- Chippendales has a dark history.
I know, your world is shattered
or you're thinking Jason, what's Chippendales?
Well, according to the Chippendales Las Vegas website,
Chippendales Las Vegas is a mantastic, sex-god,
abs party that will make you lose your damn mind
in the very best way, of course.
Seems like good, clean, fun.
It's a dance troop with hot guys,
bow ties, the white cuff links.
Maybe you've seen the SNL sketch
with Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze.
Oh, you haven't because you're not old
and you have your whole life ahead of you?
Great.
That's very nice for you.
Regardless if you know what Chippendales is or isn't,
one thing is for sure,
it has a dark and shady and murderous past.
But before we get into that, we have to serve the algorithm.
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This story revolves around Chippendale's founder,
Somen Steve Banerjee,
the hardworking dude that came from India
to the United States eventually bought a failing bar in LA
called Destiny Two,
but in 1979, he renamed that bar Chippendales.
[Lady Commentator] This is Chippendale's,
a nightclub exclusively for women.
The only man allowed in the club or the waiters, bartenders
and the male dancers.
(audience cheering)
In order to get a really good seat,
the ladies began to arrive at about 6:30.
Excitement builds until Showtime,
and I do mean Showtime.
- Now, one of Banerjee's friends, associates
was a self-proclaimed pimp and nightclub owner, Paul Snider.
Snider's girlfriend was Playboy playmate, Dorothy Stratten.
Paul Snider murdered Dorothy Stratten
and then killed himself.
But really Paul Snider and Dorothy Stratten
were integral with Chippendales.
Dorothy Stratten suggested the bow, tie the cuff links.
So a lot of the idea and look came from them.
So that tragedy is kind of baked into Chippendale's history.
And then it took off, they opened a club in New York.
They had a touring show and Chippendales was progressive
in a sense that it was just clubs
with women dancing for men.
And this turn the tables, which is unheard of,
especially in the late 1970s, early 1980s,
not progressive in the sense that it was mostly white dudes,
sexy, oily white dudes.
(upbeat music)
- [Commentator] Chippendale's the fantasy that never ends.
- So with success there's competition
and Steve Banerjee did what every business owner
and visionary would do,
have his competition burn to the ground.
He hired people to burn down two competitors.
Moody's disco in Santa Monica
and the Red Onion Restaurant in marina del Rey.
Now those weren't successful attempts, just minor damage,
but that's how Steve Banerjee handled business.
Enter Nick De Noia.
Nick De Noia was a successful choreographer
or television and children's television.
And Steve Banerjee hired him to shake things up in 1981,
different routines, different gimmicks.
And Nick De Noia developed the things
that really put Chippendales on the map.
They had routines based on Frankenstein, superheroes
and the legendary Unknown Flasher.
Steve Banerjee was also not a great businessman
when it came to finances and contracts,
and De Noia pretty easily got him to sign off
on a lot of the East Coast business, the New York clubs,
and really keep most of the profits
and De Noia was cooler than Steve Banerjee
so he was the face of it,
especially when it came to media
and talk shows and publicity.
Guess how Steve Banerjee felt about that,
a success for you is a success for all of us,
it's a success for Chippendales.
No, not at all.
Steve Banerjee didn't like that.
So Steve Banerjee did what Steve Banerjee does
when he has a problem, gets rid of it.
And he hired a hit man to kill Nick De Noia.
So he paid the hit man Ray Colon in 1987,
Ray colon farmed out the hit, subcontracted the hit
to a local drug addict named Louie.
So Louie poses a messenger
and went to De Noia's Manhattan office
and shot him in the face.
Banerjee also planed to have co-founder Bruce Nahin murdered
so he can control the whole thing.
But fortunately it was unsuccessful at that.
But for the most part Banerjee was getting away with murder.
Why stop now?
Some former Chippendales dancers
and an MC wanted to open another club called Adonis,
men of Hollywood.
So Banerjee hired a hit man to kill them.
This hit man's name was Strawberry.
You know Strawberry gets things done,
and he wanted him to use cyanide that Banerjee made himself,
homemade cyanide.
That's how dedicated Banerjee was
to solving his problems of getting things done,
but Strawberry got nervous
and he contacted someone in the DEA
and the FBI got involved
and then there was a sting operation
and they gathered enough evidence for murder charges,
racketeering, arson, RICO charges,
all those things, the FBI and DEA get you for.
They even had him on tape saying he would fleet to India
if you ever got in trouble.
Banerjee pleaded guilty to pretty much everything
in July, 1994 and was sentenced to 26 years in prison.
He arranged to have all his assets and Chippendales
go to his wife, but his wife divorced him.
So essentially she turned on him.
So there's no chance of him making bail or fleeing to India.
On the day before he was set to be sentenced,
Banerjee tied all his bedsheets together, made a noose
and committed suicide and died at 48.
Now from 1994 to about 2000,
Chippendales was closing left and right,
it wasn't in Vogue anymore.
But Chippendales got a little help in 2000 from Lou Perlman,
he managed the Backstreet boys and NSYNC
and he became partner of Chippendales.
He has a horrible sketchy history.
That's another story for another time.
But right now Chippendale's is going long and strong.
So you can take comfort in that.
So that's a little bit
about the dark history of Chippendales
and for more dark history, more stories,
check out these videos.
They may or may not have shirtless dudes in them.
I don't know.
You'll have to watch and find out.
They don't.
Trust me, I looked at them, they don't.