Meet Stewart Rahr, the Self-Proclaimed ‘Number One King of All Fun,’ Who Drove Up the Price of a Trump Portrait at Auction

The pharmaceutical billionaire Stewart Rahr styles himself as a party animal.

Donald Trump and Stewart Rahr in 2013. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Make-A-Wish Metro New York.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress that the former reality star directed a “straw bidder” to drive up the price of a portrait of himself at an auction in the Hamptons in 2013.

For years the president’s personal lawyer, Cohen has been disbarred after pleading guilty on charges that included tax fraud and perjury, and sentenced to three years in prison. He was questioned this week by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform, and spoke of arranging the painting transaction with Rahr in his opening statement. A newspaper clipping Cohen provided to Congress identified the man as Stewart Rahr, a retired pharmaceutical billionaire.

A longtime friend of Trump’s, the 73-year-old Rahr is a fixture of gossip columns, and is known for his escapades with beautiful women and celebrities including Paris Hilton and Leonardo DiCaprio, according to Forbes. “Stewie Rah Rah, the Number One King of All Fun,” as he sometimes calls himself, is also known to send mass emails with photos of himself with his celebrity entourage.

“He’s different than other people,” Trump said of Rahr in a 2013 Forbes profile. “He’s a character, and he’s fun to be with.”

Rahr owns an art collection featuring works by rich-guy favorites Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Damien Hirst, and Jeff Koons. In 2010, he sold one of the largest privately held wholesale pharmaceutical distributors in the country, Kinray, to Cardinal Health in 2010 for $1.3 billion.

Stuart Rahr, wearing his signature sunglasses, is known for his love of women. Photo by David X. Prutting/Patrick McMullan, courtesy Getty Images.

Stuart Rahr, wearing his signature sunglasses, is known for his love of women. Photo by David X. Prutting/Patrick McMullan, courtesy Getty Images.

The painting of Trump was the work of William Quigley. According to the artnet Price Database, six of his works were bought in at Monaco’s Hermitage Fine Art sale last November, with estimates ranging from € 2,500 ($2,842) to €35,000 ($39,795).

As of press time, Rahr’s charity, the Stewart J. Rahr Foundation, had not responded to artnet News’s request for comment.


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