Hey weirdos, right now i'm recording because mikey won't let me watch weapons and i'm ash and i'm elena.
Are we gonna use that?
Yeah, all right, and this is morbid, This is horrible.
Here's the thing.
I'm super excited to record and tell you a story, but I also am apparently very late to the game.
But I want to see weapons.
I also want to see it.
Oh, you're late to the game, too.
I'm late as well.
But you know what?
I do have a very interesting story for you today.
Do ya?
And we'll get into it in a minute.
It's spooky season, and we usually, you know, we say this all the time.
We usually do spooky stuff.
We do hauntings.
We do all that kind of stuff.
But we wanted to make sure we gave you some true crime.
As well.
True crap.
Because it's important.
You know, it's part of our shtick.
It's part of our lore.
And this... This actually... This actually... Actually... This story is...
It's true crime, very much.
But it is fascinating.
I watched a movie.
I don't know how to describe it.
I need to look up the movie because I saw this.
I want to say I saw this on, like, Christmas Day.
Yeah, because I'm going to be talking about the kidnapping of J. Paul Getty III.
J. Paul.
Jean Paul Getty.
It is wild, like it's just a wild story when you halfway through it you're like really like, this is how it goes.
It's crazy.
It is a crazy story.
I saw all the money in the world.
Yeah, because that's basically like his grandfather is like the richest man in the world.
Yeah um, it was a really good movie, i wonder.
I didn't really know a lot about the actual case, like before watching the movie, so i do wonder how much of it is uh, pretty true.
It's probably mostly true, because the story itself sounds fake.
I remember it was a really good movie, but I was also like damn, this is really sad.
Did this happen?
Did I see it on Christmas?
What the fuck?
I might have.
I used to love me and my friend me and one of my old friends used to love going to the movies, like on Christmas night.
Oh, yeah.
Like after we celebrated.
That is always kind of fun.
It was right around Christmas.
It was December 8th.
Oh, look at that.
Didn't we see the purge on like Christmas?
No, we saw the purge on my birthday.
It was on your birthday.
Okay.
I didn't know if it was my birthday.
That was awesome.
Yeah, that was great.
I think we saw the original purge too.
We did.
Yeah.
I remember we both had a lot of anxiety in the theater.
Yes.
Because we were like, what if they purge the theater?
What if the purge happens while we're here?
No, I loved the original purge.
That's like an underrated banger.
It actually is.
I mean, I don't know how underrated it is, but I feel like now it is.
No, I agree with you.
We should cover that.
We haven't covered that on screen.
No.
The Purge is a little too real for me these days.
Yeah, I feel like the original Purge.
I think we're only like, we could do.
No, we could totally do.
It'll give me so much anxiety.
Yeah, I mean, it's supposed to.
But it's a great movie.
I want that thing where he presses the button and the thing comes down over his house.
Yeah, that's pretty sick.
Who do you call for that?
You call Ethan Hawke.
Does anybody have his number?
Joe Hill does.
Okay.
We're a few degrees away.
Joe.
Joe.
Steven.
Joe, you're obviously listening.
Joe Steve.
I really want to see – I know we're just doing our banter first.
No, people – I have to tell you, people have been loving the banter.
Oh, good.
I'm glad you guys are loving it, because I have like – an initial reaction is always like I'm sorry, I'm getting to it.
Don't flog me.
No.
I've seen so many – I know it's not like for everybody, but –
Also, it's what we originated with.
It's our roots.
It's in our DNA.
Banter is our roots.
Yeah.
So what were you going to say?
I want to see.
So the black phone.
I want to see that so badly.
Yeah.
I want to see.
I haven't seen the original one.
And the only reason I haven't seen the original one, because I really like Joe Hill.
He's Stephen King's son.
And he's in his own right.
He's a really great writer, in my opinion.
Yeah.
Oh, did he write The Black Phone?
Yeah.
Oh, I didn't realize that.
That's his original work.
Oh, shit.
And he, I think he's so good at what he does.
And he came up with this really, the grabber, Ethan Hawke.
Yeah.
Scary fucking dude and really scary concept and really, really cool character.
In the costume.
And I really wanted to see it.
So well executed.
I just heard, I knew it involved her and kids, obviously, because it's like a kidnapper.
And then there's one scene in the first movie that I've been warned about several times, with like child abuse.
Yeah.
So I just like stayed away from it, just because I was like.
I know I won't be able to sit through that.
But now I'm like, maybe I can find the minute mark and just skip that part.
Yeah.
Because the Black Phone 2 looks really fucking cool.
It all looks good.
And I think they're all like older in it.
It's like high school. at that point.
So it gets a little easier to like just go along with.
Yeah.
And I think I'm going to try it.
I just got to find the minute mark for that one like child abuse scene, but I I'm hoping I can get through it.
Yeah.
I think we can.
I struggle with that.
I think I can't watch that either.
Yeah.
Um, I think we should do a movie night and watch that.
We should just watch like a whole bunch of scary movies all at the same time, because I want to watch those both of those.
And then I really want to watch weapons.
And Mikey said we can't.
I'm I'm just kidding.
Mikey said we have to record first before we watch Weapons.
And then we have a meeting after that.
So I can't watch Weapons today.
Oh, yeah.
That's true.
God damn it.
I forgot we have a meeting today.
Here's the thing.
I love my job.
So I'm not going to complain about it at all.
Can't complain about that.
But, yeah, I do want to see this movie.
So I think I'm going to try because I've just heard really great things.
Let's do it, girl.
Yeah.
Let's go, girls.
Also, we're going to a haunted house tomorrow.
Oh, that's tomorrow night.
Yeah, girl.
Yay.
I'm so excited.
I can't wait our first haunted house of the season.
It's so late hell yeah, so late.
We've been so busy with like so many awesome things.
October is just long.
Oh my god, it's been crazy.
I saw somebody say that like it's really shitty, that like 2025 has been 45 years long, but October has been 17 minutes.
Yeah, it really.
It's been like it's been like 12 minutes.
That's not right.
It's just not right.
Maybe the last couple of weeks will really like drone on in a good way though.
I hope so.
I'd like to get through one thing and then I'll be happy.
Yeah.
And then you can just coast.
And then I'll be happy.
I mean, there's lots of things to be happy about.
Laguna Beach is filming a reunion right now.
Oh my God.
And really that's all I need.
That is going to heal so much of me.
That's going to heal so many people.
Yeah.
Do you understand the amount of elder millennials that are just waiting on this right now?
Oh my God.
And the younger millennials who watched it with their elder millennial siblings, it transcends.
Like I watched that.
I was their age while it was happening.
So it was like, I remember it being like this real crazy experience to watch.
Like kismet kind of thing.
Yeah, me and Deb Deb were talking about it because we used to be obsessed with that show.
It was just such a simpler time when you could be just Team Kristen or Team LC, you know?
I know.
That's where I want us all to be.
Wouldn't that be so beautiful?
I want that to be the biggest debate of our time, you know?
It's not.
I would really love for it to be back to that.
Team Kristen, for the record.
Let's go back, back to the beginning.
Yeah.
Go back.
I've been watching old episodes of that because since the reunion has been, you know, announced.
I didn't think of the word.
It was announced.
I wanted to go back to the beginning.
So good.
And I started to watch the third season because I was like, I really didn't give this one a chance.
The third season is so underrated.
It's pretty underrated.
But I'm like, it's not the same.
Yeah.
It's strange choices, I would say.
For like...
I feel like they went younger with the third season and that didn't really make a lot of sense.
I think they went back to, like, following juniors, essentially.
Yeah, I think following seniors was the way to go.
Yeah, I think Senior year is so rich and It's hard to capture lightning in a bottle like they did with the original Laguna Beach cast.
Those two classes, the juniors and seniors, I think you just weren't going to get that again.
It really was just lightning in a bottle, so I don't think anybody was really going to kill it.
But it really does, when you watch it, it does hold its own.
It's pretty good.
I think it was underrated a little bit.
I think so.
I watched it once when I was super sick and I was like, this is everything.
This is everything.
Yeah, I highly recommend doing that, though.
Go back and watch Laguna Beach.
Rocky was such a sweetheart.
She was, and everybody was so mean to her.
She's an underrated badass.
A hero.
She's a literal hero.
