Crown Billionaire’s Engagement To Mariah Carey (With $10m Ring)

James Packer, an Australian businessman and casino resort owner, who can just about offset the fact he looks like an adult version of Eddie Munster by informing people he’s a billionaire and one of the richest men in Australia, recently announced his engagement to Mariah Carey, the singer whose face is slowly spreading like butter on a summer’s day, and whilst most wished them luck, all the press could focus on was her ring, as if she were likely to turn into a hobbit at any moment.

Packer Grabs Carey
• Billionaire rings singer
• 35 carat diamond
• Wilfredo Rosado design

We reported the beginnings of their romance but saw the writing on the wall when Mariah Carey accompanied Packer at the grand opening of his Hollywood themed resort in Macau, launched with help from Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. The $3.2 billion Studio City casino resort adds to the plethora already homed on the former Portuguese colony, but just a month after first being seen together it was perhaps the best indication yet Packer’s engagement to Mariah Carey was no flash in the pan.

She even sang, which apparently isn’t against Chinese gambling laws or noise abatement regulations, lending the the launch a touch of her hit “Hero”, very much putting her shoulder to the wheel of her boyfriend’s 1600-room Studio City enterprise, and perhaps it is these efforts from the mother of two that have led Mr. Packer to his engagement to Mariah Carey. He, perhaps has to try less, given he’s worth some $4.5 billion, although the future Mrs. Packer is worth $520 million alone.

As their combined wealth totals over five billion dollars you could pretty much predict that James Packer’s engagement to Mariah Carey would be a less than understated affair, and in particular the ring presented to her by Packer was never going to be just some rock from a jewelers, and nor could it ever have been, but to read the press you’d think he’d gone out and crushed small babies heads in an industrial wine press to create it. But what did they expect?

Press Gawp At Australian’s Engagement To Mariah Carey

The press are quick to point to the size, which is, it’s fair to say, somewhat large. At 35 carats, we are told almost reverentially, it simply dwarfs the rings of either Beyonce or Kim Kardashian West, indeed it was bigger than both together, and even larger than that presented to Elizabeth Taylor by Richard Burton. The very idea! But what did they expect from the engagement to Mariah Carey of a billionaire? He was hardly likely to pop down to Walmart and splurge just $29.95 on a piece of quartz, was he?

The press, naturally, feign complete ignorance of this reality and pretend as if he’s making a statement with the gaudy trinket he’s foisted upon his new found precious mineral mining expert. The statement being, I presume, “I’m very rich”, which frankly, we already knew, but the press seem less prone to recall and boggle at the $10 million price tag reported in the gambling news as being the cost of the Wilfredo Rosado designed ring Packer presented in his engagement to Mariah Carey.

They completely ignore that if you’re worth $4.5 billion, own a bunch of casinos and in your engagement to Mariah Carey have just snagged a trophy wife even the most ludicrously bizarre of your friends will have heard of, spending $10 million on a ring isn’t really a biggie, by the designer’s own admission it took just three conversations, probably on the phone, so it wasn’t as if he went far out of his way. He just threw money at the problem till it was solved to his satisfaction. He just has more money than most.