned from the company's board of directors. However, he did not leave the company entirely. He kept his foot (or shoe) in the door by giving himself the title of creative consultant, for which he was well-compensated even while he was in prison. -Slate.com

Did Jordan Belfort really name his yacht after his wife?

Did Belfort's yacht really sink in a Mediterranean storm?

Yes. In real life, Belfort's 167-foot yacht, which was originally owned by Coco Chanel, sunk off the coast of Italy when Belfort, who was high on drugs at the time, insisted that the captain take the boat through a storm ( TheDailyBeast.com ). Listen to Belfort tell the story during The Room Live 's Jordan Belfort interview . As he states in the interview, his helicopter didn't fall off the boat during the storm like in the movie. Instead, they had to push the helicopter off of the top deck of the boat to make room for the rescue chopper to drop down an Italian Navy commando.

How long did FBI agent Gregory Coleman spend tracking Jordan Belfort and his firm?

FBI agent Gregory Coleman, renamed Patrick Denham for the film and portrayed by actor Kyle Chandler, made tracking Belfort and his firm, Stratton Oakmont, a top priority for six years. In an interview ( watch here ), Coleman says that the factors that drew his attention to the firm were "the flashiness, the brashness of their activities, the blatantness of the way they were soliciting people and cold calling people, and the number of victims that were complaining on a daily basis." -CNBC

Did Jordan really strike his wife?

Yes. The Wolf of Wall Street movie shows Jordan (Leonardo DiCaprio) hitting his wife (Margot Robbie) with his hand and fist. According to his memoir, he actually kicked his wife Nadine down the stairs while he was holding his daughter. She landed on her right side with "tremendous force."

Did Belfort really endanger his 3-year-old daughter's life by crashing his car through the garage door?

Yes. In real life, he put his daughter Chandler in the front seat of the car without a seat belt on, before crashing it through the garage door and then driving full speed into a six-foot-high limestone pillar at the edge of the driveway. Like in the movie, he was high at the time.

Tommy Chong was Jordan Belfort's cellmate in prison and encouraged him to write the book. What was Jordan Belfort's punishment?

When he was finally arrested in 1998 for money laundering and securities fraud, Jordan Belfort was sentenced to four years in prison. This was after agreeing to wear a wire and provide the FBI with information to help prosecute various friends and associates. In the end, the true story reveals that he served only 22 months in a California federal prison. His cellmate in prison was Tommy Chong of "Cheech and Chong" fame, who was serving a nine month sentence for selling bongs. -TheDailyBeast.com

What inspired Jordan Belfort to write his memoir?

It wasn't so much a what as it was a who. Tommy Chong (one half of "Cheech and Chong") was Jordan Belfort's cellmate in prison. After laughing at some of Belfort's stories from his days running the firm, Chong encouraged him to write a book. -TheDailyBeast.com

Why is Jordan Belfort's memoir filled with so many exclamations?

Jordan Belfort attempted to model his writing after Hunter S. Thompson ( Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ), who was known for using plenty of exclamation points.

What happened to Belfort's partner, Danny Porush, portrayed by Jonah Hill in the movie?

Danny Porush, renamed Donnie Azoff for the movie and played by actor Jonah Hill, served 39 months in prison for his part in the corrupt dealings of Stratton Oakmont, the firm that he co-founded with Jordan Belfort. Porush currently runs a medical supply business in Florida, where he lives with his second wife Lisa in a $4 million mansion. A 2008 Forbes article pointed out his company's fraudulent tactics, which included trying to persuade people to order diabetic supplies and getting them to provide information about their physicians that could be used to bill Medicare. A number of complaints surfaced accusing Porush's company of sending unsolicited packages that were accompanied by unexpected Medicare charges. Back in 2001, Porush was arrested in connection to a fraud scheme surrounding Noble & Perrault Collectibles, a company that sold commemorative coins over the phone. Victims saw their credit cards charged repeatedly, at times for thousands of dollars, while often never receiving any merchandise for purchases that were largely unauthorized to begin with. -Sun Sentinel Enjoying a well-to-do life in Florida, Daniel Porush and his wife drive matching Rolls-Royce Corniche convertibles. With regard to The Wolf of Wall Street movie, Porush said, "I really have no comment other than to say I would never try to profit from a crime I'm so remorseful for." -NYPost.com

I heard that Jordan Belfort is a motivational speaker, is that true?