She's a hero. random 16 year old like she's just so sweet you know she was she was um and the mean girls were so mean to her oh they were so like so jealous kendra so mean kendra and cammy i'm calling you out i'm sure you're lovely adults now we all get over that shit but like you guys are so mean to rocky actually kendra and cammy have a podcast do they i'm almost sure cammy was on was cammy the one who um she was on super sweet 16 yeah i think she was i didn't even know that because again they were 16 so i am so i watched that show and i am so fucking i think my lucky stars that a camera crew wasn't following i was not on reality television at 16 that's the thing it's like i would really that must suck oh no it was also is her name kendra or kindra it's kindra kindra like kindra they called her kendra not not kindra It's spelled with a Y. They called her Kendra.
Kendra.
It was her and Taylor that had the podcast together.
Oh, okay.
Taylor who?
Hold on.
Who is Taylor?
Now I don't remember who Taylor is.
Is it Taylor from, like, the second season?
It also must suck like I'm thinking of, like Kendra right now, and probably Cammie too to have to like answer for your 16-year-old self as an adult.
You know what I mean?
Like, I joke and be like, you were so mean to Rocky.
You were.
But, like...
To have to answer for your 16-year-old self when you're an adult, because I'm sure they have to answer for it all the time.
And it's like, that must suck.
So hopefully they're killing it and being nice people.
Is this Taylor?
Taylor?
No, it's Cammie.
I'm so fucking confused right now.
I don't know what Taylor you're talking about.
I don't know.
Cammie fucking, not Cammie.
Cammie was on My Super Sick Sweet Teen.
Hello?
On My Super Sweet Six Teen.
My Super Sick Sweet Teen.
What did I just say?
And you stopped.
Are you at Sweet Teen?
Teen.
Oh, God.
She was on that show.
I didn't know that, actually.
Yeah, I did.
That's why I just said it.
We're nearing the end of the week, okay?
But they have a podcast together.
No, no.
God damn it.
I don't know.
We have to move on.
Stop spreading rumors.
There's a podcast with people who are on Laguna Beach.
There's several.
A few of them, in fact.
Now tell me about John Paul Getty.
You know what?
Can we just pause?
I think I need a coffee.
All right, I'm back and I have caffeine in my hand, so I'll stop talking to you about podcasts that I don't know exist and teen sweet 16 shows.
Teen sweet 16, you know?
So yeah.
Nespresso.
Nespresso.
I just wanted to say.
Thank you.
She's like, it might not get better, but I'll stop talking about podcasts.
I might just now say, hmm.
Nespresso.
You're just holding yours like you're like, are you okay?
Do you want a cheers?
Cheers.
Nespresso.
You're so stupid.
You were just holding it like so uncomfortably.
I was trying to take a sip, but I didn't want to make a gross sound.
So I was like.
All right.
It's time for us to talk about the actual story.
This is the kidnapping of J. Paul Getty III.
Hmm.
And this begins a couple of generations back from the actual kidnapping victim himself.
Okay.
Because you need to see where this whole indifference towards your child or grandchild being kidnapped comes from.
I would love to try to understand that, if at all possible.
Yeah, you need to at least see, like, where it all begins, I guess.
The indifference to your grandchild.
Imagine just being indifferent to your grandchild's kidnapping.
And there is a straight up indifference.
I remember.
I remember that Christmas season.
Yeah, this is wild. uh so let's talk about jean-paul getty the first the first he was born december 15th 1892 in minneapolis minnesota uh he is not a capricorn close so just pointing that out he's not a capricorn even a little bit worse though he's a sagittarius sagittarius can be especially like i love you guys but like sagittarius men are are fucking intense oh boy that's how fiery ass energy damn i need to know his other placements of course we can't just judge based on one place no and he and he was born to george and sarah getty he ended up obviously he ended up being pretty famous for his fortune and the tabloid journalists that obsessed over and hounded his family but he was actually a second generation millionaire Because George Getty was an attorney for the insurance industry when his son was born.
But when his investments in the Oklahoma oil industry started paying off during the oil boom of 1903, George shifted his attention from law to oil obviously.
He was like, oil.
Oil.
And with tycoon in the making.
Yeah, a tycoon.
And within a few years, he'd purchased stakes in several more oil wells across Oklahoma.
So he was like, I can see where the money is.
Now, despite their enormous wealth, the Gettys had always been very religious and very strict as a family and very frugal because of their religion.
Mm-hmm.
George and Sarah had been raised Methodist, and George's early success in law, then in the oil industry, only strengthened their beliefs because it made them more devout.
Basically, he saw his success and wealth as proof of God's favor.
They probably just had strong Jupiter placements.
Yeah, you know.
There you go.
I don't know what that means, but...
So in return, he pledged that he would continue to work hard and avoid the sinful and immoral ways that many other wealthy people tended to fall into.
He was like, I'm going to do this right.
All right.
Now, the Getty's religious convictions would probably have been strong no matter what.
But more than the wealth and success, it was definitely the death of their young daughter Gertrude, from typhoid in 1890 that drove them to become even more connected to their faith.
I mean, that makes sense.
I totally get it because it's like, I'm sure you have to grasp onto anything.
Some kind of comfort.
Yeah.
And especially after they became Christian scientists around the turn of the century.
You're really going for it.
In their newly adopted faith, the Gettys viewed the birth of their son, who arrived when Sarah was 40 years old, as yet another sign of God's favor, and treated him as the heir and future leader of the industry that he would become.
Now, since he was looked at by the fam as the second coming.
Basically, you would assume that Paul the son, as he'd become known, would have been like lavished with attention, get a lot of excess.
He would be spoiled.
But not in this family.
Yeah.
The Getty's religion forbade this.
I mean, they had restricted themselves as well.
They were very frugal.
They did not believe in excess for themselves.
And they also didn't believe it for their kid.
He was also generally discouraged from playing with other children because they were worried about him contracting illnesses.
Oh, that's sad.
Because Gertrude had died of typhoid.
That's the thing.
You can understand that.
But at the same time, that becomes a detriment.
Yeah.
So he spent a lot of his time alone.
In fact, instead of causing them to become stifling and overly attentive, Sarah and George's fears of losing their second child had led them to actually become more emotionally distant, because they wanted to avoid potentially reliving the trauma they experienced.
Oh man.
So they didn't connect with him.
It's like, even if you don't connect, it's going to be a huge bummer if another child of yours dies guys.
It is better to have loved and lost.
Yeah.
Like there is nothing to gain from not disconnecting from your child.
Like there's just nothing to gain from that.
The isolation.
It's a very different time, though.
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
It's in the 1800s.
So the isolation and loneliness are early 1900s.
But the isolation and loneliness that Paul felt in his early life would definitely have a big influence on him until the day he died.
How could it not?
Yeah.
It very much, instilled in him a really strong sense of self-reliance and what was described as a near pathological independence.
Like he did not want connection.
I mean, he didn't learn how to connect.
He didn't.
Connection, human connection is a learned skill.
And a huge developmental thing.
It's a need.
That needs to be shown.
Yeah.
According to author John Pearson, later in his life Getty would tell his wife that quote as a child he was never cuddled, nor did he have a birthday party or a Christmas tree.
Oh, that breaks my heart.
His one great interest was his postage stamp collection and his closest friend was a mongrel dog called Jip.
Oh yeah, like sad, like that's a sad childhood, that's awful.
So yeah, that's really sad.
But like to have no cuddles yeah, no cuddles.
And just to know that as a as like an adult too, to be able to be like i was never cuddled yeah, like that.
That void is so tangible when you're older.
Yeah, my mom used to say don't hang on me.
Oh, my god, i'm like.
Yeah, i get it.
I cannot imagine.
All I want is my kids to cuddle.
My mom was not a hugger.
Not a snuggly butt.
And it's like, you don't need to be a hugger of other people.
Like, I'm not generally a hugger or I'm not a touchy person at all.
But you're so smooshy with your kids.
Like, I am not.
I don't like to be touched.
Me and Elena hug like twice a year.
Literally.
I'm not a toucher.
I'm not a hugger.
When my kids are in the room, I'm like, come here.
Like, I just want to smoosh them all the time.
Like, they're probably like, get away from me.
Well, and I mean, I got it from other sources.
Like, Ma is the most cuddly butt ever.
She's a cancer.
My mom is a cuddle butt.
But uh, for him to have nobody in his life, no birthday parties, no christmas tree, just like no like, just no, like childhood things, it's like really sad it is.
And then no friends and no celebrations, that like not even nobody cuddling him directly or celebrating him, but like no celebration of anything.
Yeah, that's the thing, like just nothing to be happy about except his postage collection.
Yeah, that's sweet.
I love that i know.
Now, when the oil wells began paying off in Oklahoma, George Getty, now officially a millionaire, moved the family to Los Angeles where Paul was enrolled in the prestigious Harvard Military Academy in 1906.
Probably at a cost.
But George didn't intend for this to be like, you know, preparation for anything, right?
