Shame on you Mr. Helg Sgarbi!

The extenuating circumstances of Mr. Sgarbi's attempt to extort millions of euros from BMW heiress Susanne Klatten make for fascinating reading. Was he really trying to exact revenge for the fact that his father, a Polish Jew, languished as a slave laborer in a BMW factory as this article in the The Independent suggests? If so, being paid €49 million is still a hell of a lot of money to collect for the suffering of someone who has long since died.

The point here, however, is not to examine the ins and outs of what type of revenge (if any) is appropriate in these circumstances--I'll leave that to the ethicists. No, the point here is to publicly chastise Mr. Sgarbi for screwing up the perfectly formed image of the gigolo I have carried with me since 1980, which would be this:



and definitely not this:

Image courtesy of ITN

No offense intended, but this guy looks my banker and not a gigolo. But then again, perhaps looking ridiculously hot is only important for an American Gigolo.