James Packer’s 50th birthday was a modest affair. Ten close friends, his mum and sister gathered on September 8 last year at his Argentinian polo ranch. No lavish party for a billionaire who has partied with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and squired model Miranda Kerr — but a subdued audience with the gaming mogul who had become a recluse.
From the outside it seemed he had so much to celebrate.
He is the nation’s ninth-richest man. As Crown Resorts’ biggest shareholder, he owns $4 billion of the company’s stock.
James has a very big heart and he is a very generous individual, but when he feels he has been wronged he responds strongly
But since 2007, when he was Australia’s richest individual at the age of 39, his personal wealth has shrunk by almost a half.
He has three children with whom he enjoys a “beautiful” relationship, and remains friendly with their mother, his second ex-wife Erica Packer.
Although its overseas growth plans are shredded, Crown is performing better than in years, under the cost-cutting stewardship of Packer’s long-term confidant John Alexander.
The executive chairman has junked ambitions for a casino in Las Vegas, instead doubling down on the domestic business and building the $2.4 billion casino at Sydney’s Barangaroo.
The black cloud of Barangaroo’s timing (it’s scheduled to open in 2021) has added to Packer’s troubled psyche.
A project the company had anticipated would lure wealthy Chinese whale gamblers to Sydney, Crown had not contended with a crackdown by the Chinese government to stop its citizens gambling abroad.
Growing up in the shadow of his formidable father, Australian business legend Kerry Packer, James is in crisis.
His mother Ros this week jetted to Los Angeles to support him following his shock resignation from the board of Crown to focus on recovering from depression — even though, at the same time, he was jetting out for Mexico.
“It sounds very self-indulgent when a rich man talks about the search for happiness,” Packer reflected in 2013 in a rare and revealing interview with Mike Willesee.
“But I think happiness is the thing that we are all striving for in life. The mind is a funny thing and why the mind sometimes makes people happy and sometimes unhappy is one of the big questions of life,” he said.
Those close to Packer have for decades witnessed his mood swings and anxiety. One minute he’s happy and seems fine. The next he’s not. Sometimes there is an obvious trigger, but sometimes not.
“James has a very big heart and he is a very generous individual, but when he feels he has been wronged he responds strongly,” a friend tells Saturday Extra.
He has twice before spiralled into depression, following the 2001 collapse of One.Tel under the burden of $380 million debt, and after the global financial crisis, when he lost about $2 billion.
His decision to make his mental health battle public shocked many close to him.
“I guess this means he was not coming along as good as we thought he was,” one close associate tells Saturday Extra.
For the best part of three years Packer has rarely visited Sydney, instead living at the polo estate Ellerstina in Argentina, or at Aspen, or Los Angeles, where Erica and the children live, or the Mexican resort of Cabo.
But after his birthday last year he travelled to Perth and Melbourne, delivering an authoritative performance at Crown Resort’s annual general meeting in October.
He attended Seven West Media’s telethon in Perth as a guest of his friend Kerry Stokes and seemed engaging, albeit reflective, to the tight circle of people he mingled with at the event.
He was, however, noticeably on the heavy side of his yo-yoing weight, which he trimmed by 35kg after lap-band surgery in 2012.
Confidants saw positive signs that he was in a better place compared with previous years. His relationship with Mariah Carey — inexplicable to many who know him — was behind him, with one insider referring to the breakup as “escape from Alcatraz”.
The messy split reportedly ended with her keeping the $US10 million engagement ring and a multimillion-dollar settlement from the $US50 million she’d demanded.
When he and Carey got together, Packer was involved in negotiations with his older sister Gretel over the assets from the estate of their father Kerry, who died in 2005. Packer has pointed to this in explaining the “complicated” reasons that led to his relationship with Carey.
“I was at a low point in my personal life,” Packer told his biographer Damon Kitney in October, calling negotiations with Gretel “difficult”.
“(Carey) was kind, exciting and fun ... But it was a mistake for her and a mistake for me.”
Gretel reportedly received $1.25 billion from Kerry’s estate at a time Packer was feeling the pinch of vast debt.
“Two years ago I was terrified. I had $2.3 billion of debt at CPH (Consolidated Press Holdings, his private company), over $3 billion of debt at Crown, I’d just appointed Rob (Rankin as chairman of Crown), Macau was falling over, and Gretel was on my doorstep,” he said in October.
Of his relationship with Gretel he said: “We have not spent a lot of time together. She is getting on with her life and I am doing the same.”
Gretel accompanied their mother Ros to Sydney Airport on Thursday, but did not join her on the flight to see Packer.
In October 2016, a year after the estate deal was done, Packer was crushed by the news that Crown employees had been arrested in China for illegally marketing gambling.
“I’ve got China falling apart, the Australian casino businesses missing budgets by big amounts, I’ve got Mariah breaking up with me and I’m thinking, ‘F...!’”
Senior Crown executive Jason O’Connor was among those arrested and was someone Packer knew and respected. Friends believe he has never got over this. “The China arrests had a big impact on him,” the friend says.
Also since purged from the Packer camp was his 2012 Hollywood partnership Ratpac with producer Brett Ratner, who had introduced him to Carey.
Ratpac produced successes Gravity, American Sniper, Batman v Superman, and Suicide Squad, but also put a lot of stinkers on the big screen, with Packer losing $100 million overall.
Earlier this year Ratner also denied allegations of sexual harassment that surfaced in the #metoo campaign.
“Let’s just say I did more for Brett than he did for me. But it was amicable with Brett in the end,” Packer said in the October interview.
Packer’s best man David Gyngell is another dusted friendship, and one that neither side will talk about. The ugly punch-up with the former Channel 9 boss on the street in Bondi in May 2014 was patched up to a point, but the friendship has never recovered to what it was.
Packer has always struggled with the dichotomy of being Kerry Packer’s son. It’s gifted him privilege and fortune, but he is aware of the spotlight of scrutiny it shines. He also knows better than anyone the wrath of Kerry’s temper.
“There were moments in my dad’s life when he was very happy and there were moments in his life when he was very unhappy. He was a mercurial person, he had big mood swings,” he said.
In stepping down from the board, Packer intends to focus on what is important in life.
“His priority is getting over this, his relationship with his family, and his relationship with his kids,” a source close to Packer says.
A friend says: “His relationship with his kids is beautiful. The kids clearly love their father and he finds great joy and adores them. What he needs now, more than ever, is privacy, so he can get on with healing.”
Reflecting on his 50th birthday in October, Packer described the past five years as tumultuous.
“I think turning 50 is like the end of a chapter. There are things I am excited about. There are things I regret. On the whole I lead an incredibly fortuitous life, and I remember that 90 per cent of the time. Ten per cent of the time I am probably guilty of forgetting it. And there are lots of things to look forward to in the future.”