He was kind of trying to punish his son here.
By the time he had reached his teens, Paul had become kind of defiant and willful.
I mean, makes sense.
He was explicitly defying his father whenever George tried to impose any kind of will on him.
Well, maybe you should have hugged him.
But no matter what it was intended to be, Paul met the challenge head on and proved himself to be very smart and a very excellent student, especially in literature and languages.
He was very proficient in that.
Whether at home or at school, he could be found with his face in a book.
Like, he was a book guy.
He was Rory Gilmore, essentially.
I love that.
And by the time he finished high school, he had become fluent in French, German, and Italian.
That's insane.
And he was conversational in several other languages.
Which is a whole different ballgame.
Oh, yeah.
His proficiency with languages, in addition to his strong grades, gained him admittance to the University of Southern California at Los Angeles.
And then he did a short stint at the University of California Berkeley, where he briefly studied law.
Wow.
Now, after just one year at two different universities, it became pretty apparent that no matter how smart he was, he just wasn't interested in pursuing a degree.
Yeah.
He got in.
He didn't really want to do anything.
Instead, he returned home to his parents' house, where his mother somehow succeeded in convincing George, his dad, to allow their son to have a private entrance to his quarters, equipped with a lock.
That's cool.
This was a compromise on Sarah's part because...
Honestly, she would rather give him privacy and independence instead of see him move out on his own.
So she was like, we got to go.
At least he's near us.
Yeah, like at least we can try to see what's happening.
If it was intended to make him want to be more responsible, it very much backfired.
Within a few months, he was throwing parties regularly, returning home in the middle of the night with several girls, damn regularly, quote-unquote borrowing his father's car without asking into his very deeply religious parents.
His behavior wasn't just irritating or disrespectful, it was downright sinful.
Oh no, he's a sinner, not good now.
Despite the tensions between them, paul did agree to accompany his parents to europe in 1910 which, like wow, i mean yeah, of course he did.
And eventually he did enroll at Oxford University and he graduated with a degree in economics in 1913.
Damn, that's impressive.
After graduating he spent several months traveling around Europe and then came home in 1914, where he was given 10000 by his father to invest in the family's oil holdings in Oklahoma.
Oh, all right.
The next year, the investment paid off.
And at just 23 years old, J. Paul Getty was a millionaire.
Damn.
Just from that investment.
Investing is crazy.
It goes crazy.
Investing doesn't make any fucking sense to me, but it works out, man.
I guess it works out.
Yeah.
Now, if the world ever knew anything about J Paul Getty, it was that he had a knack for making money, and he held on to that wealth tighter than any man alive.
Right.
But just behind that very obvious fact, Getty was also widely known to be a womanizer.
He ended up marrying five times.
And he carried on extramarital affairs with countless women.
That feels like it was rooted in a loveless childhood.
He doesn't connect to anyone.
Yeah.
And it seems like he maybe is trying to, but doesn't quite get how to.
I don't even think he's trying to.
I think he has no interest in it.
Yeah, that's what it is.
I think he was taught to have no interest in it.
In 1923, when he was 31 years old, he married 17-year-old Jeanette Dumont.
That's no good.
In a secret ceremony in Mexico.
I bet it was secret.
I said, I wonder why it was secret.
I bet it was secret in Mexico.
The next year, she gave birth to a child, George.
But less than two years later, the marriage fell apart and they divorced in 1926.
Two years later, Paul married again, this time to a German woman named Adolphine Helmley, in another secret ceremony.
Was she also a minor?
I don't know how old she was.
The next year, she gave birth to a child, Jeanne.
Unfortunately, like the first marriage after the birth of their child, Paul's interest in his wife and family waned very quickly.
And by 1932, they divorced and Adolphine returned to Germany, taking Jeanne with her.
I mean, it feels like it was an inevitable result of his isolated upbringing, like we were talking about.
But his relationships with his first two wives definitely became a pattern throughout his life.
By all accounts, he had an interest in younger women.
And whether they were wives or girlfriends, he pretty much lost interest in them after like a couple of years at most.
Because they got older.
Even more unfortunately, though.
He lost interest in his kids very quickly.
That's fucked up.
John Peterson wrote, we cited him in our show notes there.
He said.
Far from approaching parenthood with joy, Paul bucked away and, like the spoiled only child he was made angry efforts to escape.
More than anything else, he valued his freedom.
And to him, wives and children complicated that freedom.
Yeah.
Which I have such a good solution for that.
Don't get married and procreate.
Yep.
Perfect.
So...
Just walk.
There you go.
There you go.
But when he did inevitably lose interest in his wives and children, he also made no efforts to hide those feelings.
According to those who knew him intimately, he was often physically and verbally abusive to the women in his life.
In the courtroom during one of his divorce proceedings from his first wife Jeanette, he screamed at her I'm sick and tired of you and sick and tired of being married.
Yelled at her across the court.
Jesus.
If there's a single incident in the family life of jay paul getty that showed his attitude towards his family, especially how indifferent he is to them, it's found in his final marriage.
In 1939, he married louise teddy lynch.
Uh, the woman that he would actually stay married to for nearly 20 years.
Wow, i wonder what was different.
The final wife In 1946 she gave birth to Getty's fifth child Timothy, and Timothy suffered from multiple illnesses almost since birth.
In his diaries, Paul referred to the boy as, quote, poor, poor Timmy and sad little Timmy.
Yet he was like, completely incapable of forming like a bond with him.
Yeah, and he didn't even spend any quality time with him.
When he was six years old, timothy developed a brain tumor and it blinded him soon after and required immediate treatment.
Paul arranged for treatment with the best specialists at new in new york and covered the cost to fly the mother and son across the country, which he should have.
He did not go with them.
He promised to come visit.
He never did.
His six-year-old son is getting brain surgery.
He's not there.
Worse were the letters he sent to her during this time, chastising her for the money she was spending on their son's medical care.
What?
He literally wrote in one, I'm glad that you realize the expenses are enormous.
You should always, if there is time, and there was in this case, have an agreement in advance.
Some doctors like to charge a rich person 20 times more than their regular fee.
It's like yeah, he has a brain tumor, so I don't think she's got time to send you a fucking letter for clearance for every treatment.
And you're a multimillionaire.
Yeah, like, this is nothing to you.
I would spend anything to like if my child needed treatment, medical treatment.
Why are you questioning it?
That's absurd and disgusting.
And what's even worse, Timothy died in 1958 at age 12 while Paul was away in Europe.
He sent his condolences, but did not attend his child's funeral.
I'm sorry, you said he sent his condolences?
Yeah, sorry to hear about it.
Sorry to hear about the death of my child?
Shouldn't shock you that Teddy, his wife, divorced him a short time after.
I would think so.
Like, completely indifferent.
Sent his condolences is crazy.
Now, although the example of Timothy's tragic death is the most obvious example of Getty's cruelty and abuse, even to those closest to him, it's far from the only one.
In fact, his life is full of examples of like shockingly selfish behavior, violent relationships, indifference to the pain of others.
He was just not a nice person.
Sounds like he has a personality disorder.
Each marriage ended badly and was always immediately followed by a new wife, usually the one he had been seeing before the previous marriage ended.
Of course.
And he would typically agree to pay child support.
But he only did so begrudgingly and he had to have a court order.
He wouldn't do it unless there was that.
Now, if Getty had affinity for any of his children, it might have been for John Jr, the first of two children born to his fourth wife, Ann Rourke.
That's random that it took him that many kids to find one he liked.
Paul and Ann's relationship lasted just four years and she would go on to remarry and move with her children to San Francisco.
And despite the distance and not having seen either of the children in more than a decade...
Paul invited John to Italy in the late 1950s, where he offered his son a job as the president of the Italian subsidiary of Getty Oil.
I wonder what he did to it.
Yeah.
I don't want to say like earned his love.
I think, so John was married to his wife, Gail.
Okay.
And they had four children.
And so like to Paul, they seemed like a pretty idyllic family.
They seemed like they had it together and he seemed like, okay, this is one I can trust to do this.
All right.
But that opinion definitely changed in 1964 when John and Gail divorced.
Within two years, John had remarried, this time to a Dutch actress, Talitha Pole.
She was a socialite and a notorious party girl.
John just left his children with their mother in Italy.
Like father, like son.
Exactly.
And John and Talitha embraced the counterculture lifestyle and traveled the world together.
During this period they also developed kind of a fondness for drugs and drug culture.
That very much spiraled out of control and resulted in a very intense heroin addiction.
Oh, that's sad.
Now, Paul Getty had his own excesses and didn't judge his son for leaving one woman for another.
