A celebration, 101 princesses and an eccentric millionaire: Jon Ronson on a mysterious fortress – and what it taught him about masculinity in disaster | Books

I awoke one morning in the summertime of 2023 to find that, whereas I’d slept, my son Joel had been texting my spouse and me a collection of unnerving messages a couple of perilous scenario he had discovered himself in, in Connecticut.

From what I might inform, as I frantically tried to piece collectively the evening’s occasions, considered one of Joel’s mates had been invited to a celebration being held by a stranger she’d met that week on Tinder. So Joel and two others went alongside for the trip. But after they arrived, they discovered the person’s residence so weird that Joel did one thing he’d by no means carried out earlier than – he despatched me the coordinates of his location and a {photograph}, simply in case.

The {photograph} was of a huge medieval fortress with a drawbridge, gargoyles and lots of – I couldn’t shake the sense that there have been too many – spires, towers and turrets, reaching like skeletal fingers to the looming clouds above.

“I honestly have no clue what is going on,” learn Joel’s second textual content. “This is very weird.” Then: “You drive down a road in the middle of a forest and then there’s this gate and it’s just a huge, massive castle.”

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It was a couple of days later and Joel and his mates have been sitting in my workplace, recounting for me the disquieting occasions that had occurred that evening. It started with an invite to considered one of Joel’s feminine mates: “Castle party Saturday! 3:00pm to whenever. Dress code: Formal. Tell your friends. 18+ to come, 21+ to drink.”

It was a three-hour drive from New York City to the nice city of Woodstock, Connecticut (160 miles from the extra well-known Woodstock, New York, of pageant fame). Then their GPS took them out of city, on to a winding forest highway, and at last to a set of imposing iron gates. They stared on the menacing fortress that loomed past, urgently mentioned turning round, however then the gates swung open and so they discovered themselves coming into.

Standing on the drawbridge have been a person, a girl and a big black canine. The man was the fortress’s proprietor, Chris Mark. He was in his early 60s.

“He had sharp blue eyes,” Joel’s good friend Delaney mentioned, “but glazed over.”

“And he had a cut above one of his eyes,” mentioned Joel.

The canine was known as Cerberus, named after the multi‑headed hound that guards the gates of Hades. The lady was blond and far youthful.

Mark beckoned them inside. They crossed the drawbridge and entered the grand banqueting corridor to find … there was no social gathering. The room was utterly empty, all apart from a small variety of equally bewildered younger folks standing round awkwardly.

“I’m sorry, but where’s the party?” somebody requested.

“Oh no,” Mark replied. “I’ve invited you here for a different reason.” The room fell silent.

“Which is?” somebody requested.

“I’d like you all to take part in my reality show,” Mark replied.

“What’s the name of your reality show?” Joel requested.

“101 Princesses,” he replied.

“What’s the core concept?” Joel requested.

“I’m the lord,” Mark replied. “I’m looking for my queen and I’ve got 101 princesses to choose from.”

He turned to Joel’s feminine mates. “Are you ready to get into your princess costumes? Come downstairs to my costume room.”

Which they did.

I discovered this a part of their story particularly melancholy, that these younger folks have been ready to comply with him to the bowels of his fortress to decorate as princesses.

Mark’s costume room was positioned close to his sizzling tub grotto room, which doubled as his botanical gardens. Whirlpool baths nestled amongst subterranean crops illuminated by purple lamps. In the subsequent room was his pole-dancing nightclub. There have been mannequins and, considered one of Joel’s feminine mates mentioned, “a whole collection of extravagant princess attire, racks of medieval gowns and a glass display case of tiaras. He told me to choose a dress and pick a tiara to match.”

Mark appeared much more within the younger ladies than in Joel and his male good friend Cement, however he gave them tuxedos to alter into all the identical.

After the ladies re-emerged, carrying princess outfits and tiaras, a videographer appeared. They have been assured that whereas 101 Princesses hadn’t but been arrange with a community, it could find yourself on Netflix. Then filming started. Mark walked in and a girl who apparently lived on the fortress curtseyed and mentioned: “Yes, my lord?”

Yet Mark appeared more and more on edge, irritated that Joel and his mates have been observing relatively than collaborating in 101 Princesses.

