Posh rehab center lets you kick habit with celeb addicts
By Beth Teitell
Boston Herald Columnist
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Talk about perfect timing: Having recently accepted that I would not spend the whole summer - or a long weekend, even - at a Nantucket beachfront “cottage,” I started fantasizing about a fancy winter vacation, preferably someplace hot (both temperature and buzz-wise). So imagine my delight at the press release inviting me to “explore” Renaissance Malibu. Yes, that Malibu, as in celebrity swankerama. Heck, it could have been Sewerage Treatment Center Malibu and I’d still have been tickled.
And what could I “explore”? Patios overlooking the Pacific, spa rooms, tennis, massage, horseback riding. A freakin’ gazebo. Luxury bedding. Marble! I was about to check to see if it took Starwoods Hotel points, when I noticed a tiny catch. Rather than the jewel in the crown of the Renaissance hotel chain, this property is “the top luxury rehabilitation center serving major celebrities and the wealthy from around the world.”
Nuts. I’m not, technically, addicted to anything, except, now that I think about it, celebrity news, especially about about coke binges or alcoholic benders. I called the publicist. “Can I come?” I asked.
No.
Undeterred, I pressed on: “Do you take Starwoods points?”
“We’re a treatment center,” Richard Virgilio “explained,” giving the strained little laugh I imagine they teach at public relations school.
So why was Renaissance Malibu sending a press release to non-substance abusers anyway? If the center is so hot - and the press release boasted a waiting list - why bait the hook for publicity?
Well, guess what - it turns out that while celebrities are hip to Renaissance Malibu, “quite frankly, there are other high-worth individuals that might not be as familiar with it as they need to be.”
Sooooo . . . let me see . . . you want to take celeb luster, the same thing that sells perfume, clothing, diets, whatever, and use it to entice the rich and troubled into a detox center.
Virgilio didn’t agree. “People who are serious about rehab don’t need the celebrity endorsement,” he said.
“So you want to appeal to rehab dilettantes?”
“We want to appeal to anyone who wants to get better or be free of addiction.” And who has $40,000 to $70,000 to drop in a month and is eager to go into withdrawal along with . . . who?
Alas, Renaissance Malibu isn’t dishing, but the press release did offer this teaser to reporters: “You could . . .learn: where a sitcom star had his breakthrough and what was most fulfilling about his rehab experience at RM; feedback from an Oscar nominee about treatment at RM; why a ’90s singer still calls some of his therapists at RM.”
Uh, because no one else will take his calls?
But back to that waiting list. I had one more question for Virgilio: Can I get past the velvet rope if I know the bouncer?