I mean, how could he?
He had done the same thing at least four or five other times.
What he did object to was the drug use and the hippie lifestyle.
Although he may not have participated a lot in his own parents' religious practices, he maintained their rigid ideals and abstinence when it came to things like drugs.
I mean, they were instilled in him from a very young age.
And he would not stand by, according to him, and let his son sully the family name with public exploits.
In the late 1960s, at the height of John and Talitha's drug addiction, Paul gave his son an ultimatum.
He said, check into rehab and get sober or give up your position at Getty Oil.
That's fair.
Which is a pretty valid thing.
Yeah.
John chose the latter.
He gave up his position and Paul wasted no time removing him from the company and from his life completely.
Wow.
That's really sad.
So in the years that followed this, John Getty's life unfortunately continued to spiral out of control.
By 1971, he and Talitha had separated, due largely in part because she wanted to get sober.
Oh, that's good.
And he desired to continue living the way he had been for years.
Not great.
In the summer of 1971, Talitha paid a visit to John in Rome, probably to just hash out the details of the divorce.
And on the morning of July 11th, she was found dead in his apartment.
Oh.
From an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates.
I was not expecting that.
There were rumors she relapsed and began using heroin due to his influence.
Oh.
Because she was trying to get sober.
That's really dark.
After her death, John returned to England and slowly started getting sober and pulling his life back together.
But his relationship with his father Paul, and his children would remain completely, irreparably damaged for the rest of his life.
I mean yeah, uh.
So from the outside anyone looking at the getty family would have been understandably pretty envious, like despite several money yeah, they had lots of money.
Despite the several failed marriages and remarriages, they had that unimaginable amount of money.
When people never pay attention to the little stuff no, they're just like they have money.
They must be so fucking happy when they didn't know.
Most of this is And it was really due almost entirely to Paul's single-minded work ethic and notorious frugality.
And at the time, the art collection that would eventually serve as the foundation of the Getty Museum was one of the largest and most impressive collections in the world.
But if anyone assumed that because of all this or, you know, despite all this, they were happy, stable or a bonded family, they were very wrong.
It was the exact opposite.
By the early 1970s, Paul had written off most of his family, either through divorce, estrangement.
He was living a totally isolated life in his British manor house.
It's kind of iconic.
Called Sutton Place.
Also, he'd become very bitter and increasingly paranoid in his later years.
Not iconic.
And even he hired a private security team to protect him and his property.
He was very paranoid.
By then, he had completely written off his son John, as what he referred to as a drug addict and a waste of time.
Oh.
And, according to journalist Julie Miller, he quote had tenuous relationships with his other sons, rotating them in and out of his will at whim.
It's very succession.
Yeah.
As for his grandchildren, Paul had really little to say about them, since he rarely interacted with them at all.
But he still managed to form an opinion.
One thing about him, I feel like he's always going to have an opinion.
According to John Pearson, Paul held a disapproving view of at least one of his grandsons, Paul III. because he'd quote heard enough about him to believe he was like his father and he wanted nothing to do with either until they changed their ways so the paul the third that we are speaking about is the one that gets kidnapped yes uh he is the son of john okay just so just to keep that all together which is like yeah of course he's struggling his dad abandoned him exactly in italy Yeah, like hello.
So whether or not Paul III was like his father was debatable.
But it was true that as he entered his mid-teens, he started getting in a lot of trouble a lot.
In 1972, he was expelled from school after painting offensive graffiti in the school's hallway.
Shit happens.
After that he did seem to be headed in a direction a little similar to his father, spending a lot of his time doing drugs, partying at trendy Italian nightclubs every single night.
Like so many of the Getty family, it seemed that Paul III was headed for not a great life.
It's not like he was living off the millions right now.
He was cut off a little bit.
And he was kind of going to a life, like a lot of them did, of kind of misery and isolation.
And if his grandfather had anything to say about it, he was going to live a life of poverty as well.
He was not going to let him have that money.
Of course, if the elder Paul Getty's money was good for anything, it was controlling the family's image in the minds of the public.
Despite all the turmoil and tabloidesque antics that were happening in Italy, no one seemed to really notice or care, and it really didn't negatively affect Getty Oil or the development of the museum in Los Angeles.
And maybe it's for that reason that members of Indrangheta, a notorious Italian crime syndicate, identified the Getty family as pretty good targets for extortion.
Because again, they don't know the inner workings of this family.
They see it from the outside.
Everyone must have some cash.
Right.
No.
Maybe he cares about his grandson.
They all fucking hate each other.
So no, they don't have that.
The roots of Indrangheta can be traced loosely back to late 19th century and I'll try to say this correctly Calabria, a region of southern Italy where they were mostly kind of like an informal association.
It was like small criminal circles, like they weren't the big crime syndicate they were then.
They were committing petty crimes, like a little bit of –
A little tad of racketeering.
Just a dash.
A dab will do you.
A little dabble of racketeering.
But by the 1960s they had formalized like pretty considerably and they expanded beyond the borders of Calabria and across the country.
And started frequently working with Sicilian syndicates on smuggling and arms dealing.
Scary.
Among other things.
Like many of the other mid-century criminal organizations that were plaguing Italy in the mid, you know, 20th century.
And Drangheta's activities ranged from small-time racketeering just a dabble-do-ya and drug smuggling, to extortion and murder.
So it got pretty intense.
Very Sopranos.
Yeah.
During the late 1960s, the syndicate successfully managed to make a lot of money by kidnapping wealthy foreigners off the streets of Italy and ransoming them back to their families for large sums of money.
That's so fucked.
It's a real fuck.
They're like, yeah, let's just pluck a little tourist off the street.
Yeah, this was in the 1960s.
Now, by the summer of 1973, Paul III had already been kicked out of boarding school and was living rent free in a squat with several other artists, though just a teenager at the time.
He was like 16.
Yeah.
He'd already gained a certain amount of fame.
He was the grandson of the wealthiest man in the world, for one.
And then he was also gained a lot of fame as a participant in Rome's artist and political communities.
So he was like pretty active in that.
And night after night, he could definitely be found wandering the street to and from bars and clubs where he was living in the squat.
So when it came time for the members of Indrangheta to find a lucrative new target, their next victim was pretty easy to find.
Yeah.
He was always on the street.
He was just big hanging.
Yeah.
Big hanging.
In the early morning hours of July 10th 1973, 16-year-old Paul III was wandering home to the apartment.
He was sharing the apartment with two other artists in the...
Trasdevere neighborhood, I believe it is.
And that's when an old white Fiat pulled up beside him.
Riding in a Fiat.
I really got to see it.
There it is.
I had to.
The driver called out, excuse me, are you Paul Getty?
Nar.
Always say no.
No, I'm not the richest man in the world's grandson.
Paul looked over at the driver and said, yeah, he's Paul Getty.
Should have said, I'm just Ken.
I'm just Ken.
At which point two men jumped out of the back of the car, grabbed him and forced him into the back seat and sped away.
Just right off the street, plucked him right off the street.
At the time of the kidnapping, Paul's mother, Gail, you remember Gail?
I do.
Was still holding the family together.
Her second marriage had ended a few months earlier, but she maintained an amazing relationship with all of her children.
And although he'd moved out, she still saw Paul almost daily.
Oh. usually to bring him food or little sums of money.
Her biggest problems were almost all financial.
Her ex-husband, Paul Jr, was required to send child support on a monthly basis, but since he was cut off by his own father, there was little money to be had.
He was not living that getty life.
Yeah, he was not living that getty life.
Hate to bother you.
You do have a whole child.
Yeah, a few actually.
Yeah, a few of them.
Now the next morning, Gail was starting to feel a little anxious.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This definitely unsettled Gail because obviously, you know, he was a teenager.
Occasionally he would act his age, 16.
And Paul, but Paul was pretty responsible when it came to keeping in touch with his mother.
Like she was like yeah, he did a lot of shit and he was like genuinely irresponsible in every other aspect.
But he always called me.
He always called me.
So the absence here was alarming, like immediately.
It wasn't until the next day, a full two days since he'd last been seen, that Gail received the first call from the people who abducted her son.
The voice on the other end of the line was a man with a southern Italian accent that she didn't recognize, and he asked politely if she was Signora Getty.
When she replied that she was, he continued in his polite tone, we have your son, Paul Getty.
Oh, my God.
So she paused for a moment and she corrected the man, telling him that Paul was there in Rome.
And he said, no, senora.
And he said, he's with us.
We are kidnappers and have him captive.
He is safe, but we will require much money to release him.
Oh, as a mom, can you imagine?
