Welcome to the dark side of the Hamptons, where too much is never enough.
America’s wealthiest, unhappiest people congregate here every summer, solely to compete for A-list party invites, the best tables at the most exclusive restaurants, the last $100 pound of fresh lobster, and the chance to splash their vacuous, conspicuous consumption all over social media.
The unspoken question: Don’t you wish you were me?
As a Hamptons local, trust me: You don’t. No one does.
No one sane, anyway.
Our most recent morality tale concerns a former mommy blogger named Candice Miller.
Founded with her sister in 2016, Miller’s popular ‘Mama & Tata’ blog chronicled her exploits in East Hampton, where she shared a $15 million mansion with her husband, high-flying real estate developer Brandon, and their two young daughters.
Welcome to the dark side of the Hamptons, where too much is never enough. Our most recent morality tale concerns a former mommy blogger named Candice Miller (pictured with her late husband)
America’s wealthiest, unhappiest people congregate here every summer, solely to compete for A-list party invites and the chance to splash their vacuous, conspicuous consumption all over social media (pictured: Montauk)
Hanging with Ivanka Trump and the Olsen twins? Check.
Shopping at Chanel and flaunting $500 Dior sunglasses? Check.
Throwing a lavish ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ 10th wedding anniversary-slash-vow-renewal bash, splashed all over the society pages, then bragging about their perfect love story?
Check, check and check.
Brandon ‘made me cry’, Miller said of his speech that night in 2019, ‘with his authentic, raw emotion and romantic words.’
Last summer, while Miller and her daughters were vacationing on the Amalfi Coast, Brandon went into the garage of their 5,500-square-foot manse, closed the door, started up his white Porsche Carrera, and killed himself with carbon monoxide.
Brandon was 43 years old and $34 million in debt.
It’s a tragedy emblematic of the Hamptons, which long ago became more product than place.
No other seaside playground for the rich and famous — not Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket or Cape Cod — exerts such a hold on the American psyche.
Vast beaches and farmlands streaked with unparalleled light — the kind of light that attracted painters and writers such as Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, Truman Capote and John Steinbeck — remain untouched.
The natural beauty of the Hamptons, almost all situated at the eastern tip of Long Island, is unlike anywhere on Earth.
Montauk is known as ‘The End’ not just because it’s the last town on the island — it’s The End of any possible search for perfection.
Or was, anyway.
Montauk, once home to surfers, fishermen, artists and eccentrics — ‘a drinking town with a fishing problem’ is the local descriptor — has now been subsumed by the Hamptons.
The ramshackle Memory Motel, memorialized by the Rolling Stones after a 1975 stay at Andy Warhol’s house out here, just hosted D-list actor Jeremy Piven doing stand-up.
How far the mighty Montauk has fallen.
The likes of Warhol and his ilk have given way to Kate Hudson performing at the Surf Lodge (rooms starting at $800 per night) and the local Chamber of Commerce chasing the cast and crew of Bravo’s tacky reality series ‘Summer House’ out of town.
‘We are very concerned that this show promotes a false picture of Montauk as a raucous party town, when in fact the complete opposite is true,’ the chamber’s president said.
Too late. That’s exactly what the Hamptons have become in the summer: A playground for the rich and famous who think they can get away with anything — because they can.
Drunk driving is a plague out here, but VIPs and celebs don’t care, because they often get away with a slap on the wrist — just ask Justin Timberlake, who skated after a DWI arrest in Sag Harbor last year.
Or the once-beloved burger spot now too-often befouled by a certain very drunk late-night talk show host.
Or the weddings (a.k.a. mergers) of power players that back up traffic in and out of the Hamptons for hours, as the recent nuptials of Alex Soros and Huma Abedin did in June.
Drunk driving is a plague out here, but VIPs and celebs don’t care, because they often get away with a slap on the wrist – just ask Justin Timberlake, who skated after a DWI arrest in Sag Harbor last year
Or the weddings (a.k.a. mergers) of power players that back up traffic in and out of the Hamptons for hours, as the recent nuptials of Alex Soros (pictured) and Huma Abedin did in June
Truly, the commute to and from New York City can itself be a radical deterrent.