(It isn’t completely clear what collaborating would have entailed. But they have been instructed it was “a collaborative project” and the makers can be open to concepts. Joel later surmised that together with dance skits and different castle-themed vignettes, the princesses would have been inspired to make out with one another on digital camera, whereas Joel and Cement would have appeared in scenes by which they have been rejected by the princesses in favour of Mark.)

Finally, seemingly exasperated by their lack of curiosity, Mark despatched his videographer to tell them that: “Chris wants everyone to leave. Everyone has to leave now.” And that was the tip of their story. I stood as much as thank them for telling it to me, then I let loose a scream.

In phrases of them discovering themselves in unsettling conditions with older males, Joel and his mates have been, I must admit, considerably out of the frying pan and into the hearth. Six days earlier, I had been in surgical procedure, having a foot of my colon eliminated because of diverticulitis. I used to be nonetheless in ache, which was inflicting me to let loose sudden, surprising shrieks.

I’d been recuperating partly by sitting on park benches, staring out at nothing, attempting to assume up concepts for tales. But after about 10 minutes, I’d invariably discover myself overwhelmed by a dreadful thought: I’m only a man sitting on a bench. It’s a horrible feeling, that sense of purposelessness, which is why I spent the next days not sensibly convalescing however as an alternative studying no matter I might about Mark and his fortress.

The fortress, though you’d by no means comprehend it from the pictures, is newly constructed. Construction started in 2003 and was accomplished in 2010. Mark’s cash was inherited. His great-grandfather Clayton had been a gilded age metal tycoon – the proprietor of the Clayton Mark & Company.

Back throughout building, when rumours have been circulating round Woodstock {that a} rich scion was constructing an ostentatious fortress on the sting of city, journalists managed to unearth fragments of unusual tales concerning the place. Like the way it had been claimed throughout Mark’s 2010 divorce listening to that one of many couple’s pet camels had starved to loss of life because of neglect. Mark blamed his estranged spouse; she blamed him – however provided that camels can final for a number of months with out meals, that gave the impression of a lot of neglect.

Sixteen days after my surgical procedure, I drove three hours to Mark’s fortress. Each time my automotive hit a bump it tore on the still-raw scar, inflicting me to yell out. Still, I had no regrets. I used to be embarking on a narrative, one which had crashed into my life unannounced. It’s all the time nerve-racking to be driving into the unknown – and this journey did really feel prefer it may be harmful – however the sense of function I get from following unusual tales like that is extra highly effective than any painkiller.

Mark was ready for me on his drawbridge. He knew I used to be coming. I’d texted him to say I used to be a nonfiction author and that “my son and his friends were invited to take part in 101 Princesses, and they told me about the extraordinary world you’ve created for yourself at the castle. I’d love to come and write about it.”

“OK,” he’d replied.

He beckoned me inside. I handed an Egyptian sarcophagus and a go well with of armour, its helmet tilted forlornly in the direction of the bottom. Perhaps due to my proximity to those privately owned relics of battle and loss of life, I discovered myself brooding over my surgical procedure; how whereas underneath anaesthetic I should have resembled, for a second not less than, a medieval drawing of a heretic being tortured, intestines spilling out – a drawing that wouldn’t have appeared misplaced inside this outstanding however disquieting fortress.

Guarding this nice fortress had clearly gone to Cerberus’s head, as a result of he repeatedly lurched at me and bit my foot – too laborious to be thought-about playful, not laborious sufficient to be deemed an assault.

“Hey, pal,” I mentioned tentatively. And, “Hey, buddy.” Finally, I attempted to have interaction Mark. “Your dog does like biting my foot,” I mentioned.

“For some reason it’s not a negative thing,” he replied. “It means he likes you or something.”

“Oh, OK,” I mentioned.

“How do you convince people to visit the castle and take part in 101 Princesses?” I requested him.

“I go on dating apps,” he replied, “and I make some kind of relationship. Then I have them come here and I adapt them to this lifestyle.”

I requested how he “adapts them”, and he defined that a few of them have by no means had intercourse with different ladies so he has to coax them into attempting it: “I always thought it would be amazing if I had living here six, eight girls, but the only way it works is if the girls love girls. That’s how the princessing works.”

