*Martin Shkreli, the rich dude with the a-hole attitude is at it again.
If you recall, he’s the hedge fund owner and pharmaceutical exec who raised the price of the antiparasitic drug Daraprim by 5,556 percent (from US$13.50 to US$750 per tablet) and gained everlasting infamy.
He’s also the person who purchased the Wu-Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” album for $2 million so he can keep it off the market and all to himself. Now he wants to do something similar again. At least he says he does. He’s set his sights on Kanye West‘s new release, “The Life of Pablo.”
READ RELATED STORY: Price-Gouging Wu-Tang Fan Martin Shkreli Arrested for Security Fraud
Shkreli posted a letter addressed to West on his Twitter account Thursday “in hopes of convincing you to withhold the release of your forthcoming album.” He sent out the request just minutes after West began debuting the album via a live stream of a listening session at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Here’s Shkreli basic proposal to Kanye:
“Instead of releasing this product for your millions of fans, I ask you to sell this recording solely to me, for the price of $10,000,000.” He wrote: “I believe you (and your partners) will find this financial arrangement more attractive than your current course of action.”
READ RELATED STORY: Kanye West Settles Feud With Wiz Khalifa: ‘Great Convo. All Positive’
Although Shkreli was successful in acquiring the Wu-Tang project, this situation’s a bit different. Entertainment Weekly, which first reported the story, gave this perspective:
The rap outfit had previously announced that they would only produce a single copy of their new album and sell it to the highest bidder, whereas West has never expressed such a plan — in fact, anyone with an Internet connection could get a first listen of the entire album Thursday before its expected release Friday.
After posting the letter, Shkreli tweeted that “Kanye and his label are legally required to take my offer letter to their Board of Directors … This should delay the album by a few days.” (EW has reached out to legal counsel to assess the validity of his statement.)
This dude sounds like he’s full of you-know-what if you ask us. So far, according to EW, West’s team has not immediately responded to their request for comment.
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