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How Jordan Belfort's 37m superyacht Nadine sank off the coast of Sardinia

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Coco Chanel was famously outspoken on many things, but yachting, in particular, attracted her ire. “As soon as you set foot on a yacht you belong to some man, not to yourself, and you die of boredom,” she was once quoted as saying.

Her solution was to buy her own yacht. A 37m with a steel hull, built by the Dutch yard Witsen & Vis of Alkmaar. The yacht passed through many hands, finally ending up belonging to the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, on whose watch she foundered and sank in 1996.

The yacht was originally built for a Frenchman under the name Mathilde , but he backed out and she caught Chanel’s eye instead. With a narrow beam, a high bow and the long, low superstructure typical of Dutch yachts of her era, she was certainly a beautiful boat. But she was also well equipped, with five staterooms in dark teak panelling, magnificent dining facilities, room for big tenders and, later, a helipad. A frequent sight along the Florida coast, she caught the eye of a young skipper called Mark Elliott.

“In those days, she was the biggest yacht on the East Coast,” he remembers. “Nobody had ever seen anything like it. I needed a wrench once and went up to the boat - Captain Norm Dahl was really friendly.” He didn’t know it then, but Elliott was destined to become the skipper of the boat himself and was at the helm when the storm of the century took her to the bottom off Sardinia.

Coco Chanel died in 1971 and sometime thereafter the yacht was renamed Jan Pamela under the new ownership of Melvin Lane Powers. He was a flamboyant Houston real estate developer, fond of crocodile skin cowboy boots and acquitted of murder in a trial that gripped the nation.

Powers sent Jan Pamela to Merrill Stevens yard in Miami, where a mammoth seven-metre section was added amidships. “We made templates for the boat where we were going to cut her in half, then she went out for another charter season,” remembers Whit Kirtland, son of the yard owner. “When the boat came back in, we cut it just forward of the engine room, rolled the two sections apart and welded it in.”

He remembers how the sun’s heat made the bare and painted metal expand at different rates. “You had to weld during certain time periods – early in the morning or late at night,” says Kirtland.

The result of the extension was a huge new seven-metre full-beam master stateroom, an extra salon and one further cabin – pushing the charter capacity to seven staterooms. During this refit, the boat’s colour was also changed from white to taupe. “No one had really done it before and it was gorgeous,” says Elliott. By 1983, Powers was bankrupt and the yacht was sold on again. She next shows up named Edgewater .

Elliott’s chance came in 1989. He was working for the established yacht owner Bernie Little, who ran a hugely profitable distribution business for Bud brewer Anheuser-Busch. “Bernie Little had always wanted to own the boat,” Elliott says. “He loved it. He bought it sight unseen – and I started a huge restoration programme, including another extension to put three metres in the cockpit.”

It was a massive task, undertaken at Miami Ship. “We pulled out all the windows, re-chromed everything, repainted – brought it back to life,” says Elliott. They also cut out old twin diesels from GM and replaced them with bigger CAT engines, doubling her horsepower to 800. “Repowered, she could cruise at up to 20 knots. She was long and skinny, like a destroyer.”

A smart hydraulic feature was also brought to life for the first time. Under two of the sofas in the main stateroom were hidden 3.6m x 1.2m glass panels giving a view of the sea under the boat. At the push of a button, the sofas lifted up and mirrors above allowed you to gaze at the seabed – from the actual bed.

Now called Big Eagle , like all of Little’s boats, she was a charter hit and her top client was a certain New York financier named Jordan Belfort. He fell in love with her and begged Little to sell to him. But he needed to secure financing, and in 1995, Little agreed to hold a note on the boat for a year if Mark Elliott stayed on as skipper.

With the boat rechristened Nadine after his wife, Belfort set about another round of refit work, restyling the interior with vintage deco and lots of mirrors, extending the upper deck this time, and fitting a crane capable of raising and stowing the Turbine Seawind seaplane.

Nadine also carried a helicopter, a 10m Intrepid tender, two 6m dinghies on the bow, four motorbikes, six jetskis, state-of-the-art dive gear. “You pretty much needed an air traffic controller when all these things were in the water,” says Elliott.

Belfort’s partying was legendary and Elliott clearly saw eye-watering things on board, but as far as he was concerned, he was there to safeguard the boat. “When Jordan Belfort became the owner, he could do whatever he wanted. I was there to protect the note,” says Elliott. “He is a brilliant mind and a lovely person. It was just when he was in his party mode, he was out of control.”

Nadine and her huge cohort of toys and vehicles plied all the usual yachting haunts on both sides of the Atlantic. But Belfort’s love story was to be short-lived. Disaster struck with the boss and guests on board during an 85-mile crossing between Civitavecchia in Italy and Calle de Volpe on Sardinia.

What was forecast to be a 20-knot blow and moderate seas degenerated into a violent 70-knot storm with crests towering above 10.6m, according to Elliott. Wave after wave pounded the superstructure, stoving in hatches and windows so that water poured below and made the boat sluggish. By a miracle the engine room remained dry and they could maintain steerage way, motoring slowly through the black of the night as rescue attempt after rescue attempt was called off.

Nadine eventually sank at dawn in over 1000m of water just 20 miles from the coast of Sardinia. Everyone had been taken off by helicopter, and there was no loss of life. Captain Mark Elliott was roundly congratulated for his handling of the incident. “The insurance paid immediately because it was the storm of the century,” he says. “I took the whole crew but one with me to [Little’s next boat] Star Ship . That was my way to come back.”

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Jordan Belfort’s ex-wife tells the real story behind the yacht on The Wolf of Wall Street

The ex-wife of jordan belfort shed some light on the infamous scene.

Ben Thompson

Jordan Belfort's ex wife, Nadine Macaluso, has set the record straight about the scene in The Wolf Of Wall Street where Belfort splashes out and buys his wife a yacht on their wedding day.

I mean, when you have a lot of money , what better way to treat your new spouse after saying I do?

After their lavish wedding, Belford ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) covers Nadine's, or Naomi as she's known in the movie, eyes with a blindfold before revealing the huge yacht, which has been christened the 'Naomi'.

And Naomi (played by Margot Robbie ) cannot contain her excitement.

"Are you serious? A f***ing yacht?!" she exclaims.

However, it seems that the real Belfort wasn't very serious, as Macaluso revealed on TikTok that her ex-husband, who she was married to from 1991 to 2005, 'did not' actually buy her a boat on their wedding day.

She said: "Actually what happened I think we were married for a few years and we were always chartering yachts, because he loved to do that.

"And I had given birth to my beautiful daughter Chandler and he said 'I want to buy a yacht'."

However, this idea didn't sit well with Macaluso at the time.

She continued: "I said 'I don't think we should buy a yacht, we have a baby and I don't feel comfortable.

'She can't swim.'

"I had visions of her falling off the boat and I was actually terrified.

"I did not want to buy the yacht ironically. And he was like 'Nope, I'm buying a yacht and I'm calling it the Nadine'. And I was like 'Okay, here we go'.

"And you know how that went."

Macaluso's final line is a nod to a scene in the film, in which Belfort and Naomi need to be rescued from the yacht after it gets caught up in a storm.

This scene was indeed based on the real life sinking of the ship in June 1996, which resulted in a rescue by the Italian Navy Special forces.

The yacht was sunk after violent waves repeatedly hit it, but luckily everyone on board was able to escape the ship in time.

Macaluso has previously commented on the scene's accuracy , where she admitted in a TikTok video that the yacht sinking scene was 'totally true'.

Speaking of the memory, she said: "It was horrific, horrifying, we were in a squall for 12 to 18 hours and we lived, thank god, for my kids."

She even showed real life footage of her, Belford and their friends being rescued by the Navy.

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The Real Story Behind the Yacht in The Wolf of Wall Street

Based on the eponymous memoir, the 2013 hit The Wolf of Wall Street told the story of Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker who was convicted of securities fraud and money laundering. Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, the movie was a smashing success through and through. Amongst its many impressionable scenes, one of the most memorable ones was the yacht party, where Belfort and his colleagues indulged in lavish excess. However, Belfort’s ex-wife, Nadine Caridi, has now spoken out about the real story behind the yacht.

Nadine Caridi, the Ex-Wife

Caridi, who was portrayed in the movie by Margot Robbie, gave an interview in which she revealed that the yacht scene was not entirely accurate. According to Caridi, the yacht that was shown in the movie was not the one that Belfort actually owned. Instead, it was rented for the filming of the scene. In reality, Belfort owned a different yacht called Nadine. Caridi claims that the yacht was named after her and that she played a significant role in its design and decoration. She says that the yacht was much smaller than the one shown in the movie, but it was still luxurious and served as a symbol of Belfort’s wealth.

The Sinking of the Nadine Yacht

Nadine Caridi recently spoke about the sinking of the yacht in June 1996, an event that inspired a scene in the movie. The yacht’s sinking during a storm off the coast of Italy was a terrifying experience for everyone on board. The waves were violent and relentless, hitting the yacht repeatedly. Rescue services had to be called in to rescue the passengers and crew, including Belfort and Caridi. In a recent TikTok video, Caridi shared real-life footage of the rescue, showing the fear and chaos that ensued during the storm, while expressing gratitude that everyone survived.

Can a Circle of Salt Paralyze a Self-Driving Car?

Autonomous vehicles are truly within the grasp of humankind. But the brain of a sci-fi geek can wonder whether it’ll bring an apocalyptic scene, where a troop of autonomous cars is pursuing human prey across a desolate landscape. Well, of course, it’s not going to happen, but luckily, if it did, there’s a strangely simple solution for that. And it involves nothing but salt!

The Salt Trap

Back in 2017, artist James Bridle demonstrated how an understanding of road markings using salt could paralyze a self-driving car midway by delivering confusing messages. You need to draw two circles of salt, one in a block line and the other in broken stripes. When the car comes to the middle of it, the markings will direct it to go right ahead and also not to cross, simultaneously. The result is the fabulous “Autonomous Trap 001.” Future models may be able to overcome this fun technological quirk, but it has surely raised a valid question about the possibility of the success of the trick. It’s astonishing to find out that there may be a simple way to manipulate the environment to disrupt the self-driving capacity of an autonomous car.

The Response

This salt circle trap has caught the attention of none other than Elon Musk, the Tesla boss and newly-appointed CEO of Twitter. As an avid enthusiast, Musk is known for dabbling in autonomous vehicles. Responding to the demonstration, he explained that the salt circle trick will probably be able to trap a Tesla car with the production Autopilot build. But he suspected that it won’t work its magic on the FSD models or the cars with Full Self-Driving capabilities. Musk further suggested that making a ring of traffic cones would be effective on the FSD cars. So, if you ever find yourself facing a murderous fleet of autonomous cars, all you need to do is just take your salt bags and traffic cones out! Easy-peasy, right?

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Jordan Belfort Yacht: The True Story and The Wolf of Wall Street Version

The true Jordan Belfort yacht story is as strange and unbelievable as the hit movie The Wolf of Wall Street depicts it to be. There are several insider stories behind the sinking of the mighty yacht that are not widely known but are quite interesting and different from the reel version in several ways.

What happened to the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine?

As the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street shows, the superyacht Nadine sank close to the coast of Sardinia in 1997 while battling what many calls “the storm of the century”. Jordan Belfort narrates the event in detail in the memoir describing his life in the 90s, which is what the Martin Scorsese movie is about.

Before getting into the details of the sinking, it is worth noting that the 37m yacht had a long and interesting history. She carried renowned celebrities like Coco Chanel before reaching Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie) and was one of the largest yachts in the East Coast’s waters.

While the yacht was initially manufactured for a French native and given the name Matilda, he backed out of the deal. This led Coco Chanel to buy the beautiful yacht with the low superstructure that Dutch yachts are famous for.

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The yacht took on different names as it passed through famous hands, even those of the murder trial acquitted Melvin Lane Powers. Belfort named the yacht after his wife and renovated it with the capacity to carry a helicopter, 6 Jetskis, 4 motorbikes, and much more. Under Belfort’s ownership, the yacht witnessed a series of wild parties that were like unlimited glamour and fun in a package until disaster struck unexpectedly.

Did the yacht scene in The Wolf of Wall Street actually happen?

The Jordan Belfort yacht sinking scene in The Wolf of Wall Street was heavily inspired by a real-life event, though the movie did take some creative liberties. For one, the yacht was called Naomi in the reel version since the name of Belfort’s wife (played by Margot Robbie ) was changed in the movie. In reality, the yacht was named Nadine.

The movie further depicts Belfort’s helicopter getting thrown off the yacht by strong waves. In reality, the yacht’s crew went up to the deck and pushed off the helicopter so that Italian navy seals would have a space to land. The yacht’s itinerary was altered a bit by the movie’s director Martin Scorsese to add to the drama, though the power of the storm was scarily accurate.

Belfort admitted that the yacht’s captain Mark Elliot explicitly warned them not to sail to Sardinia on that fateful night. But according to the movie, there was a business opportunity in the city that Belfort could not bear to miss out on despite his wife’s protests.

Some sources claim that in reality, the passengers were simply eager to hit the golf course at Sardinia the next morning. They refused to pay heed to the captain’s warning and asked him to go through the storm, which eventually led to the famous Jordan Belfort yacht sinking incident. Therefore, unfortunately, if someone wants to have a yacht rental in Dubai or any other destination, they have missed their chance with this yacht.

Take a look on our Yacht Dubai Party

Interesting insights on the sinking as portrayed in the movie

The movie captures the fear and stress that each passenger felt when the yacht got caught up in the 70-knot storm. There is some hilarity when Belfort starts yelling for his drugs to avoid the horror of dying sober.

Several rescue attempts were made, but due to rising risks, each of them was called off. By some twist of luck, the yacht’s engine room remained mostly undamaged for a while, because of which they were able to make their way through the sea.

In the end, everyone survived the incident without any major injuries. At dawn, the Nadine made its way 1000m under the water only 20 miles away from Sardinia’s coast. Now, the movie’s audience gets to watch the Jordan Belfort yacht story unfold on the screen with a pinch of humor.

The Nadine’s captain Mark Elliot’s heroic actions did not go unnoticed. He was praised for leading all the passengers to safety, though he was able to get out of the yacht only 10 minutes before it sank. The captain also admitted that the insurance was granted immediately considering the ferocity of the storm. As for the yacht, many still wonder about the highly expensive equipment that had to be thrown into the water and is probably rusting away at the bottom of the sea.

The best features of the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine

The 167 ft Nadine, as its former passengers claim, was a beautiful yacht. When owned by Coco Chanel under the name Matilda, the yacht had five staterooms, large dining areas, and a helipad. The interiors were furnished with dark teak paneling. Each new owner customized the yacht’s name and interiors based on their tastes.

Belfort decorated the Nadine lavishly with a variety of mirrors and set a vintage deco theme. He renovated the upper deck to fit a crane that was able to stow his Turbine Seawind seaplane. The yacht carried the best dive gear available in the market plus a variety of Belfort’s ‘toys’ such as his motorbikes and jetskis.

Which model was portrayed as the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine in the movie?

Martin Scorsese got the yacht Lady M to represent Nadine onscreen. While Nadine actually had a luxuriously vintage charm to it, Lady M is a modern vessel with contemporary features. Lady M was manufactured in 2022 by Intermarine Savannah, while Nadine was built in 1961 by Witsen & Wis. The 147 ft Lady M is currently worth $12 million and is similar to Benetti yachts in its glamorous design.