It’s not nearly as easy as depictions in films like ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ or Bravo’s ‘Summer House’ would have you believe.
In reality, it can take up to four hours in sweltering heat, leading to a whole other status competition: Don’t you have a private plane?
Or can’t you at least afford Blade, the private helicopter service charging $4,450 for a Hamptons Summer Pass? What are you — a pauper?
The Blade sell: ‘Traffic is optional. Regret is not.’
Well, bankruptcy’s optional too. But people out here still haven’t learned that.
Hence you have renters and nepo-baby rubberneckers looking to keep up with the fantasy of the place – and forking over $30,000-a-month in high season to jockey for position.
Take the newly reopened Sagaponack General Store. Designed to resemble a low-key, rustic farmhouse, this store sells homemade honey for $42 per jar (Meghan Markle, take note!) and ‘penny candy’ for $20-a-pound.
Sagaponack is the second-richest zip code in America, and the store’s owner, Mindy Gray, is married to a billionaire. Wealthy patrons park wherever they like — even on other people’s front lawns.
‘They’re making so many enemies,’ a local told Page Six.
Similar parking nightmares erupt at grossly overpriced fitness classes, where well-manicured women driving Lamborghinis and Teslas fight it out for spots at $50 group workouts, where they flash Cartier bracelets and $200 blowouts under Céline baseball caps that stay affixed, no matter how sweaty the room, for status.
Fitness, you may have guessed, isn’t the point.
The famed Barn in Bridgehampton boasts perhaps the shallowest clientele.
‘My friends met us at the Barn just to go shopping [for branded merchandise],’ the daughter of a Real Housewife of New York told the Wall Street Journal last month. ‘You love wearing it because it’s a kind of symbol of elitism.’
At least someone said it out loud.
After all, if you work out at a fitness class taught by Gwyneth’s personal trainer, it only counts if you rub people’s faces in it.
It’s a doom loop out here, one that even celebrities get caught up in.
Sarah Jessica Parker, who never stops reminding us that she came from nothing, flaunts her waterfront view on social media every summer.
Jennifer Lopez somehow makes sure that paparazzi catch her riding her bicycle like a carefree teenage girl, or buying some ice cream — or, my favorite, yelling at said paparazzi to leave her alone — when the truth is, paparazzi never lurk out here.
They have to be called.
And then there are the humiliating ‘White Parties’ thrown every summer by diminutive billionaire Michael Rubin, who last year made sure to be photographed tackling a much bigger player — in all senses of the word — during a football game with Tom Brady.
A source told Page Six at the time that Rubin ‘was getting hundreds of calls a day’ for invites and ‘had two separate offers of $1 million’ to make the guest list.
Sure. That must be why Rubin decided not to throw his annual party this summer.
It’s a doom loop out here, one that even celebrities get caught up in. Sarah Jessica Parker, who never stops reminding us that she came from nothing, flaunts her waterfront view on social media every summer
Jennifer Lopez somehow makes sure that paparazzi catch her riding her bicycle like a carefree teenage girl. But the truth is, paparazzi never lurk out here. They have to be called
And just look at any given social media post by Bethenny Frankel, telling her 4 million followers that being in the Hamptons doesn’t equal happiness — while posting from her multimillion-dollar house in Bridgehampton, wearing hundreds of thousands in clothes, jewelry, handbags and accessories.
‘The Hamptons is my happy place,’ she said in a recent TikTok — comparing it to her condo in Miami, her ‘larger home in Florida’, and her apartment in New York City.
‘I know this is not relatable content,’ she said, ‘but you guys have been asking about it.’
Right. That’s what they all say.
As for Candice Miller?
After selling the home she shared with her late husband at a loss and upsetting her in-laws by skipping Brandon’s tombstone unveiling in June – reportedly fuming over her debt load – she has reinvented herself.
Following a recent Instagram post of the sun setting over the sea, she announced her new incarnation: A certified life coach.
Truly: Who better for a needier clientele than this?
