April 17, 2018

"Billionaire Matthew Mellon, 53, died suddenly in Cancun, Mexico, where he was attending a drug rehabilitation facility."

"Mellon made his fortune in cryptocurrency, turning a $2 million investment into $1 billion. He is survived by his three children, Force, Olympia and Minty."
In 2016, he told The Post, “OxyContin is like legal heroin. And it needs to be addressed,” while at a Malibu treatment center kicking a habit of $100,000 a month.

36 comments:

Ken B said...

Who names their kid after a Leni Riefenstahl film?

Henry said...

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

By Edwin Arlington Robinson

Henry said...

It's a short-enough poem. I figured I'd copy the whole thing.

To paraphrase Woodie Guthrie:

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will take their life with a gun,
And some with oxycotin.

CJinPA said...

Sad, and a bit strange that his rep refers to him as "Billionaire Matthew Mellon" in the statement.

Henry said...

*OxyContin*

Ralph L said...

Is Minty's middle name Fresh?

madAsHell said...

Ummmmmmmmm.....How do you make money in crypto-currency?? Isn't it just a pyramid scheme??

How do you make money when your life is in such disarray?

glenn said...

RIP Mr Mellon. Now let’s take his money and distribute it too the poor. Starting with me.

mockturtle said...

Is he one of the Mellons?

DanTheMan said...

$100K a month? How do you spend $3K A DAY on drugs?

Lewis Wetzel said...

Maybe instead of "Matthew" his parents should have named him "Addict."

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Minty, by itself, is a pretty bad name.

Minty Mellon is far, far, worse.

Unless you're a stripper.

WK said...

Maybe Michael Jackson helped them with the naming of the kids.

n said...

Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord; and let light perpetual shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

William said...

I wouldn't want to be named Minty under any circumstances. Force would be okay as a nickname if the kid was high energy or had a lot working for him/her, but that's a risky name to give a gawky kid. Olympia is okay. Good name for the daughter of a billionaire.

richlb said...

Please tell me "Minty" is a nickname.

Jim Gust said...

Yes, he was one of the Mellons.

john said...

Perhaps he could have developed skills to handle his problems if his name was Sue.

Sydney said...

Minty is short for Araminta, according to the obituary.

David said...

He made his money through inheritance and expanded it by a lucky speculation.

Deep State Reformer said...

The high extra cost of Mellon's daily habit was likely for middlemen to buy his dope and bring it to him. It's not like he can drive his lambo or take a chauffeur driven town car to a trap house himself. Seriously. High-end dopers use cut outs bc they have to and those sorts add a huge mark up for their services. On the other hand these guys can fuck up and kill you too, like what happened with John Belushi for example. The dangers of being a junkie are there even if you are a billionaire.

WK said...

Apparently “Minty” is short for Araminta.

Fernandinande said...

he revealed that he had been spending $100,000 (£69,700) a month and taking around 80 pills a day.

About $40 a pop.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Crypto-currencies are often used for illegal activities.

I wonder if the drug habit and the crypto investing were related.

Bill Peschel said...

I really wonder what you can buy with $1B in cryptocurrency. I suspect his PR team's fronting.

MeatPopscicle1234 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Humperdink said...

While deer hunting in Ligonier, PA as a kid, my friend and I were kicked off the Mellon estate. We missed the no trespassing signs. *cough*

Sally327 said...

Like they say in the program, one is too many and a thousand aren't enough.

Michael said...

You make a billion dollars in any crypto currency with USD and take profit by selling your crypto currency for USD. Simple enough. Clearly Mellon's timing was good. The value of bitcoin pin over the last years has been up and down. To say the least.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

"Died suddenly," of what? A drug overdose? While in rehab? How? I thought that the the point of rehab was to go somewhere where there were no drugs!

Was it withdrawal? What?

We'll never find out.

David-2 said...

“OxyContin is like legal heroin. And it needs to be addressed ...”

I'm not sure, but I think that means it's our fault he got hooked on OxyContin. Because we didn't address it.

Ann Althouse said...

"OxyContin is like legal heroin..."

It's only legal in that it's a prescription drug. He wasn't using it legally. The law wouldn't have saved him because the law didn't save him.

ALP said...

Minty! Wow, just wow. A kid named after a Conan O'Brien character: Minty, the candy cane that briefly fell on the ground. I wonder what Conan thinks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRMzzPK7BnY

Tcdq1293 said...

I'm an alcoholic. If I post a comment here, it means: I'm on! I really like Martinis - they are like going to the olive of goal.

I was on oxy after a surgery. Never tried heroin, but it is like oxy, not worth it.

Tastes differ, I guess.

dreams said...

Years ago The Drs got my late sister who had rheumatoid arthritis hooked on OxyContin and then they didn't want to prescribe it to her anymore. She ultimately found a Dr and told him that if he would work with her, she would wean herself off of it but she couldn't do it cold turkey and that's what she did. She endured a lot of pain the last several years of her life but she did kick her Oxycontin addiction.

gpm said...

Paul Simon, interpret it how you will:

So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
"Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head."

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

--gpm