Jordan Belfort’s life today

The entrepreneur and speaker Jordan Belfort’s shenanigans are well-known thanks to his detailed memoir and the hit movie based on some parts of his life. He spent 2 years in prison and now, at 59 years of age, has a practically negative net worth. Yet, his extraordinary motivational speaking skills continue to attract and inspire people even today.

It is easy for anyone watching the movie to wonder if many of the incidents are exaggerated. But considering Belfort’s eccentric life, even the Nadine sinking incident remains another regular anecdote shared in the movie.

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Jordan Belfort Yacht: The True Story and The Wolf of Wall Street Version

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The true Jordan Belfort yacht story is as strange and unbelievable as the hit movie The Wolf of Wall Street depicts it to be. There are several insider stories behind the sinking of the mighty yacht that are not widely known but are quite interesting and different from the reel version in several ways.

Nadine yacht model

What happened to the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine? As the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street shows, the superyacht Nadine sank close to the coast of Sardinia in 1997 while battling what many calls “the storm of the century”. Jordan Belfort narrates the event in detail in the memoir describing his life in the 90s, which is what the Martin Scorsese movie is about.

Jordan belfort yacht sailing

Did the yacht scene in The Wolf of Wall Street actually happen? The Jordan Belfort yacht sinking scene in The Wolf of Wall Street was heavily inspired by a real-life event, though the movie did take some creative liberties. For one, the yacht was called Naomi in the reel version since the name of Belfort’s wife (played by Margot Robbie) was changed in the movie. In reality, the yacht was named Nadine.

Interesting insights on the sinking as portrayed in the movie

The movie captured each passenger’s fear and stress when the yacht got caught up in the 70-knot storm. There is some hilarity when Belfort starts yelling for his drugs to avoid the horror of dying sober. Several rescue attempts were made, but each was called off due to rising risks. By some twist of luck, the yacht’s engine room remained undamaged primarily for a while, because of which they were able to make their way through the sea.

The best features of the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine

The 167 ft Nadine, as its former passengers claim, was beautiful. When owned by Coco Chanel under the name Matilda, the yacht had five staterooms, large dining areas, and a helipad. The interiors were furnished with dark teak paneling. Each new owner customized the yacht’s name and interiors based on their tastes.

Which model was portrayed as the Jordan Belfort yacht Nadine in the movie?

Martin Scorsese got the yacht Lady M to represent Nadine onscreen. While Nadine had a luxuriously vintage charm, Lady M is a modern vessel with contemporary features. Lady M was manufactured in 2022 by Intermarine Savannah, while Nadine was built in 1961 by Witsen & Wis. The 147 ft Lady M is currently worth $12 million and is similar to Benetti yachts in its glamorous design.

Jordan Belfort’s life today

The entrepreneur and speaker Jordan Belfort’s shenanigans are well-known thanks to his detailed memoir and the hit movie based on some parts of his life. He spent 2 years in prison and now has practically negative net worth at 59 years of age. Yet, his extraordinary motivational speaking skills continue to attract and inspire people even today. It is easy for anyone watching the movie to wonder if many of the incidents are exaggerated. But considering Belfort’s eccentric life, even the Nadine sinking incident remains another regular anecdote shared in the movie.

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Watch: Real ‘Wolf Of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort Tells The Crazy Yacht Trip Story, Explains The Phases Of Quaaludes & More

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While the real Jordan Belfort has said he won’t be making any money off the film adaptation of his memoir “ The Wolf Of Wall Street ,” one can only imagine that the man who makes his current living as a motivational speaker, will earn a boost in folks curious to hear what he has to say following the movie. And with the stories he’s accumulated from his hedonistic days in the financial game, it’s no wonder that Belfort is an engaging raconteur, and this 13-minute video from a few years back proves it.

One of the wildest sequences in a film already filled with unbelievable, outrageous acts, is Belfort’s European yacht trip which starts in sun dappled Italy and soon finds drugs, disaster and near death looming for everyone involved. It’s one of the moments in “The Wolf Of Wall Street” where you wonder if it really happened, but to hear Belfort himself tell the tale, it’s so outlandish it just has to be true. In a conversation with The Room Live  (via Reddit ) Belfort shares the entire story from beginning to end, even detouring slightly to explain the phases of being high on quaaludes. Yes, really.

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Meanwhile, back in November we had the chance to talk with the film’s screenwriter,  Terence Winter , who revealed that the “ Goodfellas ” template is one that ‘Wolf’ didn’t veer too far from. “It is very much [in that vein],” he explained. “It’s sort of written in the same style, voice-overs, it’s a very fast movie, it’s really a wild roller coaster ride.” And now with film in theaters, director Martin Scorsese elaborated and defended his choice of approach.

“If you’re gonna use a voiceover to tell people what’s missing, that’s cheating in a way, right? But if you use it for other reasons—if you use it for commenting [as in Wolf], ‘Brad died at the same age as Mozart. I don’t know why that came to mind. It doesn’t matter.’—I mean, that’s interesting. It’s about character. It’s about speaking. It takes you into the story,” he told THR . 

“I guess it’s a way of exposition. That’s kinda the key, in a way. Look, I’ve done it, you know? We’ve done it at times. And sometimes, by the way, you can do the exposition and just get away with it; it’s extraordinary just being able to do it, flat, straight out, move on, because there are more important things than specific exposition. And then there are some kinds of exposition that you get stuck in…” he continued. “So maybe it’s better to avoid it completely and just try to find other ways. But the voiceover work that I like is voiceover about character. He could be listing everything he owns and cares about, but it’s more about him—him or her, you know? It’s not about what an IPO is, for God’s sakes. [In Wolf the character of Belfort starts to explain what an IPO is and then acknowledges that the audience isn’t following what he’s saying.]”

All we know is that while Leonardo DiCaprio does a good job in channeling Belfort’s self-destructive energy, there’s no better narrator than the man himself, so check out his insane story below. 

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How Accurate Is The Wolf of Wall Street ?

For  The Wolf of Wall Street , his latest collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese forewent his signature voiceover style in favor of more direct address: Throughout the movie, DiCaprio, playing the lupine financial huckster Jordan Belfort, looks into the camera and speaks right to the audience. Terence Winter, who wrote the screenplay, explains the use of the technique thusly: “ You are being sold the Jordan Belfort story by Jordan Belfort , and he is a very unreliable narrator.”

It’s important to keep that in mind if you decide to dig into the fact and fiction of the film.  The Wolf of Wall Street  is quite faithful to the book by Belfort that it’s based on —though there are differences; the key ones are enumerated below. But how faithful is that book to reality?

It can be hard to tell, especially since some of its more outlandish tales turn out to be true. Nonetheless, below is an attempt to suss out the true-to-life from the merely true-to-Belfort in the film version of his story.

Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio)

Leonardo DiCaprio, left, as Jordan Belfort, right

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures / Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

The broad outlines of Belfort’s story are faithfully rendered by the film: A talented but struggling salesman from Long Island, he got a job at venerable investment firm L.F. Rothschild, then was laid off after Black Monday . He went to work at Investors Center, a penny stock house, and a year later opened “ a franchise of Stratton Securities , a minor league broker-dealer,” in “a friend’s car dealership in Queens.” He and his partner earned enough to buy out Stratton and form Stratton Oakmont, which he built into one of the largest over-the-counter brokerage firms in the country. (As in the movie, he hired some old friends .) He did an enormous amount of drugs—including, yes, Lemmon 714s —employed the services of countless prostitutes, and eventually went to prison for the pump-and-dump schemes that made him rich.

Much of DiCaprio’s dialogue comes straight from Belfort’s book, as do nearly all of the hard-to-believe misadventures: landing the helicopter on his lawn while stoned, crashing his car while severely high on Quaaludes, insisting that the captain of his massive yacht sail through choppy waters only to have the boat capsize and then get rescued by the Italian navy. Some of these stories are difficult to verify, but, for what it’s worth, the FBI agent who investigated Belfort told the New York Times , “I tracked this guy for ten years, and everything he wrote is true .” (Even  the yacht story checks out .) As for the much discussed tossing of little people, shown at the beginning of the movie: Belfort’s second-in-command says “ we never abused [or threw] the midgets in the office ; we were friendly to them.” That same former exec says there were never any animals in the office, let alone a chimpanzee, and he says that no one called Belfort “the Wolf.” We know, at least, that the nickname was not coined by a Forbes writer . But, for the most part, it’s  Belfort’s word  against his. 

As far as I can tell, Belfort is not a particular advocate of “ sell me this pen ,” a bit of sales interview role-playing that has been around for years . Another minor but notable difference between movie and reality: Belfort, unlike DiCaprio, is a short man, and multiple acquaintances have suggested that his lust for money, power, and attention are evidence of a Napoleon complex . As for the fidelity of DiCaprio’s portrayal otherwise, there are many videos of Belfort you can watch online, including one or two of Stratton Oakmont company parties .

Danny Porush/Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill)

Photo courtesy Mary Cybulski/Paramount Pictures; Photo courtesy DannyPorush.com

The case of Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) is more complicated. For one thing, Azoff is a fictional name, and the character is sometimes described as a composite. His story closely matches that of Danny Porush—but Porush himself has disputed some of the details . Here are the basic facts: Porush lived in Belfort’s building, and he went to work as a trainee under Belfort before Stratton Oakmont. As History vs. Hollywood notes, he did not meet Belfort in a restaurant ; they were introduced by Porush’s wife (and yes,  she was his cousin ; they have since divorced). He has admitted to eating a live goldfish that belonged to a Stratton employee, as depicted in the memoir and the movie, but denies the  three-way with Belfort and a teenaged employee .

Porush was indeed a childhood friend of Steve Madden’s, and the initial public offering for that women’s shoe company was the biggest bit of business Stratton Oakmont ever did. Madden, like Porush and Belfort, served time in prison for participating in the Stratton scheme.

Nadine/Naomi (Margot Robbie)

Photo courtesy Mary Cybulski/Paramount Pictures; Home video still/CNN/YouTube

The names of Belfort’s wives were also changed for the film. Belfort divorced Denise Lombardo, called Teresa in the movie, after meeting Nadine Caridi at a Stratton Oakmont party . Caridi, called Naomi and played by Margot Robbie, was a model who had appeared in beer commercials; in the book, Befort calls her “the Miller Lite girl.” (You can see one of her ads below.) In both the book and the movie Belfort calls her the Duchess of Bay Ridge (or just the Duchess, for short), because she was born in England but grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. She really did have an English aunt (named Patricia, not Emma) who smuggled money into Switzerland on Belfort’s behalf, and who died while Belfort’s money was still in Swiss banks. (Belfort also had a drug-dealing friend with Swiss in-laws who did much of the smuggling—and that friend was later arrested after a botched money hand-off with Porush , just as we see in the movie.)

The scene in which Naomi spreads her legs open and tells Jordan he won’t be getting sex any time soon , only to learn that she is in full view of a security camera, is taken right from the book—as is the fight in which she throws water at her husband repeatedly. Belfort acknowledges hitting his wife in the memoir; he says he kicked her down the stairs. He also threatened to take their daughter away, putting her in the car with him and then crashing it into a pillar on their property. He was high.

Belfort and Caridi have since divorced.

Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey)

Graphic by Slate. Images courtesy courtesy of YouTube, Paramount Pictures.

The L.F. Rothschild trader who takes Jordan to lunch and tells him that cocaine and masturbation are the keys to success as a stockbroker is based on a real person whose name is not changed in the movie or the book. Mark Hanna has told his own version of the story on YouTube , and he does not seem to dispute the substance of Belfort’s account. (The lunch scene in the film combines two conversations from the memoir, using nearly identical dialogue.) Hanna himself was later convicted of stock fraud . He did not pound his chest and hum rhythmically, as McConaughey does so memorably in the movie; that flourish is based on an acting exercise that McConaughey likes to do , and was, according to the movie’s press notes, incorporated into the film after DiCaprio and Scorsese noticed the actor doing it on set.

Special Agent Gregory Coleman/Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler)

Courtesy WolfofWallStreet.com/Photo courtesy Mary Cybulski/Paramount Pictures

Patrick Denham is another made-up name, but there really was an FBI agent who followed Belfort closely for years: Gregory Coleman. He told CNBC in 2007 that he was struck by the “ blatantness ” of Belfort’s financial crimes. As far as I can tell, they did not meet on Belfort’s yacht, as the movie suggests ; in the book, Belfort first meets Coleman when the FBI arrives to arrest Belfort at his home. (The arrest did not take place while Belfort filmed an infomercial—that’s a bit of poetic license on Scorsese’s part.)

The Aftermath After his arrest and indictment, Belfort cooperated with the FBI. In the film, Jordan, while wearing a wire, passes a note to Donnie telling him not to incriminate himself. Belfort did not pass such a note to Porush, but, in his second book, Catching the Wolf of Wall Street , he claims to have done just this for his friend Dave Beall . He ultimately served 22 months in prison and was ordered to pay over $100 million in restitution to his victims ( which he has apparently failed to do ). As the film depicts, he became a motivational speaker after leaving prison; at the seminar in the movie, DiCaprio as Jordan is introduced by the real Jordan Belfort (and, in real life, the actor has filmed a testimonial for Belfort ). Belfort is not the only real-life participant to show up in the movie: A private investigator that Belfort employed, Richard “Bo” Dietl, is also in the film; he plays himself.

Previously How Much of American Hustle Actually Happened? The People Who Inspired Inside Llewyn Davis How True Is Saving Mr. Banks ? How Accurate Is 12 Years a Slave ? How Accurate Is Captain Phillips ? How Accurate Is Dallas Buyers Club ?

'Truth is stranger than fiction' says 'Wolf of Wall Street' agent

The lobster-throwing boat scene didn't happen. But "Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort sinking his yacht in the Mediterranean during a storm did.

Those were some of the stories former FBI Agent Gregory Coleman — who spent six years investigating Belfort — told Friday to members of the Central Bucks Chamber Chamber of Commerce.

"I spent hundreds of hours tracking down (Belfort's) plane, the boat, getting the financial documents," said Coleman, who retired in January after more than 25 years with the FBI. "I'm ready to have parties on that boat with the FBI. But it's gone. It's at the bottom of the ocean."

Coleman, now a speaker and consultant on financial crimes, spent more than an hour Friday regaling about 100 business leaders gathered at Spring Mill Manor in Northampton with tales of the Belfort investigation, which was made into the 2013 Martin Scorsese film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

"Truth is stranger than fiction, anything you can make up," Coleman said. "We go into Belfort's home, we arrest him, I have the agents take him away. I do my pitch to (Belfort's wife) Nadine, 'get on board the train that's leaving the station.' She agrees to speak with me. But first, [she says], 'I have to go put my PJs on.' We're putting her husband in handcuffs, and she goes up and puts her PJs on."

Coleman said the investigation into Belfort's crimes — using a system of "flippers" and "ratholes" to manipulate supply and demand for stocks, then pocketing the profits in cash — took six years of poring through financial records and working through a tight-knit group of brokers who were loyal to their boss.

"One of the biggest problems I had in cracking the case was getting through the loyalties of his employees," Coleman said. "Once I got them, it was a domino effect."

Eventually, the FBI would arrest such high-level players as Belfort's partner, Danny Porush, portrayed in the movie by Jonah Hill with the character name Donnie Azoff.

Belfort was smart, Coleman said. He targeted wealthy small-business owners who were less likely to complain about their losses. He adapted to changes in regulations to avoid detection. He spent millions in cash to create a false "perception of success" that would impress would-be investors.

"Belfort did not sell stocks," Coleman said. "He sold a story. If he told a good story, you would buy the stocks."

