Michael Capponi
| Michael Capponi | |
|---|---|
Michael Capponi
|
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| Born |
Michael Jean Francois Capponi April 5, 1972 |
| Residence | Miami |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Known for | Philanthropy, Nightlife, Real Estate Development |
| Website | luna |
Michael Jean Francois Capponi (born April 5, 1972) is an American businessman. He is best known for helping to develop Miami Beach's nightlife and his humanitarian work, especially in Haiti.
Capponi was born in Belgium; he moved to Miami with his parents when he was six, and grew up on Key Biscayne. His parents divorced. He has said that by age 13 he was doing LSD in Crandon Park with the local Key Rats. He raced BMX bikes, and appeared in ads for Coca-Cola and Twix. He began working as a promoter for nightclubs when he was 15, organizing events and posting flyers, and while still in high school made $10,000 per month.
By the 1990s he had developed an $800-per-day heroin habit. By 1995, he was homeless in New York City. At his father's suggestion, Capponi entered a methadone program in Belgium; he fell into a coma soon after starting, and had to undergo surgery to remove a benign brain tumour. He then went through a detox program in Canada, before returning to Miami Beach.
On March 20, 2015, he was at the helm of his 25-foot Chris-Craft Corsair motorboat when he fainted, he reported; The boat slammed head-on into a seawall. The accident seriously injured Capponi and a female passenger. Capponi suffered a broken nose, broken ribs, and a broken collarbone; his passenger suffered serious head injuries, was in a coma for three weeks, and lost much of her short-term memory. The final report of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on the accident stated that "neither victim was cited and that no alcohol or drugs were found in the couple's systems, aside from the medication given to them at the hospital. Capponi's insurer claimed that he had failed to advise them of being convicted on a DUI charge in 2003 and hence had benefited from a lower premium. The insurer's case that they were not liable for damages was dismissed.
In the 1980s, he promoted roving parties at a different location in South Beach every weekend, to escape the focus of police and regulatory authorities. Capponi contributed to the revitalization of South Beach, which began in the late 1980s.
His contributions to South Beach's development continued into the 1990s. The 12 September 1993 edition of the Miami Herald called him "the SoBe Prince" of nightlife. Also in 1993 the Miami New Times called him "a promoter with a higher calling, a nightlife star" In the 1990s he was close friends with Chris Paciello, a former Cosa Nostra associate and South Beach nightclub owner, with whom he owned music production company C&P Music. He credits Paciello with getting him off heroin by sending him to a detox center.
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