Poor Gail. or gail through this entire thing because that's the thing knowing that you need to like knowing who you need to go to for the money oh yeah and knowing that you might not be able to get it yeah like there's a real chance you're estranged from your husband that's your ex-husband like you're straight he's estranged from his father who has the large cash yeah like there's so many layers to this that i would i'd probably just fall to the fucking that's the thing So she tried to explain it to them.
She said, I don't have any money.
Like, I don't have anything to give you.
But there was no point in arguing because everyone knew who her father-in-law had been.
And it was generally assumed that she would have access to large sums of money.
So he said, please prepare to ask for it from your father-in-law.
He has all the money in the world.
It was then that Gail understood this is not a prank.
And she angrily demanded to know where Paul was and who had taken him.
And the kidnapper said very calmly again, I tell you he is with us.
He's in good health and he'll stay that way as long as you do as you're told and arrange about the money.
But don't go to the police.
Just wait to hear from us.
And then they disconnected.
Oh, God.
So she just panicked.
He hadn't given any information at all.
He hadn't even said how much money they wanted.
Yeah.
And even if he had, it's not like she had any money to give and she didn't think her ex-husband would have it either.
She later said, I felt utterly alone and I had to figure out what in God's name I should do.
So she had no idea who to reach out to.
So she called her parents in the United States.
They tried to calm her down.
They reassured her and they said I know he said not to call the police, but you got to call the police.
Yeah, of course you do.
And then they said, and you need to contact your ex-husband.
You got to contact Paul.
Oh, God.
Can you imagine?
Right.
Right.
So when Gail broke the news to him, he was as shocked and frightened as she had been when she first received the call, obviously.
Paul Jr had just started to get his life back on track and their relationship had started to feel like before the drugs took over, like they were actually trying to start having a relationship.
So he was like, holy shit.
So he also was worried it was going to cause a relapse.
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
So, after giving him what little information she had, Gail suggested he call his father to ask for the money.
Yeah.
But Paul's reaction was immediate and firm.
He said, I can't.
We never speak to one another.
That's not an appropriate reaction.
Now's the time to speak.
Yeah.
Hey, Dad, my fucking whole last child's been kidnapped by a crime syndicate.
Yeah, like, hello?
Italian crime syndicate.
Hey, Dad, I'm sober now.
I've been working on it.
We can talk about it later, but...
Oh, I can't.
We don't talk.
Go fuck yourself.
So Gail ends the call.
And she was appearing to call her former father-in-law herself.
Yeah.
She said, fine, I'll fucking do it.
When the Carabinara arrived.
So they are more than just local police officers in the Carabinara.
They're called the Arma de Carabinara.
That's really fun to say.
They were an elite squad of law enforcement officers created to deal with the more notorious criminal organizations.
During a period in Italy that is frequently referred to as the Years of Lead, 1968 to 1988, the officers in this elite squad developed a reputation for cynicism and ruthlessness that occasionally led to their operating outside the law to solve criminal problems.
Yikes.
According to John Pearson, they were, quote, Okay.
So this was not great for Gail.
No.
Okay.
They told her, we know your son, Senora.
He is probably with a girl or with his hippie friends.
He will almost certainly turn up.
She's like, yeah, one of the largest syndicates has called me and said that they have him.
Like, you gotta listen.
Can we just listen to this?
When she's insisting.
He didn't run away and she quoted the man on the phone verbatim and they just kept being skeptical of it.
They were well aware, too.
It's funny that they were... Not funny, but, like, funny.
Yeah.
That they were skeptical about this, because...
This was like a well-known thing that was happening right now that they were kidnapping for ransom.
And especially the Ndrangheta and other syndicates, they were known for this at the time.
So this was very much on brand for them.
Now, it's unclear whether she was genuinely convinced or simply tired of arguing with them.
But the next day, the press quoted Gail as saying, I think the phone call was some sort of joke.
Well, that was probably her trying to convince herself.
Yeah.
She definitely understood how the situation looked at the time, too.
Like, it's not as though her family was unknown to the police and the press.
Not only had her ex-husband been sought for questioning after the overdose death of his estranged wife.
I'm sure.
But Paul himself had been arrested a few months earlier for participating in a political demonstration.
So she was just, she didn't know what to do.
And she later told a reporter.
In any case, I'm waiting for more contacts that can clarify the situation.
I'm alone.
I don't know what to do.
I can only hope that my son returns home.
That's heartbreaking, that poor woman.
So the attempts to frame the kidnapping as a hoax or a runaway situation kept the press happy for a few days, which I wonder if that's what she was doing, just trying to keep them away from her.
Mm-hmm.
But because of the family's name, investigators had no choice but to take the case seriously.
The next day, officers fanned out across the city to look for Paul, even as they maintained their doubt that this was even real.
When police combed the city looking for him, Paul was being held by the gang in the Italian country.
After dragging him into the car, they chloroformed him until he lost consciousness and then, when he woke up, he was chained at the ankle to the wall of an animal pen at a nondescript farmhouse that was completely unfamiliar to him.
Nightmare nightmare, nightmare.
In the early days of his captivity, the kidnappers, he said, were like pretty indifferent to him.
Uh, they gave him a radio, they fed him tinned food, but otherwise they just kind of had little contact with him.
They left him alone in the animal hut.
They didn't really they didn't hurt him or anything.
According to John Pearson, at this stage his captors seemed highly confident and were clearly counting on a speedy deal to make their fortune.
They thought they would just chain this kid up and they'd get their money and off he'd go.
You would think.
Because they had no idea about the dysfunction and incredibly poor interpersonal dynamics of the Getty family.
They just naturally assumed the family would be eager to get him back and would pay the sum to get him back.
That confidence would start to wane in the weeks that followed, and as it did, so would their patience and their indifference.
Oh, and that's not great.
Yeah, not great.
Gail had tried to reach her father-in-law in London multiple times in the week that followed.
Her father-in-law, the grandfather.
Yeah.
With all the money.
He just wouldn't return her calls.
That's nice.
He knows, by the way.
Yeah.
Just not returning.
I'm busy.
Sorry.
Can't get to you.
During this time, she finally received a letter from the kidnappers.
It was like a cut out letter.
Oh, like straight up written.
Like a note.
And the note was simple and straightforward.
They wanted $17 million.
Oh, that's it?
In 2025, that's $124 million for Paul's safe return.
God.
God.
A few days later, a second letter came to Gail's apartment, this time from Paul himself.
The letter was short and just gave basic details about the situation.
He'd been kidnapped.
He didn't know who or where they were keeping him.
He also restated the kidnapper's previous warning about not going to the police.
The note meant that at the very least he was alive, so that was good.
And the final line of the letter made it clear that things could change at any moment.
He wrote, and I quote, pay up, I beg you, pay up as soon as possible if you wish me well.
If you delay, it is very dangerous for me.
I love you, Paul.
This is a 16-year-old kid.
That must have just been... There's not even... That's like an indescribable feeling, I'm sure.
That's something I could never dive into the deep recesses of thinking of how that feels.
No, because every part of you as a parent usually wants to protect your child and you have no idea where he even is and you have no control over the situation whatsoever.
And I'm just thinking about Gail.
She every night Has to put her head on the pillow.
Yeah, and also take care of three other children, right?
And be a mother to other children.
Like... Like, and just live her life.
Like, I don't know how people do it.
And not kill this old man who won't give her the fucking money.
Exactly.
Oh, my God.
Oh.
Now, the ransom demand in Paul's note that followed put to rest the hoax idea.
But...
It increased the seriousness of the situation and they thought that was going to maybe get Paul Getty Sr to like give a shit.
He didn't even want to pay for like treatments for his child's brain cancer.
Didn't do it.
Didn't do it.
He refused still to speak with his daughter-in-law or his son.
Just wouldn't talk to them.
What a piece of shit.
He did talk to a reporter, though, refusing to answer their calls.
Nice.
And he told the reporter he loved his grandson but he would not be paying the ransom because quote it only encourages kidnappers.
And then he went on to justify it by saying, I have 14 grandchildren.
If I pay a penny of ransom, I'll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.
Okay.
My God.
What kind of rationale is that?
If you're looking purely on logic, it does make a certain amount of sense.
He said, I will not be rewarding bad behavior.
Yeah, as far as warding off further kidnapping attempts.
But, holy shit, does it show the ambivalence, selfishness and complete indifference he has to anyone that he's supposed to care about.
Yeah.
Because it just doesn't matter.
You wouldn't be thinking of that.
You'd be like, I have one grandchild who is kidnapped currently.
I need to save that child.
It's actually fascinating.
