Banned For Life: These Celebrities Can Never Buy A Ferrari Again

Banned For Life: These Celebrities Can Never Buy A Ferrari Again

A Ferrari is a quintessential supercar, synonymous with power and style. No matter where you go, if you’re behind the wheel of a prancing horse from Maranello, heads will turn. From world-class athletes to Hollywood A-Listers, many of the richest and most popular celebrities in the world made sure they owned at least one Ferrari, and yet, at the same time, there are many who can’t.

The question then becomes, what does it take to be able to buy a Ferrari? Is it just a simple case of pulling up to the nearest dealership with a sufficient bank balance? Interestingly, the answer is no, as it takes far more than fame and money to be able to drive home with a Ferrari. Ferrari as a car brand is notorious for being very picky when it comes to selecting its customers. When your cars are produced in limited numbers and are extremely sought-after the world over, you can afford to be picky with who drives them.

Updated March 2023: Ferrari remains a prestigious and highly coveted brand in the automotive world. Notably, if you already own a Ferrari, you must keep to certain standards and rules to remain in the company’s good books for future offerings. We’ve updated this list with more celebrities who fell short of such standards, and hence, they got banned from buying new Ferraris.

It isn’t just about the money. A potential Ferrari customer gets vetted for their public image, their affiliation to the brand, their ability to keep the car maintained and running well, and finally, their capacity to buy more Ferrari models in the future.

As such, Ferrari has an infamous ‘blacklist’ of celebrities who, despite their money and fame, are not allowed to buy their cars. Let’s take a look at some celebrities in the automotive world, as well as that of pop culture, who got banned by Ferrari from buying their cars.

Tyga

According to TMZ, the popular tabloid news outlet, Tyga leased a 2012 Rolls-Royce Ghost and a Ferrari 458 Spider of the same model year back in 2016. However, before the lease on these cars ended, Tyga prematurely stopped making his payments, and thus, the cars got repossessed.

Furthermore, the company reported that the rapper still owed them around $45,000 on the Ferrari, and almost double that on the Ghost. Therefore, the company sued Tyga for the amount, including legal fees and interest. While these reports may very well get exaggerated, the bad publicity alone with Ferrari’s name attached would ensure that the rapper wouldn’t ever get considered an ideal candidate for Maranello.

Deadmau5

It is quite clear that Ferrari has some high standards for customers and what they can do after they drive off from the dealership, but they still don’t take too kindly to extreme changes. Thus, when Canadian music producer Deadmau5 chose to deck his 458 Italia in a sky-blue vinyl as a tribute to internet meme Nyan Cat, Ferrari simply wasn’t happy.

Custom badging and floor mats made Deadmau5’s case worse, and his ‘Purrari’, as he called it, became the reason that Ferrari served him a cease and desist letter to have custom emblems removed, after which the musician removed the Purrari badges, returning the car to its original white paint. Clearly, Deadmau5 is never getting his name on Ferrari’s VIP list ever again.

Chris Harris

Popular automotive journalist and critic Chris Harris wrote an article titled ‘How Ferrari Spins’ for Jalopnik back in 2011. In it, he claimed that the supercar brand from Italy optimized their test cars in a particular fashion to ensure the best possible results in performance tests for magazines, which aren’t symmetrical with mass-production variants.

Naturally, this accusation did not sit well with Ferrari at all, and they banned him from their list of journalists entitled to loaner cars. Even though Chris Harris had quite the reputation among Ferrari enthusiasts through his online presence, it will almost always be a certainty that the company won’t be getting him on their list anytime soon.

Justin Bieber

For Canadian pop sensation Justin Bieber, it was not one, but a string of offenses that landed him on Ferrari’s blacklist. First, the singer arranged for his Ferrari 458 Italia F1 Edition to get customized by West Coast Customs. Originally white, he got it wrapped in an electric blue color, and his biggest sacrilege was tampering with the Prancing Horse logo as well.

While this most probably would have been enough to set Ferrari off, Justin also reportedly lost his Ferrari for three weeks after a drunken night out in Los Angeles. It took his assistant three whole weeks to locate the car and paired with his blatant disregard for Ferrari’s customization limits, it was only natural for him to end up on their blacklist, despite his celebrity status. Clearly, he has a thing for customizing reputed luxury cars to all hell.

50 Cent

Ferrari cares heavily about their brand image worldwide. So, when a popular rapper with a huge platform takes to social media to berate their car, Ferrari was naturally not too thrilled about it. Rapper 50 Cent’s Ferrari 488 ran into problems owing to a dead battery. As a result, he had to get the car towed, and he then took to Instagram to complain about the car.

50 Cent even went so far as to call the car a ‘lemon’, which obviously was the tipping point if the deal wasn’t sealed already. This incident was more than enough to ensure that 50 Cent won’t be seeing himself behind the wheel of a new Ferrari that he can call his.

Kim Kardashian

This one is more in the rumor territory, but it is almost known that popular American socialite Kim Kardashian has been on Ferrari’s blacklist for several years now. The most likely reason for this ban is that she accepted a Ferrari as a wedding gift in 2011 from a Malaysian businessman, who also happened to be a financial fraudster.

While Kim denied ever having received the car, RadarOnline reported that a source stated the car got delivered to the Kardashian household. Kim Kardashian