Arizona’s Wayne Newton Museum can’t get built because Wayne Newton won’t move out of it. That’s what a new lawsuit claims.
Back in 2010 it was announced that Wayne Newton would turn his mansion into a museum, a “Graceland West” meant to celebrate the career of the guy who’s been called Mr. Las Vegas. Not only does Newton have dozens of Arabian horses on his ranch, he’s said to have a “miniature monkey” and South African penguins as well.
Who’s Wayne Newton? A singer who was famous a long time ago, and whose fame today rests on the fact that he was famous a long time ago.
The deal reached was that Newton would move out of his mansion and into a new $2 million home built elsewhere on his 40-acre estate, Casa de Shenandoah, in Henderson, Arizona. Then developers CSD would convert his mansion into a tourist destination.
Yes, “Mr. Las Vegas” doesn’t actually live in Las Vegas, not even in the same state. God bless America!
Now CSD is suing Wayne Newton, claiming he delayed the project by not moving out of the mansion. Newton, in response, claims CSD delayed the project by being… well, contractors. Suits and countersuits, and so on.
So those of you who self-identify as Wayne-iacs will just have to wait for the museum. In the meantime, you could go see Wayne Newton’s wax figure at Madame Toussaud’s:
But even better, show up at a Wayne Newton event, where his real life image is almost more life-like than his wax image:
Who needs a Wayne Newton Museum when Wayne Newton himself is like a traveling King Tut exhibit? Or stick him back in the mansion and charge AARP members a book of Green Stamps to be photographed next to him — no flash photography, please, we don’t want his earlobes melting again.
The rumor is also that Newton’s estate was a mess, complete with dirty penguins and man-high piles of animal manure around the grounds. On top of all that, there’s a charge that Newton sexually harassed “a young female employee hired to train his 55 horses by repeatedly kissing her on the mouth.”
Horse whispering has its mysteries.
Well, it’s a lawsuit, so it could all be lies, and a whole bunch of them. Wayne Newton is weird in the same way Las Vegas is weird — American kitsch on steroids, with a 128-ounce Red Bull chaser.
Find out about Wayne Newton from our Who2 biography. Read more than you’d ever want to know about him in the Las Vegas Sun‘s archive of Wayne Newton news stories.
(Wax figure photo from here. Other photos from WENN.)