Given some of the scandals that she's had to deal with, it's questionable whether anyone would want to be directly compared to Paris Hilton. Anna Anissimova Shafer has been though, and she doesn't seem to mind too much. Then again, she has three and a half billion reasons not to care what anybody else thinks of her; money which has come from her father Vasily Anisimov, who is one of Russia's numerous oligarchs.
Anisimov and his daughter weren't especially close, and she spent much of her late teens living alone in New York City. That's where she met her now-husband, movie producer Peter Shafer, who inspired her to try her hand as a performer in front of the camera. In as much as she can, Shafer has tried to divorce herself from her upbringing, stating that she wants to be seen as an average girl with her own dreams. She hasn't given her money away to live like one though.
To insure one’s house, one’s car or to underwrite a life insurance policy, that is common practice. But who would pay an insurance premium for his/her thumb, legs or smile? Stars, of course.
At the top of the ranking are the legs of Mariah Carey, worth 810 million USD: The diva became, in 2006, the Gillette brand muse for the advertising campaign «Legs of a Goddess». She then took out an insurance policy with London Lloyds to protect her legs, a decision that is far from being insignificant. Among its customers, the London insurer then included several icons of music, such as Bob Dylan or Rod Stewart.
David Beckham’s body insured for 195 million USD: European champion with Manchester United in 1999, David Beckham was in 2006 the most renowned footballer of the planet. In relation to his sporting activities, he took out an insurance cover for his legs. The huge amount paid for his insurance would reportedly exceed the 103 million USD disbursed by Real Madrid for the cover of Christiano Ronaldo in 2009. The fashion model would later extend his insurance cover to his entire body.
15 million USD in insurance for Kim Kardashian’s curves: The curves of Kim Kardashian are her number one beauty asset. The reality TV star, who is crazy about plastic surgery, has underwritten an insurance policy worth 15 million USD to protect her famous butt.
The culinary critic Egon Ronay assured his taste buds: The famous Hungarian culinary critic has insured his taste buds since 1957, for the amount of 400 000 USD. An original insurance policy which allows him to cover his sense of taste without which he will no longer be able to practice his job.