James Packer’s Act 3: Easy lies head that no longer wears Crown
Dropping seven mood-altering drugs – and a significant amount of weight – James Packer wants to return to public life.
James Packer says he wants to “rehabilitate his reputation” and return to public life, with the sale of his family’s long-held Crown Resorts casino business to private investors the end of his second act – and the start of the third.
In an interview from his home in Cabo San Lucas, the billionaire told The Weekend Australian he was the happiest he had been “in years”, revealing he had ceased “seven different mood-altering drugs prescribed to me by my doctors” and lost significant weight.
“I’ve made too many mistakes and I’ve got some big things right too. But I have played the game, be it in the media in Australia or with Crown, I’ve played the game and rolled the dice,” he said. “I’m feeling excited about starting my Act 3 … my Crown chapter is over.”
Mr Packer was speaking after the finalisation of the sale of Crown to Blackstone for $8.9bn. His Consolidated Press Holdings vehicle received a windfall of $3.3bn, ending the Packer family’s links with the company.
It also closed a painful chapter in Mr Packer’s life – with a run-in with Chinese authorities and, later, revelations about money laundering in his casinos, crushing his long-held ambitions to operate casinos from Macau to Las Vegas.
Crown has been sold to Blackstone and delisted from the ASX against the backdrop of three state-based, royal commission-style inquiries over the past 18 months into the company’s affairs, with governments and regulators mandating a top-to-bottom overhaul of its gaming operations.
Crown’s casino in Melbourne operates with intense regulatory oversight and a conditional licence. The Sydney gaming floor was only this week given approval to begin operating.
Despite those troubles, Mr Packer told The Weekend Australian he was proud of the company and his family’s legacy.
“Crown and Southbank changed Melbourne for the better, the Burswood precinct has changed Perth for the better and Crown Sydney and Barangaroo have changed Sydney for the better,” he said, adding: “I am very much looking forward to seeing Crown Sydney … it hasn’t been appropriate for me to be in Australia for the last few years.
“I am coming back to Sydney, with Erica and my kids, all together, to stay at our family apartment at Crown Sydney for the first time next March. I can’t wait to see Crown Sydney, and to be in Sydney with my kids and with Eri.”
Mr Packer said the sale of Crown marks the beginning of the third act of what has been his turbulent life, with family now the priority for the billionaire investor.
“The sale of Crown is the end of my Act 2 and the beginning of my Act 3. I want to learn from my mistakes and I’m hoping for a meaningful and successful Act 3.”
Mr Packer said he saw himself as “incredibly lucky”. “I have a great family, I inherited a fortune and I’ve lived a full and varied life and met some of the most incredible people in the world,” he said.
Yet Mr Packer, who shares three children, Indigo, 13, Jackson, 12 and Emmanuelle, 9, with his former wife Erica, is yet to see Crown Sydney in its finished form. His last visit to Australia, and the then building site, was in January 2020. Mr Packer was last seen publicly in October 2020 when he appeared via video link from his $250m yacht IJE at an inquiry investigating Crown’s fitness to hold a casino licence in NSW.
Shortly, Mr Packer said, Erica will embark on a renovation of the $72m apartment he had purchased on levels 48 and 49 of the One Barangaroo Crown Residences. “Erica has very kindly agreed to decorate our family apartment,” he said.
“It is going to be a family apartment that I will use when I’m in Sydney, Eri will use when she’s in Sydney, and our kids will also use when they’re in Sydney.”
Over recent years Mr Packer has been absent from public life as he struggled with and has learned to manage his mental health challenges, which has included a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
“Day-to-day life is very good for me at the moment,” he said. “I’m the happiest I’ve been in years, Erica and I and the kids all get on so well and love each other very much. And my Mum and I are very close and my sister Gretel and I are now perfect, which is to her credit more than mine.”
The businessman, whose family for three generations has dominated public life in Australia, reports that he is now living his life without the need for medication and is taking care of his health, fitness and wellbeing.
“I got off all my antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs in March,” he said, adding he had previously been taking numerous mood-altering drugs prescribed to him by his doctors. “I have started a diet and have lost 25kg in 75 days so far. I’m roughly 130kg now and want to be back to 100kg by the end of 2022.
“I want to swim with my kids at Bondi when we’re all in Sydney together next year and be 100kg.”
Between now and then, Mr Packer will spend the European summer on IJE in the Mediterranean, before heading to his polo resort Ellerstina in Argentina and then to Aspen for Christmas.
Beyond that and towards the longer term, Mr Packer is spending time fleshing out a vision for his life. “In 10 years, and hopefully well before then, I hope to have rehabilitated my reputation in Australia and elsewhere,” he said.
“I want to be involved in public debate on important subjects for Australia – like Australia’s relationship with China, mental health and artificial intelligence, to name three subjects.”
Politics remains important too. “I believe Australia should become a republic. That is an issue that is also important to me,” he said.
“I want to be involved with good organisations that help people a lot less fortunate than me.”
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