Vegas nightclub owners are shocked and in disbelief at the outrageous $3-million payday that box-office movie king Sacha Baron Cohen wants for a New Years Eve appearance on the Strip as Borat, the weirdo Eastern European journalist! Admittedly, his new movie, 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan' is #1 and soaring higher, but nobody's going higher than a cool $1 million, according to casino executives and nightclub insiders I talked to this evening.The dinosaur demands came to light this afternoon as Luxe Life learned that rapper-mogul Jay-Z will make a special, top-secret appearance in concert at TAO late on Saturday night, and that a rival nightclub allegedly offered $400,000 to him to perform elsewhere. The last-minute, one-upmanship money offers were turned down as the contract for his TAO appearance had already been signed. Nobody will confirm but one club thought he was being paid a whopping $250,000 for his one night special show and thus the near half-million dollar rival offer!!! Its obvious the mega-bucks nightclub wars have erupted one more time.
Last weekend, pop-prince Nick Lachey's galpal Vanessa Minnillo had been announced to appear at PURE as a Pussycat Doll but, at the last minute, she decided to hold her 26th birthday party at TAO instead. It's believed that the bid to try and change Jay-Z from TAO was related to that rivalry, but Luxe Life has been unable to confirm it.
Jay-Z is coming out of a self-imposed retirement and is ready to promote his new album 'Kingdom Come,' which wont be released until next Tuesday. TAO's Saturday show will be his first performance of material from the new album, and his appearance won't be advertised. "It'll just be a word of mouth thing," said one of TAO's executives. "We want to ensure our VIP customers get well looked after first."
I understand that the inside of the TAO nightclub will undergo a massive one-night renovation makeover to accommodate Jay-Z's concert. The owners of TAO are in New York celebrating its 6th birthday there on Friday night, and then 25 of them will hop a flight first thing Saturday to be here for Jay-Z's surprise show. I'm assured that Jay-Z is bringing in a contingent of his own celebrity pals for the rave-up and TAO promises another major turnout of stars too. Luxe Life will provide it as "breaking news" as the hours tick closer and last-minute travel plans get locked into place.
Extra security will be in place at The Venetian for Jay-Z's arrival and appearance and stratospheric counter-offers are flying on Borat's demands for a New Years Eve Strip appearance and Luxe Life readers can be assured that the "mega-bucks war" between the big casino nightclubs here is boiling over yet again.