“Princessing?” I believed.

“We go out and find more girls,” Mark continued, “because they’re looking for themselves. And I just benefit from it.”

So it was lucky, he mentioned, that after he brings them spherical to the concept of intercourse with different ladies, “they actually really like it”.

I observed a number of younger ladies padding silently round within the darkness. Some appeared away after they noticed me glancing of their path; others eyed me with suspicion.

I continued to pepper him with questions on his life contained in the fortress. Eventually, it evidently dawned on him that he was saying unwise issues to a journalist, as a result of he out of the blue stood up, walked to a kitchen drawer and retrieved a doc from a pile of equivalent paperwork. It was a non-disclosure settlement.

“I need you to sign,” he mentioned.

“I don’t feel comfortable signing an NDA,” I mentioned.

He appeared sharply at me. But he relented. He put the paperwork again within the drawer. But the environment had modified, and shortly afterwards I thanked him for permitting me to go to and left.

I had many questions. For occasion: who comes up with a phrase like “princessing”? Also, why was he attempting to manage me with an NDA? Moreover, why did he have an entire pile of NDAs? Who else was he asking to signal them, and why?

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Several weeks later, I used to be driving Joel from upstate New York to Manhattan when Mark started sending me a collection of texts – 42 of them in the course of the three‑hour journey. I requested Joel to learn them out to me. He picked up my telephone, his eyes darting, and browse out an more and more disturbing pattern.

“I’m meeting with my lawyers tonight,” he learn. “I’ll spend whatever it takes to protect my family. I’m having the largest international investigation company learn everything about you. I want to get to know you really well.”

I flinched. The automotive swerved.

There have been extra pings. This time, as Joel appeared on the texts, I noticed his eyes widen in shock.

“What?” I requested.

“I’m going to be sending you some of my friends that were in prison for killing somebody,” Joel learn. “Maybe you could help them write something good so they can turn their lives around … One of my good friends who got out of prison is on his way to New York today … Do not ever mention anything negative about the castle because this guy will get really upset. He thinks I’m like a god, and you don’t want to see him angry. He just got out of jail like a week ago and has been in there for, like, 15 years … To be honest, I’m even a little bit afraid of some of these people … Carlos and Brandon are on their way to New York right now.”

Joel fell silent. “Meet them,” he mentioned.

“You want me to meet Carlos and Brandon?” I mentioned.

“Yes,” he mentioned. “But take security with you. Take five security guards.”

“I’m not going to take five security guards to meet Carlos and Brandon,” I mentioned. “You want me to escalate this to gang warfare?”

Joel appeared annoyed by my reluctance to hit again tougher, however the reality was these final texts had brightened my temper. Libel courts absolutely don’t reply nicely to plaintiffs threatening journalists with visits from murderers – particularly not when the threats have been learn out to the journalist by his personal son, who was arguably emotionally harmed by them.

“Yes,” I believed. “This is good.”

Mark’s volley of texts continued. I used to be stunned by how uninhibited they have been. He was saying the worst issues he might consider: “Everything is a mirror. You destroy someone and someone destroys you.” But he’d intersperse these ominous messages with optimistic character references from mates and colleagues: “I am Shaolin kung fu grandmaster Tyrone Bullock. Chris Mark is an amazing and remarkable person with such a wonderful heart.”

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To be sincere, I felt the threats have been rendering the character references considerably redundant, however on rereading the messages I used to be happy to note him dialling again the eeriness relating to Carlos and Brandon, even providing to cowl my prices.

“If you take my murder friends out,” he texted, “I’ll Venmo you the money.”

The subsequent day, I acquired an e-mail out of the blue:

Hi Jon,

I’m a good friend and advisor to Chris Mark and deal with a lot of enterprise issues for him. Somehow, someway, you actually received underneath his pores and skin and it’s driving him loopy … I’d love for some suggestions so I can get a sense of what’s occurring. Thanks,
Charles Cady

Eleven days later, I sat on Cady’s terrace, overlooking his woodland and stream, 5 miles from Mark’s fortress. He was in his late 60s, and together with his kindly manner he jogged my memory of a favorite grandfather from a Frank Capra movie.