That's not in like a good way, but that somebody can care so little.
It's scary.
Like that's, that's really scary.
That's a wall I don't think I've ever seen in person.
No.
He must have been a very scary and draining person to be around.
I feel like being in his presence would suck the fucking life out of you.
Because he's just... That's a dark fucking presence.
Yeah.
I feel like coming out of there, you would feel like you just got...
Like, I'd be like, holy shit.
Honestly.
It would, like, drain you.
I can't believe he was like, yeah, I got 14 in total.
So, like, it's a lot of money.
It's literally the idea of he's like, if I do it for one, I gotta do it for all of it, you know?
That's crazy.
Can't save one grandchild.
I'll have to save them all.
It's like, what?
$17 million is an astronomical amount of money.
But he was one of the richest men in the world.
It was literally nothing to him.
It was nothing to him.
Have you ever seen those things where they convert it to Taylor Swift?
Like getting a coffee is like you buying a car.
Literally, an SUV for her is like a coffee for us.
His ransom was like a trip to the mall for us.
Literally, he could have done this.
He didn't have to prove a point.
He didn't need to use it as like a bargaining thing.
He also probably could have done it 14 times.
Easily.
And not really see much else.
Obviously you don't want to.
You don't want your grandkids getting kidnapped all over the place.
But it's like, come on, pay it once and then put some precautions into place going forward.
Like what the fuck?
And like further complicating matters with a sensational press reports coming from Italy and being reprinted in the American and British press.
According to one theory put forth by the press Paul quote, may have concocted an abduction to solve personal financial problems, saying that his father had like set this whole thing up.
I don't think he needs $70 million to settle his personal problems.
And given what he already thought of his son and his grandson, this rumor wouldn't have seemed.
It would have seemed pretty plausible to the grandfather.
So he was probably like, I don't know what's going on here.
He said it's Paul Jr.'
's fault.
Yeah.
Meanwhile, he's just like, what the fuck?
I'm just laughing because this is insane.
It's absurd.
Yeah.
And it's like, you're thinking Paul Jr.'
's working with a fucking Italian crime syndicate?
Like, I doubt it.
Yeah.
I doubt it.
I doubt it.
Like, that's not a dice roll I would have taken.
He's like, you know, those hippies.
Yeah, they're crazy.
Those hippies and syndicates out here.
Like, crazy.
Now back in Rome.
Gael was frantic at this point, trying to figure out how to come up with any amount of money.
A lawyer for the family said the grandfather doesn't want to pay a penny and she must depend only on her money and that of her ex-husband, which is limited.
In the end she managed to raise on her own 430000, which she immediately offered the kidnappers on August 2nd.
That's a lot of money.
I wonder how she even did that.
I know, but it's unclear how they managed to get in touch with the kidnappers to do this.
But the press reported that they were unimpressed with the office offer and called it paltry.
I mean, $430,000 is a lot of fucking money.
She did it by herself.
She's trying.
I know.
Now, years later, Gail would describe her interactions with the members of Indrangetta.
And initially she said they were polite and respectful, weirdly referring to her as senora, never raising their voices to her.
But then, when she told them she couldn't raise the money for the ransom, their tone changed and it became explosive anger.
The man shouted at Gail, who is this so-called grandfather?
How can he leave his flesh and blood in the plight that your poor son is in?
She's like, yeah, I also wonder.
She's like, bitch.
Senor.
Let's sit down and talk about it.
Yeah, she's like, you want to get a coffee?
And she tried to explain the situation and she was like I have virtually no relationship with Geddy Sr.
She's like, he's a douchebag.
But the gang accused her of lying and trying to get out of paying the ransom.
Why would anybody do that?
Like, I would tell, I want my kid back.
Yeah.
Now, weeks passed without word from the kidnappers.
And in the meantime, the press started focusing their attention on the Getty family, and Gail in particular.
No matter where she went, she was hounded by journalists taking photos, shouting questions at her.
And Gail later said they felt that someone must be blamed for what had happened.
And since there was no one else around, they picked on me.
This poor grieving mother, like, doesn't know where her son is.
By early September, Getty was still refusing to pay their new ransom.
But he did send his personal lawyer, Fletcher Chase.
That man had no choice.
Fletcher Chase.
That man had no other choice in life but to become a lawyer.
If your name is Fletcher, you will be a lawyer.
You literally have to become a lawyer.
Yep.
And it was you know.
He had to defend his position.
You know, and support the family in some way, I guess.
That's what he was doing.
Yeah.
She was starting to look bad.
Yeah, he's like, I guess I have to look like I'm not a complete monster.
But he was really more there to help negotiate with the kidnappers.
And Chase would ultimately prolong the ordeal and complicate things a lot.
Good.
So Fletcher wasn't even a good lawyer?
Especially after he advised Gail and other members of the family to end communication with the kidnappers.
That's a terrible idea.
Like what?
What?
So frustrated with the silence and that months had passed without any money offered, the members of Indrangheta decided they needed to take a new approach and convey to the Gettys that they were done playing games.
In the countryside where Paul was being held, they started taking their anger out on him.
They removed the radio that they gave him from his animals.
This is really sad too, just like trigger warning for like animal something.
They tightened his chains and then they killed a bird that he had been keeping as a pet.
Yeah.
Which like really breaks my heart.
It's horrible.
He literally kept a bird in this animal stall that he's being held in as a pet and they killed it.
Oh, that makes my stomach hurt.
On one particularly bad afternoon, they held a 45 caliber revolver to his head and played Russian roulette.
Oh, God.
So the 16-year-old kid just sat there while they played Russian roulette with his head.
That is psychological abuse like none other.
During this period, several of the original kidnappers had actually sold their stakes in the ransom to other members of Ndrangheta further up the chain of command.
What?
Yeah.
They sold off their stakes?
They just like gave it to and to hire people.
They were like, yeah, you guys deal with it.
That's terrifying.
These men were not only harder and more abusive than the previous captors, but they were also eager to end this stalemate and bring money in to invest in other activities.
They were like, we don't play.
We have other shit to do.
That's chilling.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, this is literally making my stomach hurt.
I'm not kidding.
And Paul was like, no, I like my hair this way.
But a few minutes later, another man appeared and started cutting Paul's hair with blunt scissors.
Once he finished, the man rubbed some alcohol behind Paul's ear.
And then he said he felt the man grab his right ear hard.
And a second later he felt a searing pain on the side of his head, as his ear was sliced cleanly off with a straight razor.
Oh my God, oh my fucking god.
And then he just passed out from pain.
Oh my fucking god, they sliced his right ear off.
Stop saying that cleanly with a straight razor.
Stop saying that.
I hate it.
That is, i'm literally like i'm holding my ears.
Also, they gave him one fucking cup of brandy.
I'm like you should have given that poor kid a bottle.
Oh my God.
And then he just passed out from the pain.
Oh, I'm actually like a little bit nauseated.
Yeah, that's honestly nauseating.
A few days later.
This poor, this is a child, everybody.
This is a 16-year-old kid.
So a few days later, Gail's at home in Rome when she, and that was not meant to rhyme, but it did.
And she received a call and it was one of the kidnappers.
And this was a man she'd come to know at this point named Cinquenta.
He told her what had happened.
Told her about the ear.
He said like, oh, we were giving him a haircut and then accidentally cut his ear off?
No, he said we intentionally cut his ear off because we want you to know we're not fucking around.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
And she was like, fuck you.
No, I don't believe you.
And then he was like, I'll send you photos.
And she was like, wow.
And she said, whether she believed it or not, I don't know if she was trying to like front with him.
Yeah.
But she said she couldn't get the idea obviously out of her head of him being literally butchered her child.
As promised, Polaroids of Paul were discovered in a particular trash can in Rome after Cinquenta directed investigators to their location.
So they were like, here you go.
In them, Paul could be seen standing outside like a cave in a nondescript location.
He was filthy.
He was emaciated.
And on the right side of his head, there was a terrible open wound where his ear had once been.
Oh.
The kidnappers also sent Paul's ear via the mail.
I was wondering if they were going to.
But apparently there was a postal strike in Rome at the time, so mail wasn't being delivered.
So the package sat on a shelf undiscovered for like weeks.
Oh, no.
Yeah, that must have smelled great.
Yeah.
In the package when it was discovered, it was addressed to a newspaper.
There was his hair.
They'd cut his hair and put it in there.
A demand for the money and his ear.
And the letter said, this is Paul's first ear.
Not his first ear.
Yeah, if within 10 days the family still believes that this is a joke mounted by him, then the other ear will arrive.
In other words, he will arrive in little bits.
Oh, that.
No.