The scheme cost victims of Belfort's brokerage, Stratton Oakmont, $110 million. Today, Belfort is a motivational speaker. 

Coleman was portrayed in the movie by Kyle Chandler, whose character's name was changed to Agent Patrick Denham.

"I had no idea who Kyle Chandler was," Coleman said. "I knew I would be OK, though. The ladies would come up to me in the office and say, 'Who's playing you in the movie?' 'Kyle Chandler.' And they'd go, 'Ooooh.'"

Some scenes, Coleman said, are purely fictional, such as the bribery scene on the boat. Others are a mix of truth and fiction, such as the arrest of Belfort's drug dealer, Brad Bodnick [portrayed by Jon Bernthal]. While based on a real person, Todd Garret, the arrest itself was because of money laundering, not drugs, Coleman said. 

"Part of what they portrayed was absolutely correct and real," Coleman said. "On the other side of the spectrum, it was completely false. It was made up in Hollywood. They threw it in to spice it up. In the middle you have this mixture of truth."

The FBI never did get to seize Belfort's 175-foot yacht. But the agency did seize a beach house in tony Southampton, New York, which Belfort purchased with insurance money.

"The nice thing about money laundering," Coleman said, "is once it's tainted, it's always tainted."

Crissa Shoemaker DeBree: 215-345-3186; email: [email protected]; Twitter: @CrissaShoemaker

How accurate is ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’?

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For “The Wolf of Wall Street,” his latest collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese forewent his signature voiceover in favor of direct address: Throughout the movie, DiCaprio, playing the lupine financial huckster Jordan Belfort, looks into the camera and speaks right to the audience. Terence Winter, who wrote the screenplay, explains the use of the technique thusly: “You are being sold the Jordan Belfort story by Jordan Belfort, and he is a very unreliable narrator.”

It’s important to keep that in mind if you decide to dig into the fact and fiction of the film. “The Wolf of Wall Street” is quite faithful to the book by Belfort that it’s based on — though there are differences; the key ones are enumerated below. But how faithful is that book to reality?

It can be hard to tell, especially since some of its more outlandish tales turn out to be true. Nonetheless, below is an attempt to suss out the true-to-life from the merely true-to-Belfort in the film version of his story.

The broad outlines of Belfort’s story are faithfully rendered by the film: A talented but struggling salesman from Long Island, he got a job at venerable investment firm L.F. Rothschild, then was laid off after Black Monday. He went to work at Investors Center, a penny stock house, and a year later opened “a franchise of Stratton Securities, a minor league broker-dealer,” in “a friend’s car dealership in Queens.” He and his partner earned enough to buy out Stratton and form Stratton Oakmont, which he built into one of the largest over-the-counter brokerage firms in the country. (As in the movie, he hired some old friends.) He did an enormous amount of drugs — including Lemmon 714s — employed the services of countless prostitutes, and eventually went to prison for the pump-and-dump schemes that made him rich.

Much of DiCaprio’s dialogue comes straight from Belfort’s book, as do nearly all of the hard-to-believe misadventures: landing the helicopter on his lawn while stoned, crashing his car while severely high on Quaaludes, insisting that the captain of his massive yacht sail through choppy waters only to have the boat capsize and then get rescued by the Italian navy. Some of these stories are difficult to verify, but, for what it’s worth, the FBI agent who investigated Belfort told The New York Times, “I tracked this guy for ten years, and everything he wrote is true.” (Even the yacht story checks out.) As for the much discussed tossing of little people, shown at the beginning of the movie: Belfort’s second-in-command says “we never abused [or threw] the midgets in the office; we were friendly to them.” That same former exec says there were never any animals in the office, let alone a chimpanzee, and he says that no one called Belfort “the Wolf.” We know, at least, that the nickname was not coined by a Forbes writer. But, for the most part, it’s Belfort’s word against his.

As far as I can tell, Belfort is not a particular advocate of “sell me this pen,” a bit of sales interview role-playing that has been around for years. Another minor but notable difference between movie and reality: Belfort, unlike DiCaprio, is a short man, and multiple acquaintances have suggested that his lust for money, power and attention are evidence of a Napoleon complex. As for the fidelity of DiCaprio’s portrayal otherwise, there are many videos of Belfort you can watch online, including one or two of Stratton Oakmont company parties.

The case of Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) is more complicated. For one thing, Azoff is a fictional name, and the character is sometimes described as a composite. His story closely matches that of Danny Porush — but Porush himself has disputed some of the details. Here are the basic facts: Porush lived in Belfort’s building, and he went to work as a trainee under Belfort before Stratton Oakmont. As History vs. Hollywood notes, he did not meet Belfort in a restaurant; they were introduced by Porush’s wife (and yes, she was his cousin; they have since divorced). He has admitted to eating a live goldfish that belonged to a Stratton employee, as depicted in the memoir and the movie, but denies the three-way with Belfort and a teen-aged employee.

Porush was indeed a childhood friend of Steve Madden’s, and the initial public offering for that women’s shoe company was the biggest bit of business Stratton Oakmont ever did. Madden, like Porush and Belfort, served time in prison for participating in the Stratton scheme.

The names of Belfort’s wives were also changed for the film. Belfort divorced Denise Lombardo, called Teresa in the movie, after meeting Nadine Caridi at a Stratton Oakmont party. Caridi, called Naomi and played by Margot Robbie, was a model who had appeared in beer commercials; in the book, Befort calls her “the Miller Lite girl.” In both the book and the movie Belfort calls her the Duchess of Bay Ridge (or just the Duchess, for short), because she was born in England but grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. She really did have an English aunt (named Patricia, not Emma) who smuggled money into Switzerland on Belfort’s behalf, and who died while Belfort’s money was still in Swiss banks. (Belfort also had a drug-dealing friend with Swiss in-laws who did much of the smuggling — and that friend was later arrested after a botched money hand-off with Porush, just as we see in the movie.)

The scene in which Naomi spreads her legs open and tells Jordan he won’t be getting sex any time soon, only to learn that she is in full view of a security camera, is taken right from the book — as is the fight in which she throws water at her husband repeatedly. Belfort acknowledges hitting his wife in the memoir; he says he kicked her down the stairs. He also threatened to take their daughter away, putting her in the car with him and then crashing it into a pillar on their property. He was high.

The L.F. Rothschild trader who takes Jordan to lunch and tells him that cocaine and masturbation are the keys to success as a stockbroker is based on a real person whose name is not changed in the movie or the book. Mark Hanna has told his own version of the story on YouTube, and he does not seem to dispute the substance of Belfort’s account. (The lunch scene in the film combines two conversations from the memoir, using nearly identical dialogue.) Hanna himself was later convicted of stock fraud. He did not pound his chest and hum rhythmically, as McConaughey does so memorably in the movie; that flourish is based on an acting exercise that McConaughey likes to do, and was, according to the movie’s press notes, incorporated into the film after DiCaprio and Scorsese noticed the actor doing it on set.

Patrick Denham is another made-up name, but there really was an FBI agent who followed Belfort closely for years: Gregory Coleman. He told CNBC in 2007 that he was struck by the “blatantness” of Belfort’s financial crimes. As far as I can tell, they did not meet on Belfort’s yacht, as the movie suggests; in the book, Belfort first meets Coleman when the FBI arrives to arrest Belfort at his home. (The arrest did not take place while Belfort filmed an infomercial — that’s a bit of poetic license on Scorsese’s part.)

The Aftermath

After his arrest and indictment, Belfort cooperated with the FBI. In the film, Jordan, while wearing a wire, passes a note to Donnie telling him not to incriminate himself. Belfort did not pass such a note to Porush, but, in his second book, “Catching the Wolf of Wall Street,” he claims to have done just this for his friend Dave Beall. He ultimately served 22 months in prison and was ordered to pay over $100 million in restitution to his victims (which he has apparently failed to do). As the film depicts, he became a motivational speaker after leaving prison; at the seminar in the movie, DiCaprio as Jordan is introduced by the real Jordan Belfort (and, in real life, the actor has filmed a testimonial for Belfort). Belfort is not the only real-life participant to show up in the movie: A private investigator that Belfort employed, Richard “Bo” Dietl, is also in the film; he plays himself.

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Is The Wolf of Wall Street Based on a True Story?

‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ is a 2013 crime comedy that follows the prolific Wall Street scam artist Jordan Belfort. The film tells the hilarious, tragic, and often outrageous story of how Belfort rises from being a lowly broker to earning hundreds of millions by manipulating stock prices and indulging in a hundred other criminal activities. What makes things all the more dramatic is that he is backed up by a group of loyal partners and the workforce of his trading company, Stratton Oakmont.

Directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese , the movie contains an almost unending string of shocking financial crimes and excesses that Belfort and his cronies partake in. Though most of it seems almost too remarkable to be true, we got curious if what we see in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ actually happened. Here’s what we found.

Is The Wolf of Wall Street a True Story?

Yes, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ is based on a true story. It is adapted from the real Jordan Belfort’s 2007 memoir of the same name and follows his years as a stockbroker and financial criminal . What is perhaps most surprising is that the film is quite faithful to the memoir; thus, some version of many of the outrageous antics, crimes, and excesses seen in the movie indeed happened in real life! At the get-go, the film follows Belfort’s book closely, but parts of the book may be slightly embellished (since he seems to like glorifying his antics).

It seems that the film also counters this by hinting that Belfort’s character (essayed by Leonardo DiCaprio ) is an unreliable narrator when he changes the color of the car he remembers owning in the first scene. He wrote his memoir after being released from prison for various crimes, including fraud. The book follows a remarkable narrative that describes Belfort’s journey from a rookie stock trader where he picked up tips extolling masturbation, hookers, and cocaine as keys to success (from a broker named Mark Hanna, who is essayed in the film by Matthew McConaughey ).

The memoir describes Belfort’s mostly young, working-class workforce as a “cult” that was systematically taught to con clients into buying questionable stocks. In addition, the former stockbroker has described his excessive drug use and the tumultuous romance with his second wife, Nadine (named Naomi in the film and essayed by Margot Robbie ). Of course, the film takes a bit of its own artistic license and depicts scenes not outlined in the book. For one, Belfort never actually sat across and talked, much less attempted to bribe an FBI officer; he apparently only spoke to federal agents after he was arrested.

Additionally, the scene in the film where he changes his mind halfway through his farewell speech and exclaims that he is never leaving Stratton Oakmont never happened. Belfort did give a farewell speech in which he implied he would still retain control of the company, but there was no excited reversing of decisions. A few characters in the film, most notably Jonah Hill’s Donnie Azoff, are based on multiple real-life people that were around Belfort during this time. However, Donnie’s character seemingly draws most from Belfort’s close partner and right-hand man, Danny Porush.

The memoir confirms both Porush and Belfort’s addiction to Quaaludes and the incident where the latter tried to drive while under the influence of the drug. Although, Porush stated that many of the events depicted in the film, like the one involving “dwarf-tossing,” didn’t really take place. Interestingly, he also noted that no one at Stratton Oakmont referred to Belfort as “The Wolf.”

Some pivotal moments in the movie involving Donnie, like when he chokes and almost dies or when the yacht capsizes with him on it, are actually based on events involving other associates of Belfort. Nonetheless, Porush did eat an employee’s goldfish, as shown in the movie, and later spent 20 months in prison for his crimes.

Now, buckle in for some of the highly crazy things seen in Scorsese’s film that actually happened (at least according to the memoir). An associate of Belfort’s named Victor Wang (who partially inspired Chester Ming’s character) dangled the former’s butler out of a window. Moreover, the female employee getting her head shaved for $10,000 is true as well. Besides that, Belfort did crash a helicopter in his front yard while intoxicated and was also aboard a yacht when it sunk off the coast of Italy. Finally, his wife’s mother and aunt did help him smuggle money to Switzerland.

Nonetheless, coming back to the film’s potential inaccuracies because of Belfort’s own twisting of facts in the memoir, Joel M. Cohen sheds light through a New York Times feature . The former federal prosecutor, along with an FBI agent, led the criminal investigation on Belfort and arguably has more insight into the financial scammer than most others. Cohen noted some of the film’s inaccuracies and revealed how Belfort and Porush became informers quite quickly and spilled the beans on their associates, even wearing wires for the authorities, resulting in them getting reduced sentences.

Cohen said in his article that the title of “The Wolf of Wall Street” only came about after Belfort wrote his memoirs and that no one referred to him as “The Wolf” before that. Notably, the former even drew attention to the many victims of Belfort and his associates’ financial crimes, which the film doesn’t cover. In this regard, he said, “… there are consequences for blurring the lines too much. The real Belfort story still includes thousands of victims who lost hundreds of millions of dollars that they never will be repaid.” Ultimately, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ follows a true story that has been embellished on two levels.

One is through Belfort’s potentially aggrandized descriptions of his exploits as a stockbroker and financial criminal, and the second is through the artistic license taken by the film. Furthermore, there are important aspects of the real-life story (like the victims) that are not covered in the movie. That being said, most of what ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ portrays is still a relatively accurate depiction of how Jordan Belfort and his associates lived and functioned. The fact that most of the film’s most outrageous moments are based on real events is a testament to just how remarkably stranger-than-fiction the true story of Jordan Belfort is.

Read More: Movies Like The Wolf of Wall Street

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Iconic Scenes: The Wolf of Wall Street – The Yacht Bribe

I love The Wolf of Wall Street . I think it is a spectacular film that seems to grow more relevant as time passes. I also think that the central character and narrator, Jordan Belfort, is not the most important or key character – that is Agent Denham. So I’m looking at the brilliant scene where Belfort and Denham first meet.

What Happens

Multi-millionaire and thoroughly corrupt stockbroker Jordan Belfort invites two FBI agents to his luxury yacht after he learns that they are investigating him. Agent Denham, and a virtually silent partner, arrive for what starts as a very friendly meeting. Belfort hands over some of the information the FBI has been trying to get while constantly trying to impress them with his wealth and insisting he’s done nothing wrong. Belfort draws Denham into a conversation and it seems the FBI agent is not happy at being given the case and would be willing to play ball with Belfort. At which point, Belfort tries to bribe Denham, and then the tone changes. It’s immediately obvious that Denham is not willing to play ball and is determined to bring Belfort down. The conversation gets increasingly acrimonious and ends with Belfort literally throwing lobsters and handfuls of cash at the departing FBI agents.

When you sail on a yacht fit for a Bond villain, sometimes you gotta act the part

DiCaprio is sensational in this scene. Despite getting very good advice not to contact the FBI and try some scheming, this is exactly what Belfort does. They meet on his insanely luxurious yacht, where Belfort has beautiful women lounging on chairs, he is dressed in bright white “yacht clothes” and constantly turning on his beaming smile. He offers them lobsters and drinks. It does not seem to occur to Belfort that showing off his immense, and ill-gotten wealth, might not be the best idea when you’re being investigated for crimes in the stock market.

Belfort’s attempt at bribery is fantastic. Basically detailing a story where he advised someone in need of money in what stocks to invest in and that person making a fortune and how Belfort “would be willing to do that for anyone”. When challenged about this being a bribe Belfort reveals he researched what legally constitutes a bribe and that wouldn’t count. Again, it’s a little suspicious for someone to be able to recite the criminal code of a crime if they’re not a lawyer.

