When you have money, you have the privilege to buy the most absurd things and Leonardo DiCaprio as well as Nicolas Cage understand that. Money can’t buy you happiness but it can buy you a skull. Some actors find ways to make useful investments with their money. Some choose to invest in property or even sports teams. However, some celebrities regret where they spend their money.
The advantages and privileges that many celebrities have can lead them to make the most peculiar decisions. These decisions can leave them wondering whether their investments were a good idea or not. Cage learned about that the hard way. However, DiCaprio certainly got a breather because of it. Unfortunately, Cage lost about a quarter of a million dollars over it.
Nicolas Cage Bought A Dinosaur Skull That Leonardo DiCaprio Could Not
Nicolas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio were going head-to-head against each other when it came to bidding over a Tyrannosaurus bataar skull. Both of them were trying to get their hands on the skull in a Beverly Hills gallery called I.M. Chait and Cage won the bid. He ended up buying it for $276,000.
“There’s this skull I bought at an auction and I bought it legally,” he stated. “Here’s the MacGuffin. When the Mongolian government said that they needed it back. I gave it to ’em, but I never got my money back. So somebody at the auction house should be in jail.”
Unfortunately for him, that skull was not in his luck. Seven years after having purchased it, the Department of Homeland Security took it back from him. The skull was apparently obtained by the gallery via illegal means from Mongolia. Eric Prokopi was the person who dealt with selling skeletons illegally via the black market.
Nicolas Cage Never Got His Money Back
Although he gave the fossil back immediately after he was asked to do so, he was never compensated for it. It was a major loss for him as he ended up losing $276,000. Eric Prokopi was charged and was apparently smuggling goods from Mongolia and China into the United States of America.
Luckily, Nicolas Cage never got accused of anything. This impacted his bank heavily. His account was slowly declining and this purchase was one of the biggest losses he faced. Prokopi made a deal with the authorities by helping them procure seventeen different fossils. Cage also felt as if someone in the auction should have faced criminal charges for not returning his money and selling illegally obtained fossils.
Source: GQ