How much did Jordan Belfort earn from his books and the movie?

Catching the Wolf of Wall Street includes more of Belfort's outrageous stories that were not included in his first book. As we investigated The Wolf of Wall Street true story, we discovered that Jordan's books, The Wolf of Wall Street and Catching the Wolf of Wall Street , netted him a $1 million advance from Random House. He also earned $1 million for the film rights to his story ( TheDailyBeast.com ). In a response to criticism over these profits and future profits from the movie, Jordan Belfort said the following via his Facebook page, "I am not turning over 50% of the profits of the books and the movie, which was what the government had wanted me to do. Instead, I insisted on turning over 100% of the profits of both books and the movie, which is to say, I am not making a single dime on any of this." According to Jordan, the money is being used to pay back the millions still owed to those who were scammed by his brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont.

Does Jordan Belfort have a cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street movie?

Yes, the real Jordan Belfort appears at the end of the movie as the person who introduces Leonardo DiCaprio's character before he takes the stage at his Straight Line seminar.

Have any other movies been based on Jordan Belfort's story?

Yes, but only loosely. The brokerage firm in the movie Boiler Room , released in 2000, was inspired by the illegal practices of Jordan Belfort's Stratton Oakmont firm. In the movie, actor Ben Affleck portrays Jim Young, the Belfort-esque co-founder of the firm, who, like Jordan Belfort, trains his brokers in the "pump and dump" scheme. -NYTimes.com

Watch The Wolf of Wall Street movie trailer. Also, view Jordan Belfort interviews and home video footage of him speaking at a Stratton Oakmont party in the 1990s.

• Jordan Belfort's Website
• Danny Porush's Website (played by Jonah Hill)
• Mark Hanna's Website (played by Matthew McConaughey)
• The Wolf of Wall Street Official Paramount Movie Site

A Brief History of Superyachts

And how they explain the world..

Tim Murphy January+February 2024 Issue

James Clapham

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When the US targeted Russia’s oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine, the trail of assets kept leading to our own backyard. Not only had our nation become a haven for shady foreign money, but we were also incubating a familiar class of yacht-owning, industry-dominating, resource-extracting billionaires. In the  January + February 2024  issue of our magazine, we investigate the rise of American Oligarchy—and what it means for the rest of us. You can read all the pieces  here .

The luxury yacht may be the world’s most exclusive form of transportation. But there are only a hundred-some that meet the definition of a gigayacht—a pleasure craft 295 feet or longer. Their opaque ownership records offer a glimpse of modern wealth and power: Over two dozen are linked to Gulf royals, businessmen, or states, and 20 to citizens (past or current) of the former Soviet Union. At least 23 have reportedly belonged to Americans, including founders of Microsoft, Netscape, Amazon, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. The widow of a German retailer who thrived under Hitler owned one; a UK tax exile and a Formula 1 dad still do. Yugoslav strongman Tito’s old yacht makes the list; Dominican dictator Trujillo’s does too. Take a cruise through the history of the vessels and their—somewhat—more modest sister ships.

1895: Nineteen years before World War I, the future King Edward VII of England punches his nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II, in the face, after the German’s 121-foot yacht, Meteor II , defeats the royal Britannia in a race off the Isle of Wight.

1954: Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis ushers in an era of postwar one-upmanship with his 325-foot Christina O . It features a pool that converts into a dance floor, furniture made from whale foreskin, and pornographic carvings.

1963: During his final birthday party aboard the presidential yacht Sequoia , JFK chases future Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee’s wife, Antoinette, into the bathroom and gropes her. “I guess I was pretty surprised, but I was kind of flattered, and appalled, too,” she says later. The ship’s visitor logs are destroyed after Kennedy’s assassination.

1984: King Fahd of Saudi Arabia builds the record-breaking 482-foot Prince Abdulaziz .

1987: Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) drops out of the presidential race just before photos emerge of him with model Donna Rice aboard the yacht Monkey Business .

1988: Donald Trump acquires Nabila , which previously belonged to the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and was featured in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again . He renames it Trump Princess , adds a disco, and changes the helipad’s “H” to a “T.”

1991: After one of Trump’s casinos files for bankruptcy, he sells Trump Princess to his bank—which flips it to a Saudi prince. A new yacht, the Trump Princess II , which he boasted would be “something in excess of 400 feet long, closer to 500 feet,” is never built.

British publisher Robert Maxwell’s body is found in the Atlantic Ocean, where he had been cruising on a 180-footer named for his daughter—the Lady Ghislaine . The vessel is eventually resold to Anna Murdoch, Rupert’s second wife.

1994: At a cocktail party on the oligarch Petr Aven’s yacht in the Caribbean, Boris Berezovsky meets Roman Abramovich, calling him a “nice boy who wanted to discuss commercial projects.” He and Abramovich begin working together to acquire Sibneft, a Russian state oil company.

1997: Construction ends on The Limited and Victoria’s Secret owner Les Wexner’s ­316-foot Limitless . The project was overseen by his good friend Jeffrey Epstein.

1999: Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison buys the 191-foot Izanami from a Japanese seller. He changes the name to Ronin , he said later , after “the local newspapers started pointing out that Izanami was ‘I’m a Nazi’ spelled backwards.”

2001: Months before Enron files for bankruptcy, former CEO Jeffrey Skilling asks a company executive for advice on finding a yacht broker. “This industry is known for crooks and thieves,” he warns Skilling.

2002: House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) promises to strip “corporate kingpins of their ill-gotten gains,” after scandals rock Enron and WorldCom. “We’re coming after the yacht.”

2003: DeLay charges donors $500,000 a pop for tickets to a yacht cruise.

2005: Ellison shoots down rumors he issued orders midconstruction to have his newest yacht, the 454-foot Rising Sun , extended to outdo Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s recently launched 414-foot Octopus .

Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) pleads guilty to federal bribery charges after being caught living rent-free on a yacht, called the Duke-Stir , that was moored in Washington, DC, and owned by a defense contractor.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s 531-foot Dubai surpasses Prince Abdulaziz as the world’s longest yacht.

2006: Media mogul Barry Diller reveals the world’s longest sailing yacht, the 305-foot Eos , whose prow features a 9-foot-tall sculpture of his wife, Diane von Furstenberg.

2007: Diller opens a Manhattan corporate headquarters­­ at a Frank Gehry­–designed building that itself has been likened to a sailboat . It’s across the street from where Eos ties up.

2008: George Osborne, the No. 2 official in the UK’s Conservative Party, relaxes on Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska’s yacht while vacationing with his family in Greece. He denies an accusation that he solicited funds, explaining in a statement that they discussed “Russian history” and drank tea.

2009: As his marriage falls apart, Tiger Woods retreats to a 155-foot yacht called Privacy .

2010: Abramovich’s new ship, Eclipse , surpasses Dubai as the world’s longest yacht. The 533-foot vessel features a submarine, anti-missile systems, and lasers to thwart paparazzi .

2011: During an unsuccessful suit seeking $5 billion he believed Abramovich owed him from the sale of Sibneft, an exiled Berezovsky claims that his former partner helped purchase the yacht Olympia for Vladimir Putin. When the BBC publishes a supporting account from another Russian businessman five years later, Abramovich’s lawyers dismiss the allegation as “a rehash of speculation and rumours.”

2012: As GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney faces criticism for holding investment funds in the Cayman Islands, his campaign invites donors to party on Cracker Bay . The ship, owned by the founder of The Villages retirement community, flies the Cayman Islands’ flag.

2013: UAE leader Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan launches the 593-foot Azzam , surpassing the Eclipse .

2014: The Wall Street Journal reports that Ellison has basketball hoops on “at least two of his yachts” and had someone follow in a smaller boat “to retrieve balls that go overboard.”

2016: Allen’s Tatoosh drags its anchor through a protected zone in the Cayman Islands, destroying 14,000 square feet of coral.

2017: After leaving office, Barack and Michelle Obama retreat to the South Pacific aboard David Geffen’s yacht, where they’re joined by Oprah, Tom Hanks, and Bruce Springsteen.

Abramovich’s business partner, Eugene Shvidler, blocks views of the Statue of Liberty while anchoring his 370-foot Le Grand Bleu in New York Harbor for a month.

Addressing the national Boy Scout Jamboree, Trump tells an anecdote widely assumed to allude to sex parties on a yacht belonging to the developer of the Levittown suburbs. “You’re Boy Scouts, so I’m not going to tell you what he did,” he said. “But you know life.”

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) buys a yacht and on the same day votes to cut taxes on yachts.

2018: Rupert Murdoch is airlifted to UCLA after collapsing on a yacht trip with his fourth wife, Jerry Hall. “He kept almost dying,” a source tells Vanity Fair .

Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott designates a billionaire donor’s marina as a special anti-­poverty opportunity zone.

Someone unties Seaquest , a superyacht belonging to Trump administration Secretary of Education (and billionaire) Betsy DeVos, causing it to crash into a dock on Lake Erie.

Businessman Jho Low, who financed The Wolf of Wall Street , is accused of taking part in a $4.5 billion scheme to siphon Malaysian state development funds and using some to purchase a $250 million yacht.

2019: Actress Lori Loughlin is arrested in a college admissions bribery scheme . Her daughter, USC student Olivia Jade, is vacationing in the Bahamas— on a yacht belonging to USC board of trustees chair Rick Caruso.

Following an investigation into corruption in the Nigerian oil industry, the US government auctions off businessman Kolawole Aluko’s Galactica Star , six years after Jay-Z rented out the vessel for Beyoncé’s 32nd birthday. A former Enron unit attempts to claim a portion of the proceeds.

Clarence Thomas visits an Indonesian preserve for Komodo dragons with billionaire Harlan Crow on the conservative megadonor’s Michaela Rose .

ArtNet reports that a $450 million (reputed) da Vinci that was supposed to be in an Abu Dhabi museum has been spotted hanging in Mohammed bin Salman’s personal yacht, Serene .

Kylie Jenner holds her 22nd birthday party on Low’s yacht, now under new ownership.

2020: “[I]solated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus,” Geffen writes on Instagram from Rising Sun , which he purchased in 2010. “I’m hoping everybody is staying safe.”

Steve Bannon is arrested off the coast of Connecticut by US Postal Police while aboard the fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui’s 150-foot Lady May .

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. dresses up as a character from the TV show Trailer Park Boys for a costume party aboard a NASCAR mogul’s yacht. He later posts a photo of himself to Instagram with his fly unzipped and his arms around his wife’s assistant.

2021: NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre testifies that he took refuge on Illusions , a Hollywood producer’s yacht, after the Newtown and Parkland mass shootings. “I remember getting there going, ‘Thank God I’m safe, nobody can get me here.’”

During a bitter divorce, the Daily Mail reports that Tatiana Akhmedova, wife of the Russian Azerbaijani billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, hired a team of British special forces veterans to seize his yacht, Luna , in an effort to enforce a Marshall Islands court ruling. They settle instead, and he keeps the boat.

Port Azure , dubbed the world’s first harbor designed exclusively for megayachts, opens in Gocek, Turkey. It bills itself as a place where “problems big and small go away.”

2022: Amid reports a historic bridge will be dismantled so Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ newly built Koru can leave Rotterdam’s shipyards, residents threaten to pelt the sailboat with eggs . The city changes plans.

A Ukrainian mechanic is arrested in Mallorca for attempting to sink a vessel owned by his boss, a Russian arms dealer.

Biden promises oligarchs he’s going to “take their ill-begotten gains” after the invasion of Ukraine. “We’re going to seize their yachts.”

Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder avoids a congressional subpoena on the team’s misogynistic culture while cruising the Mediterranean on his yacht, Lady S .

Missing Russian superyachts are spotted waiting out sanctions at Port Azure.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) criticizes Joe Biden for vacationing in Delaware while vacationing on a luxury yacht in Italy.