“Chris and I were doing 15, 20 phone calls and texts a day about you,” he instructed me.

“Oh God,” I mentioned. “He says he has two murderers on his staff?”

Cady chuckled.

“I assume those people don’t exist,” I mentioned.

“They do exist,” he mentioned.

But he assured me Mark was “completely harmless”, and that he solely had ex-convicts on his workers to offer them a second probability in life.

But I should have hit a nerve, as a result of on the finish of our two-hour dialog, Cady glanced out over his quiet, rolling land and out of the blue mentioned: “If I suspected in the least there was something creepy going on, I’d drop it like a hot potato. I have no desire to see a police car pull into the yard. I don’t have any room for that in my world.”

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Before Joel and his mates have been kicked out that evening, they’d swapped numbers with two different younger ladies who’d arrived underneath related pretences. Now, I used to be on the telephone to considered one of them. I’ll name her Ari. She stuffed me in on what had occurred subsequent – how they’d all piled into Mark’s Rolls-Royce to go clubbing in Boston, and the way Mark saved “asking if we’d be down to film a shower scene or a hot tub scene with a bunch of women. At that point we figured maybe this wasn’t actually a Netflix show.”

“By the way,” I requested her, “did he ever happen to mention Hugh Hefner to you?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “He said how much he loved Playboy, and that 101 Princesses was based on the whole Playboy situation. He said Hugh Hefner was one of his idols.”

It struck me that Mark was attempting to be Hugh Hefner throughout absolutely the worst interval in human historical past to be Hugh Hefner. Unless you’re the creme de la creme of manosphere influencers, you’ll be able to’t lord it over princesses in your fortress prefer it’s the Nineteen Seventies any extra.

And so, regardless of there being nothing instantly relatable about his story, being a story concerning the complexities of luring ladies to your fortress within the put up‑#MeToo age, I might see a resonance. It was a narrative about males out of time, males failing to regulate to a world that was shifting away from them. The world had modified form and every kind of males have been discovering there have been issues they’d as soon as carried out that they couldn’t do any extra.

Mark’s scenario was, after all, weird and excessive. He had the sources to assemble a fantasy bubble inside which he might fake his life-style wasn’t dated and bizarre and damaging, however aspirational. However, I was picturing much less empowered and extra sympathetic males than him – males who used to derive construction and that means from, say, workplace or manufacturing unit life, and have been now struggling to regulate to a society that had reorganised itself with out them in such a central place.

Some have been as an alternative scratching a dwelling as YouTubers, “personal brands”, content material creators with no job protections, whereas others have been withdrawing, folding in on themselves. There’s information to show it. By 2022, one in six US males aged between 25 and 54 wasn’t working. But inside that statistic was a extra startling one: two‑thirds of these males weren’t even on the lookout for jobs. That’s 6.7 million US males, and numerous extra around the globe, who’ve simply … bowed out.

I used to be aghast. Why had these males opted out of society? What havoc was that purposelessness wreaking on their inside lives, and on the lives of their family members – companions, mother and father, kids? And provided that a few of them would inevitably develop sick of a life within the shadows – of a lifetime of male nothingness – what may occur subsequent?

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While many historically male sectors, comparable to manufacturing unit work, are dying, I’ve observed one position for males that’s flourishing: actors who can play doofuses in tv adverts. Modern TV commercials, actually, are an orgy of male buffoonery, of males who can’t do something proper and must be continuously bailed out by their exasperated wives. I’ve watched males falling off lawnmowers, driving off cliffs (1st for Women insurance coverage), by chance abandoning their infants on restaurant conveyer belts (Philadelphia cream cheese) and being horrible at intercourse (Domino’s pizza).

“Hey, honey,” says the person within the Domino’s advert, “the Domino’s lady just said we’ve got 30 minutes. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

His companion seems to be at him. “What are we going to do with the other 28 minutes?” she says.

I questioned concerning the actors who play the doofuses. Are there explicit go-to males who invariably snag the components? I messaged the veteran casting director Zita Zutic Konak, and he or she emailed again: “Hi Jon, meet Ed – a wonderful actor who we’ve cast in these types of roles previously.”