They wrote, in other words, he will arrive in little bits.
Until you fucking pay us.
Like, that is fucking chilling.
Yeah.
We're just going to send little pieces of your child back to you.
Until you send That, I can't even talk.
Holy shit, I'm sorry.
I can't even... My brain, like, exploded.
And also, like, this is his first ear.
This is his first ear.
Expect the second if you don't pay us.
I... How do you wrap your brain around that as his family?
I literally don't know.
And how do you not just fucking pay them?
You have the money.
That's what's killing me.
It's not like this is a family who's sitting there being like we don't have this money, we don't know how to get it.
There is a man that is part of this family that has all the money in the world like, literally.
And it's also like how do you just not empathize with your grandson thinking of this child, a 16 year old, getting his ear sliced off?
And it's like, And that doesn't move you.
Well, that's the thing.
Like, you were moved by your own sadness.
Like, you told one of your wives nobody cuddled you.
This 16-year-old is getting his fucking ear chopped off.
You don't want to change the direction of his life a little bit?
Maybe.
Like, goddamn.
That is...
Ice cold.
Yeah.
By the middle of November, things had fallen apart completely.
Paul had been in captivity nearly four months at this point.
And his health, if not his life, were in danger at this point.
They'd been plying him with brandy to numb the pain.
And some people actually believe this is partially what led to his alcoholism later in life.
I'm sure.
Yeah.
They also gave him a ton of penicillin to try to keep the infection from killing him, because he would be useless to them if he died.
That's the thing.
I was wondering what they were doing to keep that wound clean.
They didn't.
They just applied him with penicillin to try to keep it.
They were basically just trying to keep him alive, not really comfortable.
And it led to an allergy to the drug later, which sucks.
Because he had so much of it.
Wow.
Yeah, like he couldn't take it later.
The Carabiniera, that elite squad, had proven completely useless in tracking down the kidnappers.
Great job.
Yeah, thanks a lot.
And Paul Sr. continued to refuse the ransom.
This man.
Continued.
I don't know if there's...
That's – hello?
Yeah.
Hello is right.
I feel like you're capable of murder at that point.
At the same time, the members of Ndrangheta had grown tired of the whole thing and they were aware they might end up losing their investment at this point, so they reduced the ransom to 23 million.
Which is crazy.
From $17 million.
And they said that's their final offer.
That's a crazy reduction.
And out of options and completely on her own, Gail was just like, we'll pay it.
I'll figure it out.
Like just hold him.
Please don't kill him.
Like I will figure it out.
Like don't cut off another part of his body.
Like I will get this to you.
In the end, Paul Sr. finally agreed not to pay the ransom.
To loan half the money.
Not even all of it.
To his son.
Not even all of it.
At 4% interest.
What a motherfucker.
What a motherfucker.
What a motherfucker is right.
Somebody should have kicked this dude in the fucking face.
Like, he's a piece of absolute dirt.
This man is a loan shark.
He's a dirt bag.
Like, talk... A bag of dirt.
That's what this man is.
No, like, that's a bag of motherfucking dirt.
That is just not... I don't understand... being that way.
Loan half... Now, to be clear, $2.3 million.
He's loaning them barely over a million dollars, which to anyone else is an inconceivable amount of money.
Of course.
To this man, that is literally change he would pull out of his butthole.
That is literally... That's butthole change.
Y'all know about butthole change?
Y'all got butthole change?
Alina's just out here tooting fives.
This man absolutely has some butthole change.
I don't care what's going on here.
I've heard of like, I don't know.
I've heard of like couch change.
Couch change.
That's what I've heard of butthole change.
But it sounded perfect. more intense to say butthole.
To say he shits out millions.
He does.
He probably wipes his butt with millions.
He does shit out millions.
No, he really does.
This man is shitting out millions of dollars.
He could pull this out of his butthole at any time.
And he just wouldn't.
Maybe that's why he's so uptight.
There's so much money up his butt.
What's up your butt?
Millions.
You got a hair across your ass?
No, that's a five hundo.
This guy's such a dick.
That's a couple of Benny Franks.
It truly is.
And that's what I'm saying.
17 million dollars to him was fucking nothing.
Well then, it got reduced to two dollars, not even two, he only gave one.
Well that no, but they got reduced to two.
He could have given two, he would only give one, and he didn't give it.
He loaned it at four percent interest and then he told his son and his daughter-in-law about their own grandchild.
Figure out the other million and change yourself.
That's not a little amount of money to figure out.
Like, God damn.
Also wait, we haven't even said this yet, and that's actually insane that I haven't thought this yet.
I've thought it, I just haven't said it in a second.
I'm crying.
Paul III is sitting there in that, like, we're, like, you know, being transported to all these different places and getting his ears chopped off and getting a mate, like, being starved, getting his bird killed, and he's, it's four fucking months of this, and he's probably sitting there like, hey, does anyone give a fucking rat's ass about me because you know those people are sitting there being like yeah no one's paying us like no one gives a shit about you it's crazy when even like the cartel feels bad like the cartel they're probably sitting there being like this sucks dude yeah like we would like our money but also like damn break with your family like they don't give a shit except your mom that's so sad and his dad was trying at that point like he at least was like not hard enough clearly some kind of like no not gail was the real hero here she was trying everything she fucking could yeah that's a mama along with the money that the grandfather uh loaned at four percent interest paul jr was able to pull together with gail and figure out how to get the rest of the money i don't know how they had 2.2 million when it and they wanted 2.3 they were able to get 2.2 okay Yeah.
Chase.
The Fletcher Chase lawyer guy told reporters the amount is the maximum the father is able to raise for the return of the boy.
No.
Incorrect.
His lawyer is literally like, sorry.
I'm also like, motherfucker, your salary could probably pay some of this.
The owner of Betty Oil can only give you this much.
That's the maximum amount that he's able to raise.
That's the other thing.
He didn't raise that money.
Again, I tell you, he pulled it out of his ass.
The other thing is it's like when you're that rich, that money is just sitting there making more money.
Just sitting there.
Like, sitting in investment accounts, making more money.
And he wants 4% interest for half of that amount.
Like, we talked about it in the Patty Hearst case.
Obviously it's not easy to like take that money out right away because it's tied up in investments and that kind of thing.
But when you are one of the richest men in the world, like it was a bummer in the Patty Hearst thing because it was like they wanted it so quickly.
And they wanted an immense amount of money that he couldn't just pull out of somewhere.
This is nothing.
Well, it was, like, a timed demand.
This whole thing, they...
They waited around four months for this shit.
Four months.
Which, like, they're terrible people.
Absolutely.
But they've had all the time in the world to do it.
This is absolutely bonkers.
It's wild.
My coffee is hitting and I am upset.
On December 12th 1973, Fletcher Chase collected the 22 million into three duffel bags and drove 250 miles to the location.
That's literally Grandpa's birthday.
Oh, my God.
That's John Paul Sr.'
's birthday.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
I didn't even think of that.
Yeah.
He said, HBD.
HBD, bitch.
Here you go.
Wow.
That's wild.
Isn't it?
And so he had instructions to a meeting point in the middle of nowhere.
When he reached the destination, he was met by a man wearing a balaclava and holding a pistol.
That's fucking terrifying.
Which scared the shit out of me.
I'd poop my pants.
He handed those bags over.
I'd poop out millions.
I'd poop out millions.
And he returned to Rome where he was told to wait for word.
Three days later, Gail received a call from Cinquenta, the guy that she had talked to a lot, who provided her with directions to a gas station in the town of Loria where they were to pick up their son, and then he hung up.
As promised, local police found Paul at that gas station.
In what fucking state?
He had developed a severe infection from the wound on his head.
He was very malnourished.
But they said he was not... He didn't seem like he was, like, beaten in any way.
He was malnourished, and he had the...
He wasn't beating, he was just missing a fucking ear.
Like, but weirdly, he wasn't, like... I love that they were, like, cool that they didn't really slap him around.
They just cut his ear off.
I think they were more like, this is weird.
Like, it's weird that, like, that was the first time they physically hurt him.
I know, it is weird.
Was to cut his ear off and then, like, just not feed him.
Like, it's very strange behavior.
So there was that.
At first, the local police were reluctant, apparently, to release the boy.
What were they going to do with him?
I don't know.
They were just going to hold him, but Gail literally was like, go fuck yourselves.
Hold him for what?
Continuously, like, hold him captive?
She and Chase had to drag him out to their car, like, away from the police.
What the fuck?
Yeah.
She recalled Paul and I were both like zombies and so tense with emotion that we could barely speak to one another.