Good for you, Little Man

Oh, Agent Denham, you film stealing hero. Denham is played by Kyle Chandler who, and this is important for the Denham role, is your go-to guy for American decency (if you need someone younger than Tom Hanks), he is probably best known for his role in Friday Night Lights where he played an honourable, upstanding and inspirational football coach. Denham’s casual chatting with Belfort seems to suggest he is not interested in the case and possibly dissatisfied with his job, the attempted bribe being when he flips to his real character.

As Belfort becomes more aggressive Denham responds in kind and leads to one of the all-time best deliveries, “Good for you, little man,” when sarcastically congratulating Belfort on becoming a Wall Street douchebag without any help from anyone else. Belfort is stunned by this comment but mainly in that he can’t understand it…he’s rich, really rich, how can he be a “little man”, he’s a giant. A colossus. The embodiment of the American Dream. The thing is, of course, Denham is right.

Fun Coupons

A lot of this scene is purely about status. Of all the places Belfort could have met with the FBI agents he chooses his insanely expensive yacht. He is obsessed with money and how much the FBI agents make, originally pretending to be sympathetic but quickly changing to just mocking them. Belfort assumes that because Denham works for the FBI for what to him is an insignificant amount of money he is a loser. The idea that Denham might believe in what he’s doing is either inconceivable or at best a pitiable weakness. To me, this is the best and most interesting scene in the whole film – not the drug-filled hedonistic parties, not the cult-like team talks Belfort gives his employees, not the incredibly charismatic phone calls Belfort makes when selling stocks but this scene where Denham sizes up Belfort and sees right through him.

Years ago David Cross and Bob Odenkirk made a sketch show called Mr. Show , which contained a sketch based on the premise “someone who makes more money than you is better than you”, so Van Gogh, Einstein and Galileo are actually pretty unsuccessful people. This is Jordan Belfort’s philosophy – he is better than just about everyone he meets because he is richer.

The Hero I’m Going To Be Back At The Office, When The Bureau seizes this boat!

All Belfort manages to do in this scene is upset the FBI and probably convince them that yes, he is absolutely breaking the law. It’s an interesting look at the dynamic of power in America (and indeed the whole world) – who is the more powerful person? Belfort with his huge personal wealth or Denham as a federal officer, a representative of the most powerful country on Earth. There was a lot of discussion at the time about if people actually saw Belfort as the hero of this film, that people liked him and wanted him to win. I saw this as Goodfellas but for white-collar crime. In this scene Belfort helps further his own downfall, antagonising the FBI. In the final moments of this scene, Belfort has just finished throwing money at Denham and his arrogance and deluded grandeur fade as he realises he has just made a terrible mistake.

Also Read: Iconic Scenes: American Psycho – Business Card Scene

Richard Norton

Gentleman, podcaster and pop culture nerd, I love talking and writing about pretty much all pop culture.

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Everything The Wolf Of Wall Street Doesn't Tell You About The True Story

Martin Scorsese's film "The Wolf of Wall Street" is an over-the-top celebration of greed and excess, inspired by the memoir of the notorious stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who is played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film. It tell of the rise of Jordan Belfort from a low-level assistant at L. F. Rothschild to a Long Island penny stock pusher, as well as Belfort's dramatic fall from filthy rich CEO of Stratton Oakmont to a stint in federal prison for stock fraud and money laundering.

Despite being ostensibly based on a true story, many question the veracity of the film because of how absolutely outlandishness of Belfort's claims, and how outrageous the antics at Stratton Oakmont are. Scorsese obviously recognized Belfort is an unreliable narrator with a penchant for exaggeration. In the film, Belfort breaks the fourth wall, addressing the camera and the audience directly. This was a strategic choice by the screenwriter and director. Screenwriter Terence Winter told Esquire , "Jordan is talking directly to you. You are being sold the Jordan Belfort story by Jordan Belfort, and he is a very unreliable narrator. That's very much by design."

Despite how unlikely this story is, most of what transpires in the film actually happened. Winter added, "I assumed he must've been embellishing. But then I did some research, and I talked to the FBI agent who arrested him, who had been tracking Jordan for ten years. And he told me, 'It's all true. Every single thing in his memoir, every insane coincidence and over-the-top perk, it all happened.'" 

That said, this film is Belfort's truth, not necessarily the definitive truth. Keep reading if you want to learn everything "The Wolf of Wall Street" doesn't tell you about the true story of Jordan Belfort's meteoric rise and fall.

Belfort's wives' names were changed for the film

Although their real-life counterparts are obvious, the names of Jordan Belfort's ex-wives were changed in the film, giving the filmmaker creative license with the characters. Belfort's first-wife in the film is Teresa Petrillo (Cristin Milioti), but her real-life counterpart is Denise Lombardo. Denise met Belfort in high school, and the childhood sweethearts married in 1985 after Denise graduated from college. Belfort founded Stratton Oakmont while married to Denise, and they divorced after she found out about his affair in 1991 (per The U.S. Sun ). After their divorce, Denise led a low-profile life, staying out of the public eye.

Belfort's second-wife in the film is Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie). Naomi's real-life counterpart is Nadine Macaluso. Like Naomi, Nadine was a model and met Belfort at a party before they married in 1991. Nadine and Belfort had two children together and separated in 1998 as depicted in the film (per the U.S. Sun). Nadine got a Ph.D, becoming a marriage and family therapist. She lives in California with her second husband (per Daily Mail TV ).

Margot Robbie , who played Naomi in the film, met Nadine while preparing for her role. Robbie told IndieWire meeting Nadine helped her understand her character's motivations, saying, "I could do or say any horrible thing and know that my character's motivation was out of protection for her child. Whether or not the audience sees my side of events is another matter, but just to know my motivation can give me an authentic performance." She added how strong Nadine is, saying, "She's has to be, to have put up with Jordan and his shenanigans."

The original crew Belfort recruited from friends are composite characters

Although Belfort recruited the original crew for his Long Island brokerage firm from a group of friends; Alden "Sea Otter" Kupferberg (Henry Zebrowski), Robbie "Pinhead" Feinberg (Brian Sacca), Chester Ming (Kenneth Choi), and Nicky "Rugrat" Koskoff (PJ Byrne) are composite characters with fictitious names. These characters are an amalgamation of numerous people who worked at Stratton Oakmont and do not represent actual people.

This didn't stop Andrew Greene, a board member of Stratton Oakmont, from filing a defamation suit against the film's production company. He was offended by the depiction of "Rugrat" in the film, saying the character damaged his reputation. He called the character a "criminal, drug user, degenerate, depraved and devoid of any morals or ethics" (per The Guardian ).

In 2018, Greene lost his suit . In 2020, an appellate court threw the suit out, stating that the filmmakers, by creating composite characters and fictitious names, "took appropriate steps to ensure that no one would be defamed by the Film," (per the Hollywood Reporter ). The filmmaker included the hijinks of the employees at Stratton Oakmont in the film to illustrate the raucous corporate culture of the brokerage firm, rather than defame former employees.

Donnie Azoff doesn't exist, his real-life counterpart is Danny Porush

Jonah Hill 's character Donnie Azoff in "The Wolf of Wall Street" doesn't exist. He is a composite character created to avoid defaming anyone while making the film. To anyone who is familiar with Jordan Belfort and Stratton Oakmont's story, it's obvious Danny Porush is Azoff's real-life counterpart. Porush disputes the veracity of both Belfort's memoir and the film, telling Mother Jones , "The book ... is a distant relative of the truth, and the film is a distant relative of the book." Porush admits to swallowing the goldfish, but under different circumstances than depicted in the film.

As reported by Mother Jones, Porush was Belfort's friend and business partner between 1988 and 1996. Like Belfort, he cooperated with authorities, ultimately serving 39 months in prison for his securities and financial crimes at Stratton Oakmont. Porush disputes the throwing of dwarves, insists there were never animals in Stratton Oakmont — other than the goldfish he ate — but admits to the wild parties and taking part in the depravity and excesses encouraged at the brokerage firm, saying "Stratton was like a fraternity."

Porush told Mother Jones, "My main complaint [regarding the memoir] besides his inaccuracy was his using my real name," something that was remedied when the filmmakers created the composite character of Donnie Azoff. Ultimately, Porush doesn't seem to hold a grudge despite his grievances with the inaccuracies saying, "Hey, it's Hollywood ... I know they want to make a movie that sells. And Jordan wrote whatever he could to make the book sell."

Danny Porush's wife introduced Jordan Belfort to her husband

In "The Wolf of Wall Street," Donnie Azoff (Danny Porush's fictional counterpart) approaches Belfort at a restaurant about what he does for a living, after seeing Belfort's Jaguar in the parking lot. In reality, Belfort met his future business partner, Danny Porush, through Danny's wife Nancy.

Porush and Nancy lived in the same building in Queens where Belfort lived with his first wife Denise, as Nancy told Doree Lewak with The New York Post in 2013 shortly before "The Wolf of Wall Street" came out. Nancy explained how she took the same bus into the city for work as Belfort, saying, "the commute to the city each day was hard because I became pregnant right away. There was a nice boy from our building on the same bus who always gave up his seat for me. His name was Jordan Belfort, and he worked in finance ... I pushed Danny to talk to Jordan ... After just one conversation, Danny came back and announced he was taking the Series 7 exam to get his stockbroker's license."

In the New York Post article, Nancy detailed how her husband changed once he began working with Belfort and making serious cash, saying, "Up until then, Danny never seemed to care about money ... I saw him morph from a nice wholesome guy into showy narcissist whom I hardly recognized anymore." After being arrested for securities fraud, Porush left Nancy for another woman. They are now divorced, and he lives in Florida with his second wife. We can't help wondering if Nancy ever regrets introducing her ex-husband to Belfort.

Belfort's destroyed yacht once belonged to Coco Chanel

Jordan Belfort bought a yacht and named it after his second wife. In the film, the boat is named Naomi after the character played by Margot Robbie, but in real life the boat was called the Nadine . True to the film, Belfort insisted his boat's captain take the yacht into choppy waters, where the boat happened upon powerful but unpredictable mistrals, leading to the Nadine sinking into the Mediterranean Sea in an event known as Mayday In The Med . Belfort, his guests and crew, were rescued by the Italian coast guard.

What the film doesn't tell you is that Belfort's yacht had an interesting past. Belfort's vintage yacht once belonged to none other than the famous French fashion designer Coco Chanel. Chanel is known for her outspoken nature and is associated with quite a few fiercely female quotes. Chanel is quoted as saying , "As soon as you set foot on a yacht, you belong to some man, not to yourself, and you die of boredom." Rather than avoid luxury yachts all together, Chanel made the boss move of buying her own in 1961, naming her the Matilda (per Boss Hunting ).

As bizarre as this interlude of the film was, it actually happened, with one major difference. In an interview with The Room Live , Belfort explained how the group waiting to be rescued had to push the helicopter off of the boat to make room for a rescue team to lower down onto the yacht. In the film, the waves knock the helicopter off of the yacht. Belfort also explains that although his private jet also crashed, it was 10 days after the yacht sunk, not at the same time, as it was depicted in the film for dramatic effect.

Steve Madden spent time in prison for stock fraud

Although they don't talk about it in the movie, Steve Madden also went to prison for stock fraud and money laundering along with Jordan Belfort and Danny Porush. The New York Times reported in 2002 that Madden "was arrested in 2000 as a result of an investigation of a scheme to manipulate 23 initial public stock offerings underwritten by the companies Stratton Oakmont and Monroe Parker Securities ... It included the initial public stock offering of his own company in 1993."

True to the film, Danny Porush, Azoff's real-life counterpart, really was childhood friends with Steve Madden. Like Belfort and Porush, Madden loved debauchery and Quaaludes, so much so he didn't finish college because of how much he was partying. Although Madden wrote about his wild days in his memoir, his time partying with the Stratton Oakmont "fraternity" was not included in the film. Stratton Oakmont took Madden's company public, making him instantly rich ( per The New York Post ).

As reported by the New York Post, Madden wrote about this period of his life in his memoir "The Cobbler: How I Disrupted an Industry, Fell from Grace & Came Back Stronger Than Ever." In his book, Madden wrote, "Jordan was like no one else I have ever met before or since. He became one of the most influential people in my life ... I was pumping and dumping [stocks] right alongside them." Madden wound up serving 31 months for his financial crimes and his involvement with Stratton Oakmont's schemes. Unlike Porush and Belfort, Madden could continue working at his company after being released from prison.

Belfort was ordered to pay restitution to his victims

When Belfort was convicted of money laundering and stock fraud in 2003 for Stratton Oakmont's "pump and dump" schemes, he was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay over $110.4 million in restitution (per Crime Museum ). Belfort only served 22 months for his crimes and a judge ordered him to pay half of his income once he was released from prison.

In 2013, just after the film was released, CNN reported Belfort had only contributed a little over $11 million to the fund for victims, much obtained from confiscated possessions. At the time the film came out, Belfort allegedly stated he would hand over all of his royalties from the film and the book. But in 2018, Fortune Magazine reported government officials claimed Belfort still owed $97 million, meaning that over the previous 5 years, Belfort only contributed an additional $2 million dollars to the victims' fund. $2 million dollars is more than most of us will ever see, but Belfort is still making good money as a motivational speaker.

As reported by Fortune Magazine, there is a disagreement between Belfort's attorneys and prosecutors over what income can be garnished for restitution. Belfort reportedly earned around $9 million dollars between 2013 and 2015, but neglected to pay half of those earnings to the victims' fund. Although Belfort claims he will feel better after he has paid the money back, he doesn't seem to be fulfilling his end of the court order. Belfort obviously still enjoys a life of luxury and it is hard to reconcile his claims of being reformed with his reluctance to pay the restitution to his victims. In her New York Post article Nancy Porush reminded us, "Greed is not good — it's ugly."

Tommy Chong was Belfort's cellmate in prison

"The Wolf of Wall Street" ends with Jordan Belfort in a cushy white-collar prison with tennis courts, but the film didn't tell us who Belfort's cellmate was. Belfort and Tommy Chong of the comedy duo "Cheech & Chong" were cellmates before Chong was released. In 2014, Belfort spoke to Stephen Galloway with The Hollywood Reporter about his time in prison. He explained, "[Chong] was in the process of writing his book. We used to tell each other stories at night, and I had him rolling hysterically on the floor. The third night he goes, 'You've got to write a book.' So I started writing, and I knew it was bad. It was terrible. I was about to call it quits and then I went into the prison library and stumbled upon 'The Bonfire of the Vanities' by Tom Wolfe, and I was like, 'That's how I want to write!'"

In 2014 Chong spoke with Adrian Lee at Maclean's about how he met Belfort in prison and giving Belfort feed back on his pages, saying "After a while he showed me what he had written, and it was the only time I had critiqued someone really heavy — usually when someone writes something, you say, 'Oh yeah, that's great, keep going.' But I knew instinctively he had a lot more to offer than what he showed me ... I told him ... 'No, you've got to write those stories you've been telling me at night. Your real life is much more exciting than any kind of imaginary story you could come up with.'"

Stratton Oakmont was never on Wall Street

Although the memoir and film are titled "The Wolf of Wall Street," Jordan Belfort only worked on Wall Street for several months in 1987 at L. F. Rothschild. Black Monday put an end to his days at a Manhattan based brokerage firm. As we see in the film, it was on Long Island that Belfort got a job at the Investor's Center selling penny stocks from the pink sheets and found his calling: his get-rich-quick scheme, selling nearly worthless stocks for a 50 percent commission to people who couldn't afford to lose the money (per NY Times ).

