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I’ve never particularly envied people who were born rich. Without the need to hustle, I feared an existential void would open up and swallow me whole. But this may be a very middle class thing to say. Perhaps if I’d grown up poor, the hustle would look less attractive? On this episode, hear candid stories from musician Moby about the shame of growing up poor when his mother couldn’t afford milk, and the tricks he played to hide this; from Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune, about being born fabulously rich — and making documentaries about that fact; from Bokara Legendre about being of the last “debutante” generation, and from another wealthy-born woman about the heartbreak that no amount of money can shield us from.

Jamie Johnson is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker. His films Born Rich and The One Percent examine wealth and social class in the United States. Moby is a DJ and musician who has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide, and Bokara Legendre is a writer, painter and journalist.

Moby as a child

Moby as a teenager

Jamie Johnson