Screw the Crisis, Let’s Party!

Wall Street may be feeling shaky, but at least the rich and famous can still let their hair down. Hollywood’s finest are gathering tonight in Dubai for a $23 million party—said to be the priciest private shindig ever staged—to launch the world’s most expensive resort, the $1.5 billion Atlantis. The 1,539-room hotel, on the emirate’s man-made Palm Jumeirah island, is playing host to 2,000 celebrities, The Daily Mail reports, including Robert De Niro, Oprah Winfrey, Charlize Theron, and Kylie Minogue, who’s being paid $3 million for a one-hour set. Oh, and there’s a fireworks display, the world’s largest ever. Sol Kerzner, the South African billionaire who owns Atlantis, said the lavish to-do was the only way to promote his $1.5 billion investment: “If I had it all over again and I understood that the timing was what it was, one might modify a couple of the things...but not significantly.”