Belfort soon went out on his own, founding Stratton Oakmont with Danny Porush, where they began targeting rich investors using a persuasive script and "pump and dump" tactics — making Belfort, Porush and their brokers rich, while leaving their clients broke. As reported by the Washington Post in 1996, Stratton Oakmont was disciplined for securities violations as early as 1989, and continued to be disciplined almost annually.

Jimmy So with The Daily Beast, maintains, "The problem with 'The Wolf of Wall Street' is that the self-fashioned wolf was nowhere near the real Wall Street." The memoir and film made the brokerage firm seem like a much bigger deal than they really were, despite the financial ruin they left in their wake. Stratton Oakmont's offices were on Long Island, not Wall Street.

Jordan Belfort was never called 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

Scorsese's film makes it seem like Forbes gave Jordan Belfort the nickname, "The Wolf of Wall Street" when they published a takedown about Stratton Oakmont's questionable business practices. Forbes wrote an article about Stratton Oakmont's dirty deeds in 1991, but the article did not call Belfort "the wolf of wall street." In 2013, Forbes revisited Roula Khalaf's original article, where she called Belfort a "twisted Robin Hood who takes from the rich and gives to himself and his merry band of brokers." 

Danny Porush, Belfort's former partner and one-time friend, told Mother Jones  that nobody at the firm ever used the "wolf" moniker. As reported by CNN , Belfort came up with the nickname himself for his memoir. As Porush told Mother Jones, Belfort's "greatest gift was always that of a self-promoter." But as Joe Nocera with the NY Times said, "who would ever buy a ticket to a movie called 'The Wolf of Long Island'?"

Belfort had a head-on collision while driving under the influence of Quaaludes

When the real Jordan Belfort crashed his car while on Quaaludes, he was in a Mercedes Benz rather than a Lamborghini, and someone was actually injured. Belfort had a head-on collision while driving home from the country club where he used the pay phone, sending the woman he collided with to the hospital (per The Daily Beast ). None of Belfort's crimes are victimless.

This type of discrepancy is central to the complaints about both Belfort's memoir and the film. Although Belfort says he regrets his crimes, he is too busy boasting about the parties, the riches, the drugs, and the sex to sound like he regrets anything except getting caught. Belfort's memoir and the film it inspired might seem like a celebration of greed and excess, but they are also a depiction of the ostentatious behavior that eventually drew the attention of the authorities.

Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street" might not tell you everything about the true story, but what it does is reveal how audiences love watching someone else's destructive behavior. We get all the thrills and none of the consequences. As screenwriter Terence Winter told Esquire, "I'd much rather watch somebody who isn't responsible, who makes all the wrong decisions and hangs out with the wrong people. That's more satisfying. We may live like saints, but when it comes to our fantasy life, everybody's got a little larceny in their soul."

How Historically Accurate Is The Movie The Wolf Of Wall Street?

Martin Scorsese's 2013 film "The Wolf of Wall Street" is the answer to the question, "what if  Mötley Crüe 's life story, but with IPOs, white-collar crime, and even more sex, booze, drugs, and money?" Based on the memoir of the same name by convicted stock fraudster Jordan Belfort, the movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort, a brash young stockbroker from the Bronx who goes on to co-found the Stratton Oakmont brokerage house in the late 1980s and make a ton of money while running the firm.

While the name may sound legit, Stratton Oakmont is nothing more than a made-up name with a made-up backstory. And the way they do business is anything but legal — their "pump and dump" scheme involves misleading investors by hyping up no-name companies listed on the pink sheets, which drives up their stock prices and allows Belfort and co. to sell their artificially overvalued shares. This then brings the prices back down to earth, leaving investors with virtually nothing while the folks at Stratton keep getting richer and richer. It's a pretty shady scheme alright, and Belfort got away with it for years.

That, however, merely scratches the surface when talking about a three-hour film with so many seemingly over-the-top moments. "The Wolf of Wall Street" may have been based on a true story, but with DiCaprio's on-screen Belfort serving as a classically unreliable narrator, how much of the film is historically accurate and how much of it is fiction?

Mark Hanna is real, but the chest-thumping scene isn't

Although he played a rather small part in the movie, Matthew McConaughey made quite the impact in "The Wolf of Wall Street." He stole the show in the early goings as Mark Hanna, Jordan Belfort's boss at L.F. Rothschild, which sold its brokerage operations in January 1988, according to The New York Times — it didn't exactly "close its doors" within a month of the October 1987 stock market crash, as Belfort claimed in the film. And in case you're wondering whether Hanna's real or not, we can certainly assure you he is. He even has his own website  where he references how McConaughey made him "famous" in "The Wolf of Wall Street."

During the movie's now-iconic restaurant scene, Hanna gives Belfort some advice on how to survive the dog-eat-dog world of Wall Street; per The Daily Beast , the real Hanna did indeed tell Belfort that masturbation, cocaine, and sex workers were his keys to success. But what's the deal with the chest-thumping and chanting scene that has become so beloved among fans? McConaughey explained to Business Standard that this was his own relaxation technique, one he had performed behind the scenes of his previous films. It was added to the restaurant scene at the last moment, and that definitely worked like a charm — it's impossible to talk about Hanna's corruption of the then-newbie stockbroker Belfort without mentioning the chest-thumping.

Many of Belfort's wildest moments did happen in real life

After Jordan Belfort starts Stratton Oakmont, recruits several ne'er-do-well buddies, and somehow transforms these misfits into ruthless stockbrokers, he's off to the races. We see Belfort and his fellow brokers party like rock stars, with their office oftentimes serving as the center of all the bacchanalia — at one point, he even pays an employee $10,000 to have her head shaved. Aside from the reckless drinking, drugging, and spending, there's the reckless operation of vehicles that leads to Belfort crashing his Lamborghini and almost crashing his helicopter. And we shouldn't forget that time Belfort ignored his captain's warnings about "chop" and insisted on sailing his yacht amid a storm, only for the boat to capsize off the coast of Italy.

Crazy as it may sound to the uninitiated, did all of that really happen? The answer is yes, as The Daily Beast covered all those moments and then some in a 2013 article; the FBI agent who arrested Belfort also vouched for the accuracy of his memoir, per The New York Times . However, there were some notable differences. As for the time that Belfort crashed his Lambo while wasted on expired Quaaludes, The Daily Beast wrote that it was actually a Mercedes-Benz. But even more glaring than the choice of another pricey automobile to crash was the omission of how the real Belfort apparently injured someone during that incident and sent them to the hospital.

Several names were changed and some composites were created

While several characters in "The Wolf of Wall Street" were based on real-life people with the same name, not the least of these being Jordan Belfort himself, the film did rename a number of people and create some composite characters. History vs. Hollywood 's "Wolf of Wall Street" page shows the main examples in the cast section — Jonah Hill's Donnie Azoff was based on Stratton Oakmont co-founder Danny Porush, Margot Robbie's Naomi Lapaglia was based on Belfort's second wife Nadine Macaluso, and Kyle Chandler's no-nonsense FBI Agent Patrick Denham was based on an agent named Gregory Coleman. Likewise, Brad Bodnick (Jon Bernthal) was inspired by the real Belfort's Quaalude supplier, Todd Garret.

What about the motley crew of misfits who initially made up Stratton's workforce? That's where the composite characters come in, as the likes of Alden "Sea Otter" Kupferberg (Henry Zebrowski), Robbie "Pinhead" Feinberg (Brian Sacca), Chester Ming (Kenneth Choi), and Nicky "Rugrat" Koskoff (PJ Byrne) were mostly inspired by multiple people mentioned by Belfort in his memoir, then given fictional names, according to The Hollywood Reporter . 

That was not enough to mollify former Stratton broker Andrew Greene, who, in 2014, sued the film's producers for defamation because Rugrat was supposedly based on him and made to look like a "criminal, drug user, degenerate, depraved and devoid of any morals or ethics," per The Guardian . (Probably didn't help that Rugrat was a frequent butt monkey for Belfort, Azoff, and their fellow Strattonites.) It was only in 2018 when a judge  ruled in favor of the producers, stating that they took all the necessary steps to ensure no one was defamed, such as making Koskoff a composite, giving him a fictional name and backstory, and including a disclaimer during the credits.

Did Danny Porush do the things Donnie Azoff did in the film?

Leonardo DiCaprio may have had a lot of epic moments in "The Wolf of Wall Street" as Jordan Belfort, but Jonah Hill also did a wonderful job playing Belfort's co-founder and second-in-command at Stratton Oakmont, Donnie Azoff. While initially quirky and awkward, Azoff soon proves to be Belfort's equal in the debauchery department, and he has no problem confirming the rumors that he married his cousin. This, of course, doesn't faze Belfort one bit. And later on, Azoff punishes a bowtie-wearing employee who was tending to his goldfish on new issue day by taking the fish out of the bowl and swallowing it alive, much to the delight of the rowdy brokers.

Again, we have to ask the $64 million question — did those things happen in real life? Speaking to Mother Jones , Danny Porush, the man who inspired the Azoff character, blasted "The Wolf of Wall Street" — both the book and the film — for being inaccurate, but acknowledged that he really ate a broker's goldfish, albeit for the slightly different reason that he wasn't performing well enough. Meanwhile, Belfort's memoir (via  History vs. Hollywood ) claimed that Porush's ex-wife Nancy was actually his first cousin, though she made no mention of this in an exclusive New York Post interview; in fact, she said that she and Danny first met as young adults in the early '80s. Similarly, Nancy Porush recalled introducing her then-husband to Belfort, which goes against how in the movie, Azoff approached Belfort at a restaurant after seeing his flashy new Jaguar parked outside.

The Steve Madden deal

If Martin Scorsese's previous film "GoodFellas" had the Lufthansa heist, "The Wolf of Wall Street" had the Steve Madden initial public offering, which is portrayed as the biggest, most important deal in Stratton Oakmont's colorful history. (Once again, that's also why you really shouldn't be cleaning your fishbowl on new issue day, lest your coked-up boss eat the fish for breakfast before firing you on the spot.) As narrated in the movie, Stratton "secretly" controlled 85% of the footwear maker's shares, and during the IPO, Jordan Belfort exhorts his employees to "ram Steve Madden stock down your clients' throats," thereby driving up the price from its initial $4.50 per share to a whopping $18-plus in a few minutes' time. Soon after, Donnie Azoff bursts in, screaming that Stratton made $22 million in just three hours.

While screenwriter Terence Winter made sure to simplify all the Wall Street-speak for the average viewer, something similar did happen in real life (via The New York Times ). And it's also true that Steve Madden himself, upon realizing that the FBI was hot on Belfort's trail, started unloading his shares while still early, as noted by History vs. Hollywood . But what we don't see in the movie is how Madden (Jake Hoffman) also got charged as an accomplice to Belfort. Likewise, his substance abuse issues during the film's timeline  weren't documented . He did eventually serve two-and-a-half years of a 41-month sentence for stock fraud.

Belfort's relationship with his second wife was abusive toward the end

Arguably, the most disturbing moment in "The Wolf of Wall Street" comes when Belfort, stressed out because he has to work with the feds and rat out his co-conspirators, asks his wife Naomi to make love to him. She begrudgingly agrees, then announces that she's filing for divorce and that she wants custody of their kids. This enrages Jordan, who breaks a long period of sobriety by snorting his emergency cocaine, then gets verbally and physically abusive toward Naomi. Next, he grabs their young daughter and, while trying to drive away, crashes his car through the garage door, ramming a nearby pillar outside his mansion.

Per History vs. Hollywood , the abuse may have been worse in real life; Jordan Belfort wrote in his autobiography that he kicked his wife Nadine, causing her to fall down the stairs and land with "tremendous force." The incident where he tried to flee with his daughter also happened, per Belfort's memoir, and it appears that he put her through even greater risks, as the girl apparently wasn't wearing a seatbelt. In the film, Belfort made sure that his daughter was buckled up.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website .

The fall of Jordan Belfort

After Stratton Oakmont enjoys its first big successes, we see Kyle Chandler's Agent Denham start working zealously on bringing Belfort and his cohorts to justice. And while he remains stoic till the end, the subway scene says it all — you try to do the right thing, but you're still a nobody compared to the man you've been chasing for years, who essentially gets a slap on the wrist for his crimes. The chickens had come home to roost, as "Mad Max" Belfort (Rob Reiner) once warned his son, and for cooperating with the feds, all Jordan gets is a reduced sentence of three years at a minimum-security federal prison. (Per The Daily Beast , he only served 22 months of what was supposed to be a four-year sentence.)

In an interview with CNBC (via YouTube ), Denham's real-life equivalent, Gregory Coleman, explained his motivations for pursuing Belfort and Stratton so doggedly, and they matched up pretty well with what drove the incorruptible Denham in the film. "It was the flashiness, the brashness of their activities, the blatantness of the way they were soliciting people and cold calling people, and the number of victims that were complaining on a daily basis," he told the news outlet.

And yes, you would be correct if you thought that just like in "The Wolf of Wall Street," the real Jordan Belfort now makes an honest living as a motivational speaker. Now sell me this pen.

15 Facts You Didn’t Know About The REAL Wolf Of Wall Street

The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio hit theaters almost four years ago giving us an insight into the crazy life of Jordan Belfort. The movie was Martin Scorsese’s interpretation of the memoir written by Belfort himself and which, you guessed it, was named “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

One of the most important things that is taken into consideration during the development of a movie is to provide people with a good and engaging story which might require certain facts to be omitted or changed. Martin Scorsese’s directorial prowess shows in this film and it even manages to make “The Hangover” look like a small high school party.

While most of the three-hour movie might have seemed like a crazy exaggeration of events that happened, the fact is that it doesn’t even come close to capturing Belfort’s actual life. The true facts about Jordan Belfort and his money-making scheme along with his cronies goes much deeper than what was portrayed to the audience. Now twenty years after Belfort scammed hundreds of people involving millions of dollars, we have compiled a list of 15 facts that you did not know about the real wolf of Wall Street.

15. He Was Never Called “The Wolf”

Via Thanhniennews.com

While it is a pretty cool nickname and what makes it even cooler is the fact that a movie was named after it, Jordan Belfort was never called “wolf” by anyone, ever. That’s right, the only person to call Belfort by this nickname was Jordan Belfort himself when he wrote his memoir in 2007. Former president of Stratton-Oakmont, Danny Proush, who was played by Jonah Hill in the movie, was quoted to have said that in eight years of working with Belfort, he had never heard anyone call him the Wolf or anything like that. But it clearly is very catchy and helped market the movie to the success it is now.

14. Being A Broker Was Never Part Of His Plans

Via Stockinvestor.com

Being a stock broker is something that not a lot of kids aspire to be. In fact, if you were to go out right now and interview a bunch of kids about their career plans, almost no one will say stock broker. It makes sense because the stock market is essentially a bunch of adults yelling numbers at computer screens all day. Jordan Belfort was focused on becoming a dentist in his younger years. He managed to save almost $20,000 selling Italian ice on the beach (which is quite an amazing feat) to pay for dentistry school. The story, however, goes that on the first day of his freshman year, the Dean took him aside and told him that dentistry was not a golden profession anymore and he shouldn’t expect to become rich. This was enough for Belfort to drop out and switch career paths.

13. He Never Worked On Actual Wall Street

Via wsj.net

We’re pretty sure you never guessed this one, well, because the title of both the memoir and the movie contains the word “Wall Street” in it. That, however, was never true because Jordan Belfort never worked on actual Wall Street. His company called Stratton-Oakmont was in fact based in Lake Success, Long Island which is an hour’s drive away from where Wall Street is. This made perfect sense because despite raking in millions with his company, he didn’t have big bucks in the beginning to rent an office space in one of the most expensive parts of New York City. Belfort had trained his staff to tell investors that they were calling from Wall Street to make the deals seem legit and enticing.