Ed has performed a person in a Specsavers advert who misses his aircraft as a result of every little thing goes unsuitable on the airport because of his personal ineptitude and the overall frustrations of modernity. He can’t scan his boarding move. The barcode gained’t work. He refuses to surrender his water at safety so he guzzles it down, drenching his Hawaiian shirt. He loses his hand baggage on the shifting walkway. He can’t discover the gate. The advert ends together with his spouse, who’s already by means of safety, trying long-suffering and irritated.

“I did one for Scholl insoles where I had to gallop like a horse,” Ed mentioned. “I’m a regular guy walking to work, but then I put on these really comfortable insoles and I start galloping like a horse down the street. I had to look quite doofusy for that.”

“Fifty years ago,” I mentioned, “there was the Marlboro man being stoical and masculine on a horse, whereas nowadays you have to be the horse.”

“Yeah,” mentioned Ed. He considered it. “But when you look at those old ads, do you relate to those men on any level?”

“You’re right,” I mentioned. “I don’t relate to the Marlboro Man at all. I relate far more to the man who can’t make it through the airport.”

As the previous buildings collapse – throughout each workplace and manufacturing unit life – males who really feel minimize adrift have had no scarcity of recommendation about tips on how to re-anchor themselves. Some males’s well being influencers advocate stoicism, whereas others encourage the other: vulnerability, that “once we finally reveal what’s under our ‘manly masks’ we can start to live authentically”.

Then there’s all these doofus males blundering across the tradition. Clearly, all this reimagining of what it means to be “male” has been disorienting or irritating for some males, leaving them feeling tossed round in a sea of conflicting ideologies about what being a person really means.

Perhaps that’s partly why one more male archetype has emerged – the Manosphere Man.

Take influencer and virulent antisemite Dan Bilzerian, whose 28.7 million Instagram followers get to observe him sit on thrones subsequent to lions, stroll by means of forests with assault rifles, and dine on non-public yachts with near-naked ladies and, in his pre‑incarceration days, with Andrew Tate.

“I had sex nine times in one day. I was so proud of myself,” he instructed Joe Rogan in 2016, sounding loads like Mark. And “I couldn’t fuck all the girls if I had five dicks … I’m not bragging.”

“I salute you, sir,” Rogan mentioned at one level. “You’re living a life that doesn’t even seem real.”

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Several months had handed since I’d been in contact with Mark. Finally, although, my curiosity received the higher of me and I texted him: “How are things at the castle?” “Everything at the castle’s good,” he replied. He was engaged on new actuality present proposals. He despatched me one. It was known as Queen to Fraud, and, per its synopsis, it could doc Mark’s “battle for justice against Anya and Sasha [not their real names], two women who manipulated his wealth and engaged in deception on a massive scale. Tagline: She was supposed to be the queen. But she became the queen of fraud.”

Both Anya and Sasha had, at one time or one other, lived on the fortress. Mark had already instructed me about Anya – how she’d reported him to the police for attempting to throw her into his moat, “but they looked at my surveillance videos and saw she was lying”.

I didn’t know Sasha, however the Queen to Fraud pitch doc outlined his complaints towards her – how he’d showered her with “endless luxuries”, however then she was disloyal to him in Bangkok. Episode three, “Betrayal in Thailand”, would recreate “the shocking moment Sasha disappears to buy drugs, leaving Christopher stranded and sick”. But by episode 10, “The Maximum Sentence”, he’d get his restitution. He’d collaborate “with law enforcement to ensure the harshest penalties” for the ladies’s treacheries.

I suppose that answered my query about how issues have been going – evidently, not nicely. In the brief time I’d recognized Mark he’d gone from creating a actuality present the place he’d meet and woo his queen to 1 the place he’d have her imprisoned – an analogous arc, it struck me, as Henry VIII’s.

He despatched me ChatGPT’s evaluation of Queen to Fraud. It known as it “the most compelling entertainment project ever created”.

“AI likes you a lot!” I texted him.

“That’s who I talk to most of my time,” he replied.

