By Josh Resnek
I spoke with Steve Wynn earlier this week.
I have his number on my cell so I gave him a call Wednesday morning.
He was down. There wasn’t much laughter between us, just kind of a semi serious discussion about his life after falling from the mountaintop.
We talked after he had his weekly manicure from a location he wished not to discuss.
“I am having a difficult time reprogramming my life, Josh,” he said to me.
‘What do you mean, Steve,” I asked him.
“I have to do everything differently now,” he said.
‘Yeah, I guess so, Steve,” I answered.
“Take my manicure, for instance. I like being naked when I get my manicure. I like the manicurist to be naked as well… this is just the way I like it. What’s wrong with that? The Wall Street Journal made fodder out of me when they learned about my naked manicures,” Steve said.
There was sadness in his voice. Weakness, almost.
“Josh, I’ve lost everything about who Steve Wynn is. Without that I have nothing. It is terrible,” he said.
“I look in the mirror. I see no image, nothing. I don’t know who I am without my casinos,” he said.
“Maybe it would have been better that you didn’t have naked manicures,” I said to him.
He grew angry with me.
‘What’s wrong with a naked manicure,” he said, and then he mumbled, “and what’s wrong with a naked manicurist?”
“Nothing,” I said, “except that the Wall Street Journal made quite a thing about it and about that $7.5 million payment for the woman who allegedly had your child,”
I said to him.
“Do you really do things like that, Steve? I thought you were married.”
“What are you, an idiot? Being married in Las Vegas is not exactly being married when you’re worth several billion dollars, Josh,” he said.
“Every woman I am with now has to sign lawyer’s papers before anything happens between us. It has to be this way,” he added.
“That Wall Street Journal story ruined everything for me,” he said.
“How is your wife doing after all these revelations about you, Steve? Is she standing by your side?”
“Are you a screwball or something. She’s divorcing me. What woman would stay by the side of a man depicted by the national press as a sexual harasser and degenerate?” he answered.”Do you think she’d be caught dead going out in public with me? Do you think she’s nuts, too?”
“Don’t get down on yourself, Steve. Only about 50 women working for you or employed in Las Vegas came forward to say bad things about you.At least this is what was reported by the Wall Street Journal. Hey, maybe they were all lying?” I said to him.
‘Don’t get down on yourself,” I repeated.
“Will you be at the ribbon cutting next June at the Everett casino and hotel now called Encore?”
“I’d be there but no one, absolutely no one would want me there. Can you imagine? They’ve even taken my name from it. Now its called Encore.”
“Have you learned anything from your experiences during the past year, Steve. Come on, Steve, let it all out.”
“Yeah. I’ve learned that the only thing that matters is money – and I’ve got a ton of it, more than $2 billion. All these other jerks denouncing me or suing me and making claims that I sexually harassed them are out for one thing…money,” he said.
I hesitated a moment then I asked him, “Has anyone, has anyone at Wynn Resorts reached out to you to come back on the Board, or to participate in shepherding the company you founded?”
“No one. Not one person, not even a phone call. I am persona non grata. Even the new president of what used to be my company, Matt Maddox refuses to talk with me or to be seen with me. I mean, I made that kid. He worked side by side with me for longer than a decade,” he said.” He told the Mass Gaming Commission he knew nothing about my sexual preferences. Wow,” he exclaimed, “what a whopper of a lie that was!” he added. ‘We came to know everything about one another, like comrades in arms we stood shoulder to shoulder building Wynn Resorts. Now he disavows me in every way.I hope he loses the license in Everett. He deserves that,” Steve said to me.
‘Listen Josh, I need to get off the line. I’m getting ready for a massage. As you might have expected, a young woman giving me the massage has consented to being naked and for me to be naked at the same time. She even signed the legal documents so she can’t sue me or go to the press. I’ve learned my lesson, Josh.
“Wow!,” He howled. What a massage this should be.”
“If you’re ever in Vegas. Josh, look me up. We need to get together.”
“Nice to talk with you. Keep up the good work at the Leader Herald…I read it on-line every week.”
“And by the way if want a manicure, just let me know buddy!”
Josh Resnek does not have Steve Wynn’s phone number and has never spoken with Steve Wynn and certainly didn’t for this thought piece.