12. His Victims Were Never Paid Back

Via Domain.com.au

Jordan Belfort had reportedly made off with $110 million of investor money. Now If you remember, the scam that made him all of this money didn’t target rich trust-fund kids, in fact, it was your average blue-collar Americans who were trying to make a living working nine to five jobs. It can be very appealing when some hot shot with big words calls you up from Wall Street with an investment opportunity that could change your life, even though deep down you know that you have a better chance of winning the Powerball than making a profit on penny stocks. After Belfort’s prosecution, the court ordered him to reimburse the money back to his victims but nearly two decades later, he has only paid $10 million of the $110 million he owes.

11. He Once Made $12 Million In 3 Minutes

Via Quotesgram.com

Say what you need to about Jordan Belfort but one thing is for sure, he knew how to pull off one of the biggest scams in the history of Wall Street and he knew how to do it well. At the peak of his success with Stratton-Oakmont, he was making well over $50 million in a single year. One of the biggest financial runs that he made in his career was when he pulled in $12 million in only three minutes. That’s right, in the time that it would take you to heat two hot pockets, Jordan Belfort made more money than most of us will ever see in our entire lifetime.

10. He Made Love On A Pile Of Cash

Via Playbuzz.com

Let’s be honest here, most of us would end up doing something like this if given the opportunity and the amount of money Jordan Belfort was making in his prime. According to his confession, he laid down $3 million cash in $10,000 stacks of notes and then proceeded to make some sweet love to his then wife, Nadine Macaluso. We’re pretty sure this gave Belfort a lifetime of bragging rights but making love atop crispy bills, while it sounds great, actually completely sucks. Margot Robbie who played Belfort’s wife and had to reenact the scene had a word of caution for anyone attempting such an act.” I got a million paper cuts on my back from all that money! It’s not as glamorous as it sounds,” she shared. “If anyone is ever planning on having sex on top of a pile of cash: don’t.”

9. His Drug Of Choice Were Quaaludes

Via Vice.com

There is a lot of emphasis on drugs in the film and it is a fact that Jordan Belfort absolutely loved them. His daily intake consisted of an unholy combination of morphine, marijuana, cocaine, Xanax, alcohol and his all-time favourites, the Quaaludes. They are a powerful sedative which was made illegal in the mid-1980’s, also now famous as the pill Bill Cosby would use to drug unsuspecting women. Belfort consumed these for the absolute fun and joy they brought apparently, making him lose it completely on occasions. It seems like when you become addicted to the high of making gross amounts of money, you’ll do anything, like inhaling all kinds of drugs, to keep the high from going away.

8. He Made His Secretary Buy Quaaludes For Him

Via Evoke.ie

We’re all aware of how much Jordan Belfort loved his drugs, especially the Quaaludes. During a trip to London, he had exhausted his stash of these magic pills and was in desperate need of a hit. While this may sound crazy, he ended up calling his secretary back in New York City at 4 A.M. to help him out with the little drug problem he was having. She immediately arranged a package of Quaaludes and sent them out to London via a Concorde which was the fastest commercial jet airliner at the time and cost a fortune to use. This goes on to show the number of crazy things that can be achieved with money and power.

7. He Actually Sank His Yacht

Via YouTube.com

One of the most memorable scenes in the film was the sinking of Belfort’s yacht which was named after his wife Nadine. This 167-foot vessel had previously been the host to numerous wild office parties. In 1996, Belfort decided to travel across the extremely rough waters of the Mediterranean Sea and ordered the captain to power through the storm despite his protests against it. This proved to be a terrible decision because the yacht capsized during the storm and sank off the coast of Italy. No one was injured though since all the passengers and crew were saved by the Italian navy.

6. He Mostly Resorted To Violence

Via Nypost.com

Drugs have a tendency to ruin perfectly good marriages, those and a combination of other bad habits. Nadine Macaluso, formerly Nadine Belfort was the real-life ex-wife of Jordan Belfort who didn’t really have the most amazing marriage in the world. She seemingly broke up Belfort’s “happy” marriage so she could have a better life herself but what she wasn’t aware of was that her husband was a crook who enjoyed drugs and other women. Proof of their toxic and unstable marriage can be derived from one event during which Belfort, while high on drugs had an argument with his wife and proceeded to kick her so hard that she fell down the stairs. He then attempted to leave with his daughter, tossing her into his sports car and literally speeding through the gate before crashing into a pole on his property.

5. Chimps Were Never Brought To Stratton Oakmont

Via Wikimedia.org

Among the many notable scenes in the film, there is one where Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort is walking around the Stratton-Oakmont office while carrying a chimpanzee. This never actually happened and the entire scene was there to serve more as a metaphor and show just how crazy and wild the company was. “There was never a chimpanzee in the office. There were no animals in the office…I would also never abuse an animal in any way”, said Danny Porush (Donny as we know him from the film). Danny did, however, eat a real goldfish to prove a point to one of his employees.

4. He Snitched On Everybody

Via Zimbio.com

During the film, we witness a scene when Jordan Belfort wears a wire and he tries his best to avoid implicating his friends by passing them notes about the fact that their conversation is being recorded. While this may seem like an admirable thing to do, the scene was strictly put together for the movie. What happened, in reality, was that Belfort snitched on every single person who was involved in the scheme and in exchange for this he was given a reduced sentence. Hey, when the FBI comes knocking you better be ready to snitch because…well you’re a crook anyway so who cares.

3. His Sentence Wasn’t That Harsh

Via CNBC.com

One would assume that after scamming so many innocent people of their hard-earned money, Jordan Belfort would’ve had a strict and harsh punishment. He was expected to spend 4 years in prison but he ended up reducing his sentence down to a mere 22-months after a plea deal. After spending a short period in solitary, he was moved to a “low-security work camp” which had all the basic necessities a criminal would need, like tennis courts and libraries. In short, it was a small vacation for Belfort which was paid for by your tax dollars. And then of course he had a huge movie made about him starring Leonardo DiCaprio so it doesn’t get more glamorous than that.

2. He Is Currently A Motivational Speaker

Via Asiaone.com

Jordan Belfort was known for his invigorating speeches at Stratton-Oakmont to his employees to get them riled up for work and boy was he good at it. He still didn’t lose the charm after getting out of prison and became a motivational speaker. Many people shell out as much as $400 per seat to hear him talk and say some of his famous quotes like, “Sell me this pen,” and “Playing it safe and taking no risks is a shortcut to poverty”. Whether you believe it or not but some of the wise stuff that Belfort bestows upon the groups of would-be businessmen makes sense and it might end up motivating you as well.

1. He Makes More Money Now Than He Ever Did

Via THR.com

As we stated earlier in the article that Belfort made almost $110 million during his scam and at one point was even making $49 million a year. Ever since being released from prison, he has made his living as a motivational speaker, author and from the movie rights. He was on his way to make an estimated $100 million in 2014 which is double the amount of what he used to make back in the 90s. Belfort also gets paid somewhere between $30,000 to $80,000 for every motivational speech that he gives, turning it into a hefty sum when you consider the fact that he does about 45 tour dates a year.

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Meet the Real Wolf of Wall Street Superyacht Built for Coco Chanel

The yachting disaster is one of the most dramatic scenes in Martin Scorsese’s blockbuster The Wolf of Wall Street , and like many of the tales in the Leonardo DiCaprio flick, it’s based on a true story. In real life, predatory tycoon Jordan Belfort bought a yacht in 1993 called Big Eagle and renamed her Nadine , after his English-born second wife. The vessel had been built in 1961 by Witsen & Vis in Holland for fashion icon Coco Chanel, but had undergone many transformations by the time Belfort got his mitts on it. Originally 121 feet long, in the 1970s she was extended by nearly 15 feet, and in 1988 she was cut in half and had another 29-foot section grafted on, finally totaling 167 feet.

The luxury yacht used in Scorsese’s film actually bears little resemblance to the  Nadine , being a far more modern vessel. The director hired the 148-foot  Lady M , built by Intermarine Savannah in 2002 and refit in 2011, for filming. It features luxury accommodations for 10 guests, and a marble and granite interior with gold accents.

In Coco Chanel’s day the yacht was mainly used to cruise from Monaco to Deauville for the summer horse racing season. The real  Nadine  sank in 1997 during a storm off the east coast of Sardinia while crossing from Porto Cervo to Capri, much as the movie depicts. Belfort has said that his insistence on sailing in a storm caused the yacht to capsize. Luckily, everyone on board at the time was rescued by the Italian coast guard. 

Jared Paul Stern

Jared Paul Stern, JustLuxe's Editor-at-Large, is the Executive Editor of Maxim magazine and has written for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, the New York Times' T magazine, GQ, WWD, Vogue, New York magazine, Details, Hamptons magazine, Playboy, BlackBook, the New York Post, Man of the World, and Bergdorf Goodman magazine among others. The founding editor of the Page Six magazine, he has al... (Read More)

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The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Did jordan belfort really meet his future business partner in a restaurant.

What was the name of Belfort's brokerage house?

The Wolf of Wall Street true story confirms that, like in the movie, Stratton Oakmont was the name of the real Jordan Belfort's Long Island, New York brokerage house. Belfort and co-founder Danny Porush (played by Jonah Hill in the movie) chose the name because it sounded prestigious ( NYTimes.com ). The firm would later be accused of manipulating the IPOs of at least 34 companies, including Steve Madden Ltd. (their biggest deal), Dualstar Technologies, Paramount Financial, D.V.I. Financial, M. H. Meyerson & Co., Czech Industries, M.V.S.I. Technology, Questron Technologies, and Etel Communications.

What exactly did Jordan Belfort do that was illegal?

Belfort's Stratton Oakmont brokerage firm ran a classic "pump and dump" operation. Belfort and several of his executives would buy up a particular company's stock and then have an army of brokers (following a script he had prepared) sell it to unsuspecting investors. This would cause the stock to rise, pretty much guaranteeing Belfort and his associates a substantial profit. Soon, the stock would fall back to reality, with the investors bearing a significant loss. -NYTimes.com

How many employees worked for Jordan Belfort's brokerage firm?

At its peak in the 1990s, Stratton Oakmont, Belfort's firm that he co-founded with Danny Porush, employed more than 1,000 brokers. -TheDailyBeast.com

Danny Porush says the movie's dwarf-tossing scene (above) never happened. Even Belfort's book only discusses it as a possibility. Did Jordan Belfort really host an in-office dwarf-tossing competition?

No. "We never abused [or threw] the midgets in the office; we were friendly to them," Danny Porush (the real Donnie Azoff) says. "There was no physical abuse." Porush does admit that the firm hired little people to attend at least one party. Jordan Belfort's memoir The Wolf of Wall Street only discusses the tossing of little people as a possibility, not something that actually happened. -MotherJones.com

During what years did the events in the movie take place?

The events in The Wolf of Wall Street movie took place during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Jordan Belfort and Danny Porush founded the brokerage firm of Stratton Oakmont in the late 1980s. The securities fraud and money laundering charges brought against the firm involved companies that Stratton Oakmont helped raise money for in public stock offerings from 1990 through 1997. In 1996, Stratton Oakmont was banned from the brokerage industry, which eventually forced the company to close its doors. -NYTimes.com

Was Jordan Belfort really known as the "wolf" of Wall Street?

No, at least not according to the former co-founder and president of the Stratton Oakmont brokerage firm, Danny Porush (portrayed by Jonah Hill in the movie). The real Porush says that he is not aware of anyone at the firm calling Jordan the "wolf." Porush says that it's just one of a number of exaggerations and inventions in both Belfort's book and the movie. -MotherJones.com

Is Matthew McConaughey's character, Mark Hanna, based on a real person?

Yes. In exploring The Wolf of Wall Street true story, we learned that Jordan Belfort claims to have met Matthew McConaughey's character's real-life counterpart, Mark Hanna, in 1987 when he was working at the old-money trading firm of L.F. Rothschild. His new acquaintance was an uproarious senior broker at the firm and introduced Belfort to the excess and debauchery that Belfort would later make a daily staple at Stratton Oakmont. Like in the movie, the real Mark Hanna behind McConaughey's character told Belfort that the key to success was masturbation, cocaine and hookers, in addition to making your customers reinvest their winnings so you can collect the commissions. -TheDailyBeast.com

Did Jordan Belfort really abuse cocaine and other drugs?

Yes. In The Wolf of Wall Street movie, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is shown snorting cocaine off a prostitute's backside and nearly crashing his private helicopter while high on a cocktail of prescription drugs, including Quaaludes, morphine and Xanax. In researching The Wolf of Wall Street true story, it quickly became clear that Belfort used drugs heavily in real life too. In his memoir, he states that at times he had enough "running through my circulatory system to sedate Guatemala."

Jordan Belfort did give speeches like DiCaprio in the movie (left). Right: The real Belfort speaks at a 1994 Stratton Oakmont Christmas party (right). Did Belfort really stand in front of his employees and give riling speeches with a microphone?

Yes. Belfort was known to stir his troops into action by belting out words of motivation through a microphone. However, his speeches were often filled with more self-adulation than DiCaprio's speeches in the movie.

Did a female employee really let them shave her head for $10,000 to pay for breast implants?

The real Jordan Belfort claims this is true in his memoir. The female employee let them shave off her blonde hair for $10,000, which she used to pay for D-cup breast implants. Co-founder Danny Porush also says that the shaving took place, "...the worst we ever did was shave somebody's head and then pay 'em ten grand for it," says Porush. -MotherJones.com

Was Jordan Belfort's Quaalude dealer in the movie, Brad Bodnick (Jon Bernthal), based on a real person?

Yes. The character in the movie, Brad Bodnick, who has a goatee and is portrayed by The Walking Dead 's Jon Bernthal, is based on Jordan Belfort's real-life Quaalude supplier, Todd Garret. In his memoir, the real Jordan Belfort claims that Garret sold him approximately 10,000 Quaaludes.

Was there ever a chimpanzee in the office?

No. According to co-founder Danny Porush (played by Jonah Hill in the movie), the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio's character pals around with a chimp is pure monkey business. "There was never a chimpanzee in the office," says Porush. "There were no animals in the office...I would also never abuse an animal in any way" (though he does admit to eating the goldfish, see below). -MotherJones.com

Did he really almost crash his helicopter in his yard?

Did Danny Porush really marry his own first cousin?

Yes. According to Jordan Belfort's memoir, the real Donnie Azoff (whose actual name is Danny Porush) did marry his first cousin Nancy "because she was a real piece of ass." After twelve years of marriage, the couple divorced in 1998 after Danny told Nancy that he was in love with another woman ( NYPost.com ). Danny and his ex-wife share three children together.

Did Belfort and his colleagues really have drug-addled nights and sexcapades with prostitutes on a near daily basis?

Though the movie and Belfort's memoir might seem like gross exaggerations of the truth, depicting heavy drug use and sexcapades in the office during trading hours, they're not exaggerations at all says the F.B.I. agent who finally took Belfort into custody, "I tracked this guy for ten years, and everything he wrote is true." Kyle Chandler portrays the agent in the Martin Scorsese movie. -NYTimes.com

Was Belfort really arrested for crashing his Lamborghini while high on expired Quaaludes?

Yes, but according to Belfort the car wasn't a Lamborghini like in the movie, it was a Mercedes. He was so high in a drug daze that he couldn't remember causing several different accidents as he tried to make his way home. In real life, one of the accidents was a head-on collision that actually sent a woman to the hospital. -TheDailyBeast.com

The real Donnie Azoff, Daniel Porush, says that he really did swallow a goldfish like Jonah Hill (pictured). Did Danny Porush really swallow a goldfish?

