In an interview with Megaupload gazillionaire (and "narcissist par excellence," as 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon describes) Kim Dotcom, the world gets a peek into his multimillion-dollar monster-mansion in Coatesville, New Zealand. Dotcom, who hacked his way to millionaire status when he was 18, describes his spread as a "golden cage," an appropriate term considering his home, what with its aquarium kitchen backsplash, top hat pendant lamps, and wet-looking white leather sofas, is inordinately extravagant—"you'd have to be Orson Welles to imagine it," Simon says—and that Dotcom is hanging above enough legal hot water that leaving New Zealand would mean getting boiled alive by the U.S. Department of Justice, which says Dotcom's Megaupload cost the film and TV industry some $500M in revenue.
So he's trapped. Well, as trapped as anybody with 60 acres (and a slick-as-heck golf cart) can be, anyway. On the property, Dotcom (he had his name officially changed in 2005) feeds his swans and looks after his fake giraffe and lagoons. "I was inspired by the James Bond movies, where some of the characters had private islands [and] super tankers converted into private yachts," he said. Simon translates: "He's playing a villain. He's playing Dr. No and he's having a ball." The video, below.
· Inside Kim Dotcom's Golden Cage [CBS News]
· All Kim Dotcom coverage [Curbed National]
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