Anne Hathaway is one of the rare stars whose real love life will easily outshine any role she will ever play.
Back when Hathaway starred in the Ocean’s Eleven spin-off franchise Ocean’s 8 alongside Rihanna and Cate Blanchett among other stars, there was renewed interest in Hathaway’s love life — particularly when she dated international conman Raffaello Follieri.
New York City attracts the best of the best at everything — even conmen, so before Anna Delvey was the most popular con in the 21st century, Follieri held that title comfortably before the financial crash of 2008. Things could not have been going better for the Italian before that, but apparently, the need to impress Hathaway pushed him to bite a little more than he could chew.
Follieri was just 25 in 2003 when he arrived in New York City with fake promises of connections with the Vatican and of selling Catholic church properties at a discount. Soon, Follieri caught the attention of Hathaway, who was fresh off the success of the first Princess Diaries. Hathaway was utterly smitten, and the future Oscar winner would go on to describe Follieri to Vanity Fair with flattery, saying, “He is sooo good-looking … He looks like a God.”
The Cut revealed the numbers legal authorities found Follieri was dealing with, and they were staggering. $107,000 for a chartered flight to the Dominican Republic for an Oscar De La Renta party, $30,000 for another flight — this time for his doctor to treat a minor ailment, $37,000 monthly rent in Olympic Tower. He was living a very luxurious lifestyle — but reportedly, it’s when he joined the nonprofit financial world with the Clintons that he could no longer maintain his charade.
The Oscar De La Renta party was a New Year’s Eve celebration, and it was full of people of considerable influence, including the Clintons. It’s believed it was at this point that Follieri formed a relationship with the family and their foundation. Soon afterwards, Follieri was pledging $50 million for the Clinton Foundation — money he obviously didn’t actually have. But the pledge was enough for him to be invited into Clinton’s inner circle, and soon he was meeting businessmen like Carlos Slim (who was the richest man in the world at the time), Doug Band, and Ron Burkle.
Follieri entered into a business venture with Burkle that was believed to be to the tune of $105 million. Predictably, it didn’t take long before Follieri started misappropriating the funds — after all, how else was he supposed to pay for his apartment that offered dog-walking services? Burkle filed a suit against Follieri, and even though he quickly settled out of court, the cat was out of the bag.
In less than a month after Burkle’s lawsuit, Hathaway dumped Follieri, and he was arrested by the FBI — this time at a Trump Tower penthouse he had gotten for his parents. Back then, Trump was best known for his commentary on celebrity culture on Billy Bush’s often chaotic show, so of course he had something to say. Trump told the host, “She [Hathaway] hasn’t remained very loyal to him, has she? So when he had plenty of money, she liked him, but then after that, not as good, right?”
Follieri went on to serve four and a half years in prison before being deported to Italy after his sentence.