Yes. According to the real Donnie Azoff, whose actual name is Danny Porush, the scene where Jonah Hill's character eats a goldfish is based on a true story. "I said to one of the brokers, 'If you don't do more business, I'm gonna eat your goldfish!'" Porush recalls. "So I did." -MotherJones.com

Did they really tape money to a woman's body?

In one scene of The Wolf of Wall Street movie, bricks of cash are taped to a Swiss woman's body. "[I] never taped money to boobs," the real Danny Porush says (played by Jonah Hill in the movie). According to Jordan Belfort's memoir, the event did happen but his partner Porush wasn't there. -MotherJones.com

Was footwear mogul Steve Madden really involved in Belfort's scheme?

Yes. As shown in The Wolf of Wall Street movie, Steve Madden had been a childhood friend of Belfort's partner Danny Porush (renamed Donnie Azoff in the movie and portrayed by actor Jonah Hill). Their fondness for drugs and alcohol reunited the two of them. During the initial public offering of his footwear company, Steve Madden Ltd., Madden acquired a large number of shares of his company, which were actually being controlled by Belfort and his firm, Stratton Oakmont. Once shares became available to the public, Stratton Oakmont got down to the business of selling them to unsuspecting suckers. Billing Madden's company as the hottest issue on Wall Street, Belfort's brokers in turn drove up the price. Eventually, Steve Madden was to sell off his shares when the hype was at its peak, just before the stock began its inevitable decline. Similar to what is seen in the movie, Belfort still maintains that Steve Madden tried to steal his Steve Madden shares from him. However, Jordan Belfort did make approximately $23 million in two hours as part of the deal with Steve Madden, who would later be charged as an accomplice to Belfort's scheme. -NYTimes.com For his part, Steve Madden was sentenced to 41 months in prison and was forced to resign as CEO of Steve Madden Ltd. He also resigned from the company's board of directors. However, he did not leave the company entirely. He kept his foot (or shoe) in the door by giving himself the title of creative consultant, for which he was well-compensated even while he was in prison. -Slate.com

Did Jordan Belfort really name his yacht after his wife?

Did Belfort's yacht really sink in a Mediterranean storm?

Yes. In real life, Belfort's 167-foot yacht, which was originally owned by Coco Chanel, sunk off the coast of Italy when Belfort, who was high on drugs at the time, insisted that the captain take the boat through a storm ( TheDailyBeast.com ). Listen to Belfort tell the story during The Room Live 's Jordan Belfort interview . As he states in the interview, his helicopter didn't fall off the boat during the storm like in the movie. Instead, they had to push the helicopter off of the top deck of the boat to make room for the rescue chopper to drop down an Italian Navy commando.

How long did FBI agent Gregory Coleman spend tracking Jordan Belfort and his firm?

FBI agent Gregory Coleman, renamed Patrick Denham for the film and portrayed by actor Kyle Chandler, made tracking Belfort and his firm, Stratton Oakmont, a top priority for six years. In an interview ( watch here ), Coleman says that the factors that drew his attention to the firm were "the flashiness, the brashness of their activities, the blatantness of the way they were soliciting people and cold calling people, and the number of victims that were complaining on a daily basis." -CNBC

Did Jordan really strike his wife?

Yes. The Wolf of Wall Street movie shows Jordan (Leonardo DiCaprio) hitting his wife (Margot Robbie) with his hand and fist. According to his memoir, he actually kicked his wife Nadine down the stairs while he was holding his daughter. She landed on her right side with "tremendous force."

Did Belfort really endanger his 3-year-old daughter's life by crashing his car through the garage door?

Yes. In real life, he put his daughter Chandler in the front seat of the car without a seat belt on, before crashing it through the garage door and then driving full speed into a six-foot-high limestone pillar at the edge of the driveway. Like in the movie, he was high at the time.

Tommy Chong was Jordan Belfort's cellmate in prison and encouraged him to write the book. What was Jordan Belfort's punishment?

When he was finally arrested in 1998 for money laundering and securities fraud, Jordan Belfort was sentenced to four years in prison. This was after agreeing to wear a wire and provide the FBI with information to help prosecute various friends and associates. In the end, the true story reveals that he served only 22 months in a California federal prison. His cellmate in prison was Tommy Chong of "Cheech and Chong" fame, who was serving a nine month sentence for selling bongs. -TheDailyBeast.com

What inspired Jordan Belfort to write his memoir?

It wasn't so much a what as it was a who. Tommy Chong (one half of "Cheech and Chong") was Jordan Belfort's cellmate in prison. After laughing at some of Belfort's stories from his days running the firm, Chong encouraged him to write a book. -TheDailyBeast.com

Why is Jordan Belfort's memoir filled with so many exclamations?

Jordan Belfort attempted to model his writing after Hunter S. Thompson ( Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ), who was known for using plenty of exclamation points.

What happened to Belfort's partner, Danny Porush, portrayed by Jonah Hill in the movie?

Danny Porush, renamed Donnie Azoff for the movie and played by actor Jonah Hill, served 39 months in prison for his part in the corrupt dealings of Stratton Oakmont, the firm that he co-founded with Jordan Belfort. Porush currently runs a medical supply business in Florida, where he lives with his second wife Lisa in a $4 million mansion. A 2008 Forbes article pointed out his company's fraudulent tactics, which included trying to persuade people to order diabetic supplies and getting them to provide information about their physicians that could be used to bill Medicare. A number of complaints surfaced accusing Porush's company of sending unsolicited packages that were accompanied by unexpected Medicare charges. Back in 2001, Porush was arrested in connection to a fraud scheme surrounding Noble & Perrault Collectibles, a company that sold commemorative coins over the phone. Victims saw their credit cards charged repeatedly, at times for thousands of dollars, while often never receiving any merchandise for purchases that were largely unauthorized to begin with. -Sun Sentinel Enjoying a well-to-do life in Florida, Daniel Porush and his wife drive matching Rolls-Royce Corniche convertibles. With regard to The Wolf of Wall Street movie, Porush said, "I really have no comment other than to say I would never try to profit from a crime I'm so remorseful for." -NYPost.com

I heard that Jordan Belfort is a motivational speaker, is that true?

How much did Jordan Belfort earn from his books and the movie?

Catching the Wolf of Wall Street includes more of Belfort's outrageous stories that were not included in his first book. As we investigated The Wolf of Wall Street true story, we discovered that Jordan's books, The Wolf of Wall Street and Catching the Wolf of Wall Street , netted him a $1 million advance from Random House. He also earned $1 million for the film rights to his story ( TheDailyBeast.com ). In a response to criticism over these profits and future profits from the movie, Jordan Belfort said the following via his Facebook page, "I am not turning over 50% of the profits of the books and the movie, which was what the government had wanted me to do. Instead, I insisted on turning over 100% of the profits of both books and the movie, which is to say, I am not making a single dime on any of this." According to Jordan, the money is being used to pay back the millions still owed to those who were scammed by his brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont.

Does Jordan Belfort have a cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street movie?

Yes, the real Jordan Belfort appears at the end of the movie as the person who introduces Leonardo DiCaprio's character before he takes the stage at his Straight Line seminar.

Have any other movies been based on Jordan Belfort's story?

Yes, but only loosely. The brokerage firm in the movie Boiler Room , released in 2000, was inspired by the illegal practices of Jordan Belfort's Stratton Oakmont firm. In the movie, actor Ben Affleck portrays Jim Young, the Belfort-esque co-founder of the firm, who, like Jordan Belfort, trains his brokers in the "pump and dump" scheme. -NYTimes.com

Watch The Wolf of Wall Street movie trailer. Also, view Jordan Belfort interviews and home video footage of him speaking at a Stratton Oakmont party in the 1990s.

• Jordan Belfort's Website
• Danny Porush's Website (played by Jonah Hill)
• Mark Hanna's Website (played by Matthew McConaughey)
• The Wolf of Wall Street Official Paramount Movie Site

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The true story of Wolf Of Wall Street’s yacht ‘Nadine’

Jordan Belfort’s antics are so legendary that sinking a multi-million dollar yacht is just another act of depravity that Martin Scorsese manages to weave among The The wolf of Wall Street grotesque film adaptation. Those who know the wolf of Wall Street book will have read Belfort’s account about it in more detail, but the backstory of the superyacht Nadine is a lesser-known tale with unexpected twists.

Despite Jordan’s notoriety for unbridled bacchanalia, Nadine was sunk by natural forces far greater than even the fiercest drinking bout he could muster. In the middle of a pedestrianized Mediterranean cruise, a storm unexpectedly turned into a raging storm with high winds and huge swells to send the pride and joy of the wolf into Davey Jones’ locker.

In fact, this type of storm is so specific that it has its own name. The mistrals get their name from the winds that blow from the French Alps into the Mediterranean. This convection cycle is caused by warm air rising from African deserts and colder air from the Alps rushing through the void for sustained round trips of 12 to 40 hours. Nothing like a strong relentless wind to generate a dangerous swell. And the kicker? Mistrals are difficult to predict.

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En route from Riva de Travino to the island of Sardinia, off the west coast of Italy, what should have been a routine race (which usually takes around 7 hours) ended in the fiasco that International Yachts described as ‘Mayday in the Med.’

“When we set off,†said Captain Mark Elliot, “the forecast told us to expect wind and choppy but small seas. Knowing that this wouldn’t be an ideal crossing, the captain asked if the guests wanted to delay until the next morning. The answer was a definite ‘no’ as they were all eager to head to Sardinia for a round of golf the next morning. So, they cast off and set sail for another corner of paradise.

Hours later, the guests were enjoying the sunny afternoon weather of another dream day in the Mediterranean… when a rogue wave reached the bow and wheelhouse, inundating a hostess from head to toe. Immediately after this warning sign made contact, a transmission was received via radio warning of unexpected gale force winds in the area. The mistral had announced. The swell heights doubled, the winds intensified, and the shit became real.

However, before Belfort throws next-level parties aboard his elegant ship and charters it across the Mediterranean to Sardinia on that fateful day, Nadine had already lived many lives. In truth, the luxury yacht seen in The Wolf of Wall Street movie bears no resemblance to the period ship owned by Jordan Belfort. Scorsese hired a yacht called Lady M for these stages, which was originally built by Intermarine Savannah in 2002.

On the other hand, the real one Nadine (Where Mathilde as it was originally called), was built in 1961 and delivered by the Dutch shipyard Witsen & Vis for none other than fashion mogul Coco Chanel. At the time, Mathilde had five dark teak cabins, exceptional dining rooms and a helipad.

“At that time, it was the largest yacht on the East Coast,†recalls Captain Mark Elliot. “No one had ever seen anything like it.”

After Coco’s death in 1971 the yacht was renamed Jan Pamela by its new owner, Melvin Lane Powers. While not as decorated as his predecessor, Powers was a notorious and ostentatious Houston real estate developer known for wearing crocodile skin boots and driving a golden Cadillac after being acquitted of the murder of her lover’s husband. The New York Times described his 1966 trial as “one of the most spectacular homicide trials of all time.”

Powers ordered a huge refit and extension of the ship, but in 1983 it hit rock bottom and Jan Pamela was sold before being renamed Waterside . In 1989, it was Bernie Little’s luck, and he bought her sight without seeing her. She then underwent another refit, before becoming Great eagle under the command of Mark Elliot once again. In this form, she caught the attention of Jordan Belfort, who took possession of it in 1995. Of course, he had to undertake his own additions and renovations, before renaming the ship after his second wife, Nadine .

However, the reincarnation of this historic yacht as Nadine was to be short lived. After 35 years of leisure, sailing on the most beautiful coasts and welcoming the great names of the time, Mother Nature would have the last word.

Back in the Mediterranean, hours later, roaring gusts ripped the $ 100,000 tender from its tow lines. Captain Mark Elliot calls to abandon yacht, as turning point Nadine against the crashing waves would have courted disaster. Abandoning the course to try to outrun the mistral was out of the question for the same reasons. They are there now – every captain’s nightmare – with seventy knot winds and 35 foot ridges to negotiate.

Then, Nadine’s The moment of “perfect storm” pointed its formidable head. The huge wave crashes all over the ship, tearing off the hatches and deck fittings, triggering a death knell that can only end with a day of disaster. The remaining supply crashes into the dining room window, causing it to collapse wave after wave flooding the living room.

“I knew at that time that Nadine had received a fatal blow. Once I assessed the damage, I walked over to the deck and used the satellite phone to contact the Italian Coast Guard known as “Gruppo Marine Italian,†says Captain Elliot.

First aid stations. Guests are gathered in a secure central location and escorted one by one to their cabins to collect passports and any valuables that can fit in a small bag.

Half an hour later, a rescue helicopter attempts to bring down a diver to pick up guests. However, the gusts of wind turned out to be too violent, and after almost losing the said diver, the helicopter aborted. Imagine the heartbreaking feeling of those on board Nadine , as the Coast Guard abandon ship, defeated by the rampaging elements, and return to the safety of the coast as the sun sets below the horizon and night sets in.

Hurricane-force winds, severe flooding and a 15-meter-high sea are now pounding Italy’s shores in what will be known as the storm of the century. The situation is so tumultuous that when a large merchant ship attempts another rescue attempt a few hours later, it almost crashes in Nadine , before setting off again and again, abandoning the crew and the frenzied guests.

The liferafts are deployed as a precaution… until the roaring wind also tears them from the sea, leaving the crew completely stranded on board.

Below deck, the flooded kitchen has become an electrified death trap, and the chef and engineer receive jolts from the current before pulling the ass out of there to the (relative) safety above. It should be noted that this is probably around the time when a deranged and drenched Leo shouts at Jonah Hill with the unforgettable line: “Get the ludes downstairs!” I will not die sober! To have. The. Whore. Ludes! ”

Times of crisis. With no options left, Captain Elliot calls to throw the helicopter off the bridge to free up space for another rescue attempt. He unhooks the tie-downs and rolls the ship twenty degrees, throwing the expensive equipment overboard and into the Mediterranean, where its rusty skeleton undoubtedly lies to this day.

At around 5 a.m., the Coast Guard returned and began to hoist the guests, then the crew to safety in the reassuring light of dawn. The weather calmed down as the winds and waves calmed down, but the damage was done. The last to leave the ship he commanded for so many years, Mark Elliot takes stock of the wreck before finally accepting his loss, closing the engine room controls and seizing the buoy rescue package handed to him by the coast guard.

Nadine is swallowed up by the sea, just ten minutes after Captain Elliot left his decks.

While all the guests and the crew of 11 survive, the prestigious motor yacht and its collection of toys (including eight jet skis, four motorcycles, snorkeling gear, a helicopter and a seaplane) sink into the deep end. at the bottom of the Mediterranean, over 1000 m deep. the water.

“The insurance paid off immediately because it was the storm of the century,†said Captain Elliot.

Back on dry land, Mark Elliot was hailed as a hero after showing courage and leadership in such a dire situation. He was then offered command of Bernie Little’s famous yacht Vessel , and today works as a broker in Miami as one of the most experienced and capable men in the business.

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15 Wild Facts You Didn't Know About Jordan Belfort, The Wolf Of Wall Street

Talk about bad behavior.

Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Jordan Belfort’s memoir, The Wolf of Wall Street , may seem like a wild tale of excess wealth and bad behavior. And, uh, it is. But that doesn’t mean everything in it is true, or the whole story. If you watched The Wolf of Wall Street and thought, “This would never happen in real life,” buckle up, because these facts about Jordan Belfort are something else.

