The Queen of Versailles

Meet Jackie Siegel. Jackie’s a former IBM engineer, a former Mrs. Florida, and she might be on her way to being a former Mrs. Siegel if her husband makes good on his threats to trade her in for multiple 20-year-olds. 

Speaking of her husband, meet David Siegel. David is a self-made billionaire with a thing for pageant girls and cheap bank loans that have allowed him to build a timeshare empire on the backs of Walmart shoppers.

Together they’ll face the challenge of feeling cramped in their 26,000 sq ft house by building the largest single-family home under one roof in America. The 90,000 sq. ft. monstrosity modeled after Versailles and a Vegas casino is off to a great start… until the stock market crash of 2008 makes all of David’s imaginary money finally disappear.

Witness the hardship of only being able to give each of your children a single shopping cart overflowing with toys on Christmas. Thrill as a trophy wife forced to reacquaint herself with flying commercial endures the shock of her Hertz rental car not coming with a driver. Shed a tear as you see so much money spent on so many stupid things. 

The ony thing going for this documentary is that by the end of it, there will be one less billionaire in the world. (He’s still alive and kicking. He just loses a dang lot of money.) 

We’re suffering through and reporting back on The Queen of Versailles, available to stream on Hulu.

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Theme music: "Mexicana Massacre" by Tomb Dragomir off his Instrumental Psycho Synth Album