She was a star of New York real estate, but her life story was a lie | Hacker News Reader

She was a star of New York real estate, but her life story was a lie

nytimes.com

58 pointsgumby22 comments

Had a family member like this. She would lie in the most outrageous fashion, right to your face ("I slept with JFK! We flew to Bermuda for a week 1st class together, just the two of us!" that sort). If you called her out on it, she would just stare blankly--any rational response just doesn't land. Laughter or praise, on the other hand...

I believe that New York attracts these people, from all over the country. Maybe it's the accent, but I spot this trait in a few other famous/powerful people, especially if they're associated with nyc -- Giuliani, Donald Rumsfeld, and (guess who) come to mind.

It's absolutely possible for people to just straight lie, under any circumstances, for any reason, straight to your face, with zero cognitive overhead, zero concept of what a lie even means/is. It's just a default mode.

They live among us. And usually they're immensely charismatic, larger-than-life.

More likely than not, its easier for a liar to get by in densely populated areas. Get caught in a lie, or marked as a liar in a small town can hurt social standing.

However, I wonder if this changes now with social media - for better or worse, accusations (true and false) are quite quickly thrown.

On the other hand, most people lie (or at least exaggerate) on social media. So maybe everyone stays silent in order not to get called out themselves.

There's likely a lot of truth to this. They say that every human is a liar. But I wonder if every human has the courage and ambition it takes to lie big?

Most of us are way too fearful to even lie to low ranking people, so of course we'll never be caught in enormous lies to high ranking people. So when you imply all people are liars, yes, that's true without question. However, I'd wager that only a select few have the guts or desire to go all the way to the top with a lie.

> However, I wonder if this changes now with social media - for better or worse, accusations (true and false) are quite quickly thrown.

One might easily argue the opposite as well.

Near the end of your first paragraph sounds a bit like what a lot of people say about narcissism.

Yes, I believe the clinical term is Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

> I believe that New York attracts these people, from all over the country.

Not just from the country and not just to NY. From all over the world to wherever there is wealth. There was a famous case of the "Fake Rockefeller" where a german guy duped many into thinking he was a rockefeller.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Gerhartsreiter

And if you enjoy lying narcissists, you'll love the documentary "The Imposter". I don't want to spoil it so I won't go into details here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imposter_(2012_film)

It's unbelievable the bald-faced lies that people can come up with. It's also unbelievable the lies people are willing to believe.

I can't read the NYT article but I assume this article is roughly similar: https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/luxury-real-estat...

tl;dr. Said she was born rich. Was actually born to a hairdresser and a con-artist. Really she was rags to riches which is pretty inspirational I think.

You don’t often get in with rich people, who likely had parents that were likely rich given her profession and location, by saying you come from a rough background. That just makes most rich people feel uncomfortable, which isn’t a useful feeling if you want said rich people’s money.

So you don’t think rich people like to hang out with athletes? Actors? Musicians? Totally gives them credibility. Look at Ben Horowitz hanging with rappers.

Yeah but she wasn’t an actor or a musician. Most of the time they hang out with other rich people.

Ha, I can't read that one, because it blocks the EU :)

But here's the NY Times one: https://archive.ph/0wbyX

She did an outstanding job of recreating herself.

I wonder whether she was honest with Jerome Sidel.

>Really she was rags to riches which is pretty inspirational I think.

Horrible as it may be to say, it kind of proves that lying was totally worth it for her. Probably worth it for a lot of the courageous "big" liars out there. If no one's gonna check on it, and you're making all this money, why would you stop? It's working for you.

Like you said, it's probably inspirational to many people. A lot more people will take the "fake it til you make it" route. Because it works often enough to make it a viable life strategy.

'Rags to riches' is not appropriate, as she did not end up rich, only pretend-rich. Even her jewelry and fur coats (by no means items of wealth) were sold to cover debts.

The article implies that she was a successful professional. Sure, she was social-engineering her way in at the beginning, but her achievements were real. She only ended up in real debt quite a bit later, as her whole industry sector went bad.

Word for word

Yeah a much more inspiring story than whatever she made up and something to be proud of since she basically built her life up by being scrapy.

My brother had an ex-girlfriend who was the same, always spinning a different version of her life. Another friend briefly shared a house with her and discovered that she kept two diaries. One detailing the things she had done - and the other detailing what she said she had done.

To be a good liar you need a good memory.

A wise friend once said to me:

"Always tell the truth, it is the easiest thing to remember."

Do we have an increase of Narcissists with the increase of Social Media?

No, just an increase in their visibility. Same with exhibitionists.

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