This house in Connecticut keeps bankrupting celebrities

(Image credit: Twitter.com/MarketWatch)

published 5 August 2015

What has 21 bedrooms, nine kitchens, and keeps bankrupting people? That would be the Farmington, Connecticut, home that rapper 50 Cent says costs $72,000 a month to maintain and has previously been owned by Mike Tyson and a millionaire convicted of bankruptcy fraud.

On Monday, 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson) filed documents in a Connecticut bankruptcy court showing how much he spends a month on the enormous home, which sits on 17 acres and boasts 52 rooms, including a casino. Jackson purchased the house from Tyson’s ex-wife, who ended up with the property as part of a divorce settlement after Tyson lost his millions, MarketWatch reports. Jackson bought the home for $4.1 million, and part of the $72,000 he spends a month goes to gardening ($5,000) and household supplies ($1,500).

The Boston Globe says the estate has a rather sordid history when it comes to the finances of its owners. It was built in 1985 for Benjamin Sisti, founder of commercial real estate brokerage firm Colonial Realty. Sisti, who paid $2.3 million for the home, eventually wound up in prison for bankruptcy fraud. The property went into foreclosure, and was bought by an import-export businessman named Romas Marsinkiavitchous for $2.7 million. He sold it to Tyson in 1996 for $2.8 million, reportedly while facing bankruptcy himself.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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