Leonardo DiCaprio’s $100 Million Charity Scandal

Hollywood’s heartthrob turned award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio has always identified as an environmentalist. His passion for putting the brakes on global warming and fossil fuel consumption let him to create his charitable organization in 1998, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which focuses on promoting renewable energy, biodiversity and preventing global warming. The foundation has been quite successful, at one point hosting the highest grossing environmental charity event in history, raising $40 million in an art auction.

But it looks like he and his foundation are in some hot water right now. A Swiss environmental organization is suing DiCaprio for $100 million to be returned to his foundation, which he allegedly stole in order to finance his movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”. The film cost $155 million to produce and grossed $392 million worldwide.

It’s an embarrassing financial scandal for DiCaprio, no doubt about it. But considering his net worth of $270 million and ongoing success in Hollywood, plus other assets (he owns yachts and a private jet, which has drawn criticism from environmental groups), it shouldn’t be that hard to scrounge up $100 million, right?

Apparently, the money that was stolen from the foundation after having been collected from donors in order to be used to further environmentalist causes, specifically to preserve forests in Malaysia. Instead, it appears that DiCaprio used the $100 million for his own personal gain.

So far no official statement from DiCaprio on the subject. But I also can’t help but wonder what sort of tax problems this is going to create for him. $100 million of money in a non-profit is not the same as $100 million of personal cash that can be freely used to finance Hollywood films, not in the eyes of the IRS at least.