At times, the film makes The Hangover look like nothing more than a high school party. Between cocaine-fueled parties in the office and international financial crime, the movie does not give a single f*ck (of which, by the way, there are a lot in the dialogue itself ) about being sympathetic or moral.

But in Jordan Belfort’s memoir, titled — of course — The Wolf of Wall Street, things are even more wild, not to mention detailed. As a successful stockbroker con-artist in the 1990s, Belfort’s memoirs display the “profit-over-all” culture of Wall Street, portraying the lifestyle in all of its “depraved glory.” And Belfort didn’t hold back on the debauchery and bad behavior of his time drugged out and taking money. In fact, he revels in sharing things like how a friend electrocuted himself to save drugs from a sinking ship, or details of all the sex that happened in his office.

Of course, he also starts the memoir by admitting that it’s all based on his “best recollections” — which, considering a lot of the book is about how he was stoned out of his mind, means we should probably take some things with a grain of salt. But if you want to believe, I can’t blame you. For your reading pleasure, here are 15 wild facts about Jordan Belfort’s actual life and career, all according to his memoir.

1. Belfort once generated a $700,000 hotel bill.

According to his memoir, aka the book the movie is based on , he ran up the giant bill in Italy after being rescued when his yacht went down. (In his own words, “It wasn’t as bad as it seemed, though, because the bill included a $300,000 gold bangle studded with rubies and emeralds.”

2. One office junior agreed to have her hair shaved off on the trading floor in return for $10,000.

In his memoir, Belfort says the woman put on a bikini and let them shave her whole head in a “win-win” that let her pay off the debt for her boob job.

3. Belfort’s drug of choice was Quaaludes.

But if you saw the movie — did you really need someone to tell you that?

4. He confessed to making love to his wife on $3 million in $10,000 stacks of notes.

5. he once landed his helicopter on his back lawn, flying with just one eye open because he was so stoned he had double vision., 6. he sank his 167-foot motor yacht, complete with seaplane and helicopter, after overruling the captain and taking it into a mediterranean storm..

This was right before he ran up that $700,000 hotel bill.

7. He used his wife's sweet old aunt as a mule, helping him smuggle money out of the United States.

The real Jordan Belfort, aka the Wolf of Wall Street

8. He used his first Wall Street million to buy a white Ferrari because Don Johnson had one.

9. he woke up his secretary at 4 a.m. because he was in london and ran out of drugs. an emergency supply was immediately sent out on a concorde jet., 10. he kicked his wife down a set of stairs in front of their young daughter, and then drove his car through his garage door with the little girl unbuckled in the front seat when she tried to stop him driving off., 11. he claims to have ingested enough drugs to "sedate guatemala.".

And was flying his helicopter during it.

12. He helped take Steve Madden, one of today's most iconic fashion companies, public.

13 he woke up from a drug-filled bender with the police at his door — they arrested him for causing seven different traffic accidents that he had no recollection of., 14. facing up to three decades in prison for securities fraud, he snitched — becoming a government witness supplying information against his co-workers., 15. perhaps the reason belfort still seems to have such fond memories of the days he was flying high and mighty with other people’s money is that he only had to serve 22 months in jail, and was ordered to pay back $110 million..

Of course, since his arrest and conviction on charges relating to securities fraud, Belfort seems to have… calmed down. As of 2021, he was marketing himself as a motivational speaker and sales trainer. If you want to keep up with him these days, he’s on Twitter — where his handle is, yes, @WolfofWallSt .

This article was originally published on 12.26.13

'Wolf of Wall Street' Jordan Belfort Lost a Fortune After His Scam Was Exposed; Here's His Net Worth

The Wolf's Den: Jordan Belfort's net worth chronicles

Jordan belfort's early life, motivational speaking and writing career, jordan belfort's luxurious yacht and its specifications, jordan belfort's rise to success, legal troubles, and the eventual downfall, what are jordan belfort's sources of income, jordan belfort's residence in new york, jordan belfort's financial journey and successful stock trading, lessons from jordan belfort's journey and impact of his story, buying and selling penny stocks, pump and dump scheme, earnings by year , social media following , personal life.

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Jordan Belfort's net worth is currently negative $100 million due to his involvement in fraudulent activities, particularly pump-and-dump schemes conducted through his financial firm, Stratton Oakmont, from 1989 to 1996. Belfort, a former stockbroker and author, defrauded victims of hundreds of millions of dollars, leading to his indictment for securities fraud and money laundering in 1999. Despite his negative net worth, he has reinvented himself as a motivational speaker, charging substantial fees for speaking engagements and seminars.

Jordan Ross Belfort was born in The Bronx, New York, on July 9, 1962. Raised in Bayside, Queens, he initially pursued a career in dentistry but left after one day of classes. Belfort entered the finance world and, after facing setbacks, founded Stratton Oakmont in the early 1990s. Convicted of securities fraud and money laundering in 1999, he served 22 months in prison.

Post-release, Belfort became a motivational speaker through his company, Global Motivation, Inc. He emphasizes the importance of ethics and learning from mistakes in business. Additionally, Belfort is a published author, with memoirs like "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "Catching the Wolf of Wall Street," the former adapted into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

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Belfort owned the luxury yacht "Nadine," built in 1961 for Coco Chanel. Renamed after his second wife, the yacht sank off the coast of Sardinia in June 1996. Belfort admitted to insisting on sailing in high winds against the captain's advice, leading to the vessel's demise. The Italian Navy's special forces rescued all aboard.

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Belfort's rise to success involved founding Stratton Oakmont in the early 1990s, orchestrating pump-and-dump schemes that defrauded investors of hundreds of millions. Legal troubles ensued, and in 1999, he was indicted for securities fraud and money laundering. Belfort's cooperation with the FBI led to a reduced sentence of 22 months in prison. His firm was expelled from the National Association of Securities Dealers in 1996, marking its downfall.

Jordan Belfort's notorious journey towards financial crime started when he founded the firm Stratton Oakmont in 1989. This firm orchestrated elaborate pump-and-dump schemes, through which it defrauded unsuspecting victims of hundreds of millions of dollars. Belfort's primary source of income during this period were the ill-gotten gains from these schemes, which he used to fund a lavish lifestyle.

Belfort's former residence in Long Island, New York, was seized by the federal government in 2001 and sold to compensate fraud victims. The property, initially listed for $3.4 million in 2017, faced price reductions, with the latest known price at $2.89 million in August 2018.

Jordan Belfort's financial journey involved early ventures, including door-to-door meat and seafood sales. Despite bankruptcy at 25, he became a stockbroker, eventually founding Stratton Oakmont. His success was marred by fraudulent practices, resulting in legal consequences and a negative net worth. Belfort has written about his experiences and developed a system of sales advice called the "Straight Line System."

Jordan Belfort's story serves as a cautionary tale about the consequences of financial fraud. Aspiring entrepreneurs can learn from his mistakes, emphasizing the importance of ethical business practices. Belfort's transformation into a motivational speaker and author reflects the possibility of redemption and personal growth after facing legal and financial setbacks.

          View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Jordan Belfort (@wolfofwallst)

Jordan Belfort, the former stockbroker, was involved in fraudulent activities related to penny stocks through his financial firm, Stratton Oakmont. The firm engaged in pump-and-dump schemes, defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Belfort's involvement in such schemes led to his indictment for securities fraud and money laundering in 1999.

Stratton Oakmont, founded by Jordan Belfort, orchestrated pump-and-dump schemes as part of its fraudulent activities. The firm manipulated stock prices, leading to inflated values that benefited Belfort and his associates. This scheme defrauded investors, and Belfort eventually faced legal consequences, serving 22 months in prison and being ordered to pay $110 million in restitution.

Jordan Belfort's personal life has been marked by turmoil. He married Denise Lombardo in 1985, but their marriage ended in 1991. His second marriage, to British-born model Nadine Caridi in 1991, produced two children but ended in divorce in 2005 after allegations of domestic violence. Belfort later married Anne Koppe in 2008, divorced her in 2020, and began dating Cristina Invernizzi in 2021.

Jordan Belfort graduated from American University with a degree in biology. Initially planning to attend dental school, he changed his path after a discouraging speech by the dental school dean. Belfort's career took a different turn when he became a door-to-door meat and seafood salesman before entering the world of finance.

Why is Jordan Belfort's net worth in minus?

Jordan Belfort's net worth is negative $100 million because of his involvement in fraudulent activities.

How accurate is Wolf Of Wall Street?

While "The Wolf of Wall Street" is based on Jordan Belfort's memoir, it takes creative liberties and exaggerates some events.

Did Jordan Belfort lose his money?

Yes, Jordan Belfort lost a significant amount of money due to legal consequences from his fraudulent activities. He was ordered to pay $110 million in restitution to his victims.

How did Jordan Belfort build his net worth?

Jordan Belfort initially built his net worth through fraudulent activities as the founder of Stratton Oakmont, a financial firm engaged in pump-and-dump scheme.

How has Jordan Belfort spent his money?

Jordan Belfort spent his money on a lavish lifestyle, including buying a white Ferrari with his first Wall Street bonus, sinking a 167-foot yacht in a Mediterranean storm, running up a $700,000 hotel bill, and engaging in extravagant activities.

How do people live with a negative net worth?

Individuals with a negative net worth, like Jordan Belfort, may face financial challenges, including difficulties in repaying debts and meeting financial obligations.

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Wolf of Wall Street's Jordan Belfort: 'The lessons of the crash have been forgotten'

The convicted fraudster who inspired Martin Scorsese’s film of Wall Street excess is back with a new book and a warning that a big market correction is on the way

T he Wolf of Wall Street forgives but he never forgets. Ten years ago when I last met Jordan Belfort, convicted criminal, aspiring author and shortly to be a man at the center of a fierce bidding war for his biography, I suggested his hair was “the sort of dark brown that only passes for natural in LA”. Also his skin was a little too taut and maybe he wore lifts.

A decade on the 55-year-old still looks 10 years younger than his age. And his hair is still a rich mahogany. But he’s keen to point out it’s all natural. “I swear to God,” he says. “Do I dye my hair?” he asks Anne Koppe, his partner, as they sit in their Manhattan hotel suite.

Koppe – the sort of blonde who probably gets described as “willowy” and spends part of the interview curled round Belfort like a cat – points at his chest hair, peaking out from his polo shirt. That’s definitely brown. “It’s all an expensive dye job,” I say. The couple laugh. “You’re killing me,” he says.

Back in his native New York for a family visit Belfort seems very happy. It’s over 11 years since he was released from jail having served four years for running a “pump and dump” share selling scheme at his broker, Stratton Oakmont, that prosecutors said led to losses of approximately $200m. Life has moved on for him, and how.

His drug-fueled crime spree, in which he crashed a helicopter (while high on quaaludes), sank a yacht and arranged midget-tossing in his office, was turned into a film by Martin Scorsese starring Leonardo DiCaprio , that became an international box office hit.

He remains friends with DiCaprio. He taught the actor, who has never done drugs, how to act when he was portraying the scenes of Belfort out of his mind on his usual cocktails of narcotics. It was: “Valium for breakfast, marijuana for lunch and quaaludes for dinner,” one of his associates said.

Now he has another book out, Way of the Wolf , that promises to teach anyone how to be an ace – and ethical – salesman, and is in the early stages of turning his life story into a Broadway musical. Crime does pay!

Belfort, 20 years sober, lives a charmed life. It took almost seven years for the film to be made after it was optioned and even that delay worked in his favor. The script originally ended with Belfort in jail. By the time it was made, Belfort had rebuilt his business, giving seminars about his “straight line” sales techniques and the film ended with him giving one of those talks. It was “amazing” he says. “In a way the fact it was so late really worked.”

Now living in Los Angeles, Belfort says he leads a quiet life. “We are very boring,” he says. “All these delivery services, Doordash, Grubhub. They make it too easy to stay home and have bed picnics. That’s our favorite thing to do.”

But the bizarro world of the Wolf continues. The US government now owns the TV rights to his story (but not the Broadway ones) after the film’s producers, Red Granite Pictures, reached an agreement with federal prosecutors looking to recoup some of the billions they claim were stolen from the Malaysian government and used, in part, to finance the film.

Belfort says he had a strange feeling about those investors from the start. “The way they spent money, I have never seen anything like it,” he says. The Malaysian investors flew Kanye West out for the film’s launch party. When you steal money, he says, you just want to spend it. “It’s like a weird compulsion,” says a man who should know.

For his own part, Belfort says the high-spending days are over. He wants to pay back Stratton’s investors (he’s already paid about $20m) and get on with his life. But his celebrity – and his past – do get in the way.

All the harping on the past can be a bit annoying. “The movie came out a few years back but it depicts events from my life almost 30 years ago. I’m not the same Jordan Belfort. I continue to pay back money and I am hopeful that I will pay back all the money. It’s frustrating because you want to reinvent yourself and you feel you have. And he knows your past is always there.”

The book, he says smoothly moving into sales pitch mode, is about that. “It’s really about a strategy for coming back from failure,” he says.

“I should have written this book a long time ago,” he says. The problem is he hates writing. Anne shows me a video of him typing away in bed (they clearly spend a lot of time there). He holds the laptop in one hand and types one finger at a time. “Even better,” he says out loud in the video. “Better yet. Better though.” He pauses. “Once you’ve been. Once you HAVE been …” It goes on and on and looks excruciating. Anne says it helped him sleep. A lot.

But the result is fun, with more insights from the world of Stratton Oakmont and allusions to The Italian Job and Forrest Gump. It’s the sort of easy read that will no doubt fly off the bookshelves at airports around the world. It’s not just for sales people, he says. Everyone is always selling themselves. “There are so many people out there who are brilliant, hardworking and industrious but lack the art of persuasion,” he says. “And because of that they end up dying with their music on their lips. It’s crazy.”

If he wants to make the switch from villain to hero, there are others to take his place. In the pantheon of Wall Street villains Belfort has been eclipsed by Martin Shkreli, the “pharma bro” who hiked the price of a lifesaving drug 5,000% and is now in jail after calling on his Facebook fans to steal a lock of Hillary Clinton’s hair . “There has got to be something wrong with that guy,” says Belfort. “Is he crazy?”

But it’s not the players, it’s the bigger picture on Wall Street that worries him these days. He says bitcoin is a bubble waiting to burst. “It’s artificially created scarcity,” he says. “The problem I have with bitcoin right now is that it’s very much like at the tail end of of 2007, 2008 right before the mortgage market blew up. You’d be getting your haircut and he’d be like: ‘Oh yeah I also do mortgages on the side.’ Everybody was a broker. Everyone’s flipping houses. Now everyone’s buying bitcoin. I promise you the end is near.”

He also thinks that the stock markets – which seem to reach record highs on a daily basis – are in for a fall. “I think the lessons of the crash have been forgotten,” he says. “It feels like we are going back into a cycle of irrational exuberance. Like with Trump. How can the country be that unsure of him, how can we be that unsure of him and the markets be so high? If there is that much uncertainty then there is risk,” he says. “The market itself might not be linked to reality any more,” he says. “It’s the ‘greater fool theory’. If there is a greater fool that will buy it from me at a greater price then I did good.”

Something is off and there is going to be a big correction, he says. “There is North Korea and yet … What are they going to do with the national debt? Something is going to happen.” Whatever it is, you get the feeling it’s going to work out just fine for the Wolf of Wall Street.

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