$40,000-a-Night Escorts Secrets of the Cannes Call Girls

A businessman -- and Gadhafi associate -- who was convicted in a 2007 prostitution ring bust reveals all the dirty secrets of how models (and even some Hollywood actresses) swarm the hotels and yacht parties during the fest: says one escort, it's "the biggest payday of the year."


This story first appeared in the May 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Sharon Stone, Lebanese businessman Elie Nahas was once a regular at the Cannes Film Festival.

But since his bust in 2007 for his part in the most explosive prostitution scandal in the history of the festival, Nahas, 48, can't leave his native Lebanon. He hopes that his eight-year prison sentence, slapped on him in absentia by a French judge after a trial in Marseilles in October, will be overturned on appeal this year, but he's not overly optimistic. In fact, he also is fearful that if he leaves Lebanon, he'll be picked up by Interpol.

Nahas, who owns a Beirut-based modeling agency, used to work as a right-hand man for Moatessem Gadhafi, the playboy son of Libyan strongman Muammar Gadhafi, Nahas' longtime pal. It was during this time that Nahas was arrested on charges of running a prostitution ring that supplied more than 50 women "of various nationalities" to the younger Gadhafi and other rich Middle Eastern clients during the festival. Moatessem was killed with his father in Libya in 2011.

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'They Can Make up to $40,000 a Night'

Every year, women ranging from what the French call putes de luxes (high-priced call girls), who charge an average of $4,000 a night, to local streetwalkers, who normally get little more than $50 or $75 an hour turning tricks in nearby Nice, converge on Cannes for what one Parisian hooker calls "the biggest payday of the year." The influx is hard not to notice. "Hookers stand out in Cannes. They're the ones who are well-dressed and not smoking," tweeted Roger Ebert in 2010.

"We all look forward to it," says a local prostitute in Cannes who goes by the name of Daisy on her website but declined to give her surname. Daisy is one of many independent escorts who have their own websites and usually avoid going to hotels and bars -- except during the festival. "There's a lot of competition because there are so many girls, but the local ones have an advantage. We know the hotel concierges."

The local prostitutes, says Daisy, routinely drop cash off with concierges at the town's top hotels. In return, if they are lucky, concierges sometimes steer clients their way. During the 10-day festival, an estimated 100 to 200 hookers stroll in and out of the big hotels every day, according to hotel sources.

Nahas says the money can be bigger than most people realize. The most beautiful call girls, he says, know to target the high-end hotels "where all the Arabs stay."

"They can make up to $40,000 a night," says Nahas. "Arabs are the most generous people in the world. If they like you, they will give you a lot of money. At Cannes, they carry money around in wads of 10,000 euros. To them, it's just like paper. They don't even like to count it. They'll just hand it to the girls without thinking. I know the system."

The serious action starts after 10 p.m., he says. Call girls sit in the lobby, and prospective clients check them out.

"It's all done with hand signals," he says. "The guys signal their room numbers with their hands and the girls follow them."

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The Organized Rings

Some of the "luxury prostitutes" come as part of an organized ring, the type of operation that police said Nahas ran, and others fly in small groups on their own, mainly from Paris, London, Venezuela, Brazil, Morocco and Russia. Still others take advantage of the other big event taking place on the Cote d'Azur, the Monaco Grand Prix, and rent hotel rooms in the town of Beausoleil, just behind Monaco, and commute between there and Cannes, a 40-minute drive.

Nahas denies he was running a prostitution ring but admits he arranged for women to come to Cannes during the festival. His job, he says, was to pick them up at Nice International Airport, bring them to the port at Cannes and place them on small boats that took them out to Gadhafi's yacht, the Che Guevara, and other luxury vessels.

"I was not party to anything else," insists Nahas. "I don't know what took place between any of them. I had no part of it. They may have just been there to talk and have fun."

Until his 2007 arrest, Nahas was best known for throwing a $1 million birthday party for Moatessem Gadhafi in Marrakesh in 2004. He paid Enrique Iglesias $500,000 to attend and flew in Carmen Electra for $50,000, he says. Kevin Costner also attended.

"Gadhafi never touched Carmen," says Nahas. "In fact, she was a little angry because she felt he didn't pay enough attention to her. But Gadhafi was shy, believe it or not. Women had to make the first move." (A spokesperson for Electra could not be reached for comment.)

Nahas -- who was jailed for 11 months after his arrest in France then released for lack of proof -- says the younger Gadhafi sent him $25,000 a month to live on after his reputation was ruined in Lebanon and he no longer could work. Since Gadhafi's death, the money has dried up. "I cry blood for him every day," says Nahas.

When Nahas was arrested, police confiscated an address book that contained dozens of names and contact information for some of the richest princes and potentates in the Middle East. Nahas admits that he knew them all but denies that he procured hookers for them.

But even if he did, says Nahas, there are plenty more like him all over Cannes during the festival.

"Please," says Nahas. "Every year during the festival there are 30 or 40 luxury yachts in the bay at Cannes, and every boat belongs to a very rich person. Every boat has about 10 girls on it; they are usually models, and they are usually nude or half nude. It's drugs and drink and beautiful women. Go out on one and you'll see. The girls are all waiting for their envelopes at the end of the night. It's been going on there for 60 years."