We continued to correspond and I met him in Fort Lauderdale, within the foyer of a beachfront resort known as Ocean Manor. He was in Florida, he mentioned, as a result of he was planning to construct one other fortress and was scouting for areas. There, he outlined for me one other new plan – to assemble in his Connecticut fortress’s grounds an orphanage known as Ark of Light.

“Is Charles helping you out with this?” I requested. Mark shook his head. “I don’t know what happened to him,” he replied, trying genuinely baffled. “We talked almost every day up until a few weeks ago.”

Cady – Mark’s good friend, spokesman and enterprise adviser for 20 years – was out of the blue now not returning his calls? It had all the time been Cady’s job to deal with Mark’s allow functions, on events when Mark had, for example, tried to show the fortress right into a mattress and breakfast or a marriage venue. Now that the duty had presumably fallen to Mark, was he involved that the city of Woodstock won’t grant him a zone variance for a campus of orphaned prodigies?

He shrugged it off. “They’d look bad if they go against me,” he mentioned.

This was Mark falling for ChatGPT’s sycophancy once more. The chatbot had assured him that ought to Woodstock select to “fight a billionaire humanitarian trying to help people, headlines would be brutal: Town of Woodstock opposes billionaire’s plan to feed millions.”

Mark’s devotion to ChatGPT was removed from unusual by this level. Millions have been falling for its obsequiousness. It felt like a ripple from the downfall of the previous buildings. People disintegrate, folks turn out to be directionless, and the tech firms swoop in with new methods to monetise our feeling of purposelessness – our need to be of use – by telling us we aren’t nugatory. Far from it. We’re creating “the most compelling entertainment project ever”.

A breakup will be excellent news for a journalist, and so, after I left Florida, I messaged Cady to let him know I’d simply interviewed Mark once more.

“Lucky you, spending quality time with Chris,” he replied.

There was a definite and, I believed, intriguing change in his tone. We organized to satisfy. I arrived on the restaurant early. Cady was already there, trying grave, tapping his fingers on the desk. I sat down. We ordered lunch. And then Cady instructed me the information.

Mark, he’d discovered, was underneath investigation for a variety of alleged sex-related crimes. It was at a federal degree, with a number of businesses concerned, together with the Department of Homeland Security.

“My head exploded after I met with the feds,” Cady mentioned. “I am angry and upset. And I started thinking, ‘Oh my God, what was I involved in as an unsuspecting individual?’ I feel incredibly, incredibly naive.”

At this time of writing, August 2026, the investigation into Mark is ongoing. Of course, an investigation just isn’t proof of felony wrongdoing – and he has not been charged within the US. Maybe he by no means will probably be. I don’t know the place Mark is. I’ve heard he’s overseas, maybe in south‑east Asia. Maybe he’s anxious about returning to the US because of the police investigation, and the publication of my guide, which tells the tales of many unravelling males, together with him. But after I left Cady that day, I dug and dug and I lastly really feel I’ve discovered the reality of what was actually occurring inside his fortress.

I believe that, like many males, Mark was attempting to create a fantasy life inside which he didn’t must dwell or work together with different folks besides on his personal phrases. It’s a rising phenomenon – males responding to the collapse of the previous buildings, and a shift in energy, by changing into like separatists, succumbing to uninhibited behaviour, attempting to create false utopias the place they’ll behave nonetheless they need. But it feels just like the experiment is failing. As Mark is presumably studying, typically while you push boundaries, actuality bites again.

When approached by the Guardian for touch upon this text, Chris Mark mentioned that Jon Ronson had “presented me and events involving me in a profoundly misleading manner”. In relation to 101 Princesses, Mark denied intentionally deceiving folks into coming to the fortress, including that “the gathering related to a proposed creative project … that also had a genuine charitable purpose”. He added: “I strongly dispute any characterisation suggesting that I groomed, conditioned or manipulated women into sexual activity.” He denied that the textual content messages referencing Carlos and Brandon in any manner constituted a real menace: “I did not intend to instruct anyone to physically harm Jon Ronson.” In reference to the allegation from his 2010 divorce listening to about mistreatment of a pet camel, he mentioned: “I dispute any implication that I intentionally starved or neglected an animal.”