He has amassed a £100 million fortune and owns a country house with its own vineyard, not to mention a string of star racehorses.
But that doesn t mean that the aptly named financier Rich Ricci is prepared to turn a blind eye to a late payment even if it s only a few days overdue.
Anyone who doubts that fact need only study a legal action now unfolding in London s High Court.
It s been initiated by online casino specialist, Gaming Realms, in which Ricci owns more than 17 million shares, and concerns the sale of one its subsidiary companies for £11.5 million £1.5 million of which, it claims, was still outstanding by the deadline for final payment on December 31.
During his heyday, he indulged himself in extravagant spending sprees, splashing out on 40 undershirts or 68 pairs of Calvin Klein underpants, his mind fogged by marijuana, cocaine or heroin.
But not only has 1980s icon Boy George forsaken drugs, he has also, I can disclose, ditched his fixation with his Calvin Kleins in favour of a fresh obsession a stunning £100,000 revamp of the gardens at his £10 million pound, part Gothic Grade-II listed mansion in London s exclusive Hampstead.
Grass and space of any kind was in short supply at George s childhood home in Eltham, South London, where he and his parents and four brothers and one sister crammed into three bedrooms.
London’s legendary West End theatres are closed and shrouded in darkness, as are cinemas across the capital.
But there was drama aplenty amid the gloom in exclusive Notting Hill this week, when the London Fire Brigade responded to a 999 call coming from the £10 million townhouse of acclaimed fashion designer Stella McCartney.
‘Two fire engines came out,’ a Notting Hill local tells me. ‘There must have been at least seven firefighters who went into the house.’
Neighbours gathered, watching anxiously, but there was no sign of 49-year-old Stella, nor of her husband, Alasdhair Willis, nor their four children, Miller, Beckett, Bailey and Reiley.