Imagine growing up in a spectacular mansion, with access to the kind of wealth and connections most of us can only dream of. But although you’re surrounded by material riches, you’re in a social vacuum—eating alone in your bedroom every night, wandering the grounds of your family estate with only the wildlife as company. This was the life of John Du Pont, the youngest heir to the famously wealthy family who founded the DuPont chemical company. He grew up cut off from the kind of social warmth most of us take ...
Imagine growing up in a spectacular mansion, with access to the kind of wealth and connections most of us can only dream of. But although you’re surrounded by material riches, you’re in a social vacuum—eating alone in your bedroom every night, wandering the grounds of your family estate with only the wildlife as company. This was the life of John Du Pont, the youngest heir to the famously wealthy family who founded the DuPont chemical company. He grew up cut off from the kind of social warmth most of us take for granted. His solution to that was to immerse himself in the sport of Olympic style wrestling—and to gather some of the world’s greatest athletes in a little utopian community he named Foxcatcher Farms. His dream was to create the best team of wrestlers in the world. They lived on the property, trained on the property, became like family to each other…all under the watchful eye of their wealthy benefactor, John. To the athletes, it sounded like a dream come true. But they didn’t realize that John DuPont was already on a paranoid downward spiral that would leave everything he’d built in ruins—and take the life of one of wrestling’s most beloved champions.
Sources:
Time Magazine, 1996: "Blood on the Mat" by John Greenwald: https://time.com/3586290/blood-on-the-mat/
Documentary "Team Foxcatcher," 2016. Directed by John Greenhalgh
All That's Interesting, Mark Oliver: "John DuPont, Dave Schultz, and the True Story of 'Foxcatcher'": https://allthatsinteresting.com/john-du-pont-dave-schultz
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_du_Pont#:~:text=John%20Eleuth%C3%A8re%20du%20Pont%20(November,the%20murder%20of%20Dave%20Schultz.
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