After sailing through Fiji on his yacht Aquarius , briefly retired Disney CEO Bob Iger tells friends he misses his wife and is bored with life.

New York Republican congressional candidate George Santos brokers a $19 million deal to sell a superyacht called Namaste to a Long Island car dealer.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX reveals in court filings that founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund once spent $2.5 million on a yacht, which a top executive named Soak My Deck .

2023: Bezos takes possession of Koru . The $500 million, 417-foot sailboat comes with a bust that resembles his fiancée Lauren Sánchez—and its own second, 246-foot “shadow” support yacht with crew quarters and a hangar for the helicopter she pilots.

After divorcing Jerry Hall, Rupert Murdoch vacations on the Christina O with Abramovich’s ex-mother-in-law.

As TV and movie writers and actors strike, the Wall Street Journal reports that Iger, now back at work, has been regaling visitors to his Burbank office about the new, longer yacht he’s building.

Measuring Contest

Iconic gigayachts through the years

1931: Sea Cloud , Marjorie Post: 359 ft.

1981: Atlantis II , Stavros Niarchos: 380 ft.

2003: Octopus , Paul Allen: 414 ft.

2005: Rising Sun , Larry Ellison: 454 ft.

2010: Eclipse , Roman Abramovich: 533 ft.

2013: Azzam , Sheikh Khalifa: 593 ft.

Illustrations by Anthony Calvert

The Few, The Loud

Some famous faces aboard gigayachts

Steven Spielberg reeled out his anchor off Cannes.

A part of Katy Perry got stuck exiting a dinghy on her way to Barry Diller’s yacht.

Mohammed bin Salman purchased his yacht, Serene , just hours after he saw it.

Jerry Jones made a draft pick aboard his Bravo Eugenia to deepen the Cowboys’ bench.

Mariah Carey was engaged to a gigayacht owner, before the fantasy ended.

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America’s Nuclear War Plan in the 1960s Was Utter Madness. It Still Is.

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New on Yahoo

• Privacy Dashboard

Set sail on ‘Wolf of Wall Street' yacht for $125K a week

Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't the only star in "The Wolf of Wall Street." A yacht by the name of Lady M also played a key role.

Would-be moguls can re-enact parts of the movie by chartering the luxury boat for a cool $125,000 a week.

The Lady M rental price gets you a ship that is "fully crewed," Lara-Jo Houghting, the yacht's charter manager at Churchill Yacht Partners , told Yahoo. And with a staff of seven for a maximum number of 10 guests, that's not a bad ratio for a 147-foot superyacht.

The A-lister of ships offers posh amenities like a Jacuzzi, a cocktail bar, and custom Italian marble flooring.

In the movie, the luxurious boat is prominently displayed as a symbol of the obscene wealth of the infamous real-life stockbroker Jordan Belfort, played by DiCaprio. Belfort buys the ship as a gift to his second wife, and it becomes the site of over-the-top parties and a target of an FBI investigation.

Lady M is enjoying her 15 minutes of fame. "It's been global," Houghting told Yahoo, speaking of the attention that comes with being in an Oscar-nominated film. "We were happy with the exposure in the movie. Lady M was revealed in quite a few scenes."

Of course, the Lady M isn't the only ship to set sail on the silver screen. If you're more of a James Bond fan, check out the stately Regina, which was featured in 2012's "Skyfall." Yours to rent for $96,000 a week, according to CNN .

Don't mind if your boat appeared in movie that wasn't exactly a classic? Consider the boat featured in the movie "Striptease," starring Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds. The scene-stealer of a yacht, the Big Eagle , is equipped for 12 guests and 10 crew members, and it has a hefty $165,000-per-week price tag, CNN notes.

Although the cost of a charter from the movies will set you back some major cash — just to sail in a boat where movie stars once stood — it's a fraction of the cost of ownership. The Lady M is also for sale for $10,900,000 , according to Houghting. Paging Jordan Belfort…

Follow Claudine Zap on Twitter: @zapkidd

Click on the image below for more photos of the Lady M

In the video below: A scene on the Lady M from 'The Wolf of Wall Street.'

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