The following afternoon, Gail instructed her son to call his grandfather and thank him for loaning his parents the money to secure his release.
Here's the thing.
I wouldn't be doing that.
I'd be like, hey, Grandpa, you're a piece of ancient dog shit.
Oh, don't worry.
Because when he rang Sutton Place, the British man, a woman answered the phone and she said it's your grandson Paul.
Do you wish to speak to him?
He heard her say that and then heard Paul Sr. say he had no desire to come to the phone.
He said, nah.
That man is rank.
He is rank ass.
The literal next day after he was brought home from being held captive for four months and having his ear chopped off.
He calls him to by no who knows why, to say thank you for letting me sit there for four months and get my ear chopped off.
Thanks for giving my parents a loan.
Thanks for giving my parents a loan for half the money at 4.
Interest you, fucking dirtbag, piece of shit.
He's saying, and he says, no, I don't want to get on the phone.
I mean, I hate the phone.
This is next level.
That's next level.
Honestly, next time our family says that you don't answer the phone, call upon this.
I'm reading this.
Call upon this story.
I'm going to be like, well, at least I'm not this guy.
Call upon it, girl.
If you want to thank me for giving you a 4 interest loan on your ransom money, I'll answer the phone.
Maybe not.
But not.
Maybe Ash will answer the phone and ask me if I want to talk to you and I'll say I'm not as bad as this guy.
That's crazy.
Like...
What the fuck?
And Paul III is just sitting there on the phone excuse me, on his left ear, because he doesn't have a right ear, remember.
And he's just hearing his grandfather be like, nah, I'm good.
I'm not one to armchair diagnose, but this man is a sociopath.
That's sociopathic behavior.
I mean, at the very least.
I'm happy to sit here and tell you this man is a fucking sociopath.
At the very least, that looks to me like sociopathic behavior.
This man is deranged.
Now, while Paul recovered at his mother's apartment in Rome...
The Carabinieri began hunting down the members of Indrangheta who were responsible for the kidnapping.
And in mid-January, they made the first... I like that they just started doing that.
Yeah, they were like, we should do that.
They made the first four of what would eventually be nine arrests.
And all four were charged with kidnapping, criminal association and having caused serious personal injury.
That's it?
The others were acquitted for lack of evidence.
Lack of evidence.
Just bring fucking Paul in.
Less than a year later, Paul III met and soon married Gisela Schmidt, who was five months pregnant by the time they got married.
A few months later in 1975, she gave birth to their son, Balthazar.
Iconic name.
Great name.
The couple remained married until 1993 when they divorced.
Paul had plastic surgery to repair the right side of his head, but he was badly scarred for the rest of his life.
Of course, emotionally and physically.
I was just going to say.
But he had physical scars, but those emotional ones he did his best.
He struggled with drugs and alcohol.
Of course he did.
Throughout the rest of the 1970s, Paul struggled with serious drug addiction, especially after he returned to the United States and started associating with New York's party culture, like Studio 54, all that kind of stuff.
His substance abuse issues finally came to a head in 1981 when after drinking a mixture of Valium, Methadone and alcohol, he had a massive stroke and liver failure.
He survived.
Wow.
But the stroke left him as a quadriplegic and he had a lifetime of associated health problems with it.
For decades after, Gail cared for her son.
Oh.
With help from his wife.
Yeah.
But on February 5th, 2011, J. Paul Getty III died after a long illness.
That's so sad.
Yeah.
That's a tragic story.
It is.
And after the kidnapping, the relationship between the members of the Getty family just continued to deteriorate.
I'm sure it did.
How do you get past that?
How do you not beat your grandpa's ass at that point?
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Leave it in.
I'm sorry. beat your grandpa's ass goes crazy.
I'm serious.
I'd be so fucking pissed at Papa.
I would never beat Papa's ass unless my ear got cut off and I spent four months in prison.
That goes absolutely crazy.
I'm sorry.
Come on.
How do you not beat your grandpa's ass?
I would be livid.
The sentiment is something I think a lot of people can agree with.
I think so too.
Your grandpa's changed first.
Honestly though, come on.
At least you'll get some fucking butthole change out of the ordeal.
You don't even have to do it.
You should hire someone, but you can't because you're paying off a 4% interest loan.
So you go there and you beat your grandpa's ass.
That's ass-beating behavior, what his grandpa did.
Obviously, that's a joke.
It's a joke.
Shut up, okay?
We're not promoting violence.
No, don't beat your grandpa's ass.
We're eight years into this.
You've never experienced this.
Don't beat your grandpa's ass.
Don't beat your grandpa's ass, but that guy sucks.
That guy sucks so hard.
And obviously his family was like, you suck very hard.
In 1976, John Paul Getty Sr. died at the age of 83.
Womp womp.
Let's play the world's smallest violin.
In his will, Getty left his son John $500.
Honestly, I genuinely thought you were going to say $5.
He left his grandson Paul nothing.
Yeah, I'm sure.
I'm not even shocked.
He left his grandson Paul, nothing.
Nothing because in his mind, after letting him get his ear chopped, let me tell you he left his son five hundred dollars.
Yeah, let me tell you in his mind he paid that.
He already paid his grandson.
That was for his whole life.
That was him recouping his loan.
Yeah, exactly that's what that was.
He was like i'm not giving you anything, i gave you a loan.
He's a terrible man.
He is a terrible man.
That's like he's a terrible, no good man.
I mean getty getty behavior is is bad behavior.
Yeah, it is Poor.
I just feel terrible for Paul III.
I do too.
Like that is wild.
It's so, it's genuinely a heartbreaking tale what he went through.
And a tragic rest of his life too.
And how could it not be?
I mean that, that kind of trauma.
Yeah.
How do you get through that?
90% of us in the world will not know that trauma.
No.
No.
It's awful.
Isn't that story just... It is.
It really is.
Your jaw is on the ground the whole time.
I was literally like, what?
I've known of this, but I did not know the details.
The movie is genuinely such a good movie.
It's called All the Money in the World, and it's so good.
After you listen to this, if you want to dive even a little deeper and get a dramatic effect, watch the movie.
It's so good.
But as you see, they really don't have to dramatize much.
No, I don't think they really did.
The reality of the situation is... absurd enough yeah and gail forever gail gail forever truly like gail really that that lady is a good mom she was a good wife she's a good person yeah and then to continue caring i mean obviously once a mom always a mom like well gail forever gail like i really like gail gail didn't have to go through that she shouldn't have had to go i'm not even that big of a hugger but i would give that lady a hug and i would want to give that that son a hug too Yeah, because it's like he was like getting into trouble and shit and like doing bad stuff.
He's 16.
I was getting into so much trouble at 16.
He's super young and he wasn't having any guidance by like his father.
His dad left him.
You know what I mean?
Like he was abandoned.
So it's like, you know, you just feel bad.
Yeah, you're going to do some reckless shit when you get abandoned.
He had plenty of time to turn it around.
Yeah.
That's the thing.
He was only 16 years old.
There was plenty of time to turn that ship around.
Yeah.
Andy obviously was like he was getting into trouble and stuff, but he was obviously involved in like politics and that kind of thing and the arts.
So he's not a lost cause by any means.
No, if he had been led in that direction, I think he could have actually succeeded and had a much better life than his family members did.
Yeah.
And not gone down this like generational trauma nosedive.
It's like we were just saying in the beginning of the episode, how we were saying how, like Kendra and Cammie on Laguna Beach, season three, we were like damn, that would suck to have to like apologize for your 16 year old self.
That's actually really weird that we started.
It is weird because i didn't even mean to do that.
Like it's like a 16 year old, you is like a literal, different human being.
I was a goblin.
That's not even a real.
That's not.
It's connected to you in no way, shape or form.
It's like watching an old movie of somebody else.
So it's like it's the same thing here.
He was 16.
That could have been a very different person.
You change so much throughout your life.
I hear, like, people will say things that I said earlier in this podcast when I was, like, 22.
And I'm like, oh, God, don't tell me that.
Yeah, you're like, what?
You change so much throughout your life.
And especially from 16 to... you know however old it's like damn damn yeah it's crazy that's a story that is a story go touch grass everyone yeah go if you have a good grandpa go hug him and don't beat your don't don't beat his ass i'm gonna i gotta call my grandpa and explain that he's gonna be like did you say you'd beat my ass on a national podcast you say that i was like no papa Oh, man.
I actually do have to call him, so we should go.
Yeah, we should.
All right.
Well, we hope you keep listening.
We hope you keep it weird.
Don't keep it so weird that you beat your grandpa's ass.
Don't do that.
Keep it so weird you find butthole change.
Thank you.
