He welcomes me eusively with a rapid-
re smattering of compliments, apolo-
gies, and man hugs. He hadn’t really been
on a call, he immediately confesses. He
was just stalling for time.
“I never lie about anything,” he repeat-
edly assures me.
He begins with a blunt and unequivo-
cal denial. None of the art he loaned to
Dumfries House, he insists, was fake.
“Basically, it’s a complete smear cam-
paign,” he says. “I’ll tell you exactly
what’s happened here.” He then embarks
on a nonstop rant, as he does almost
every day and at all hours of the night
on Instagram, issuing urgent, profanity-
laced dispatches from his bachelor pad
turned bunker.
As Stunt tells it, he is the victim of
all manner of dastardly conspiracies.
“They’ve turned my world upside down,”
he con des. “They” being his former
father-in-law, Bernie Ecclestone, and Lord
Jonathan Harold Esmond Vere Harms-
worth, the fourth Viscount Rothermere
and publisher of the Mail. The newspa-
per, Stunt says, is out to destroy him with
a “Machiavellian draconian attack.” It’s
because of such powerful enemies that he
was declared bankrupt last year, that his
personal spending was limited by court
order to 1 , 000 pounds a week, that his
good name was sullied by what he calls
“this art nonsense.”
“They’ve cost me 30 million pounds!”
he rages. “I can’t do business. My accounts
are frozen, okay? You have no idea the
nightmare I’m in right now. Quite frank-
ly, many people have committed suicide
over this. I’ve not been indicted or arrest-
ed for any oense ever, let alone charged.
Do you understand? A very rich man is liv-
ing like a deadbeat right now because of
what they’ve done to me.”
I look around the sunny living room,
the walls covered in art: a Monet land-
scape, a surrealistic Dalí, two Warhol
portraits, a Velasquez bull, and more.
“You’re living like a deadbeat?” I ask.
“Yeah! Because my money is all
blocked! I am in a house which is brilliant.
But you know what? I know you might
think I sound like a snob to say this, but I
have had to let my household go! I put all
my cars into storage!”
Questions from Mail reporters are
left at his door, but he is largely alone,
his legions of friends, business associ-
ates, and even his family gone. I mention
someone he was close to, whom I mightTHE HUSTLER
James Stunt, who loaned the paintings
to the prince, insists he is the
victim of a “complete smear campaign.”
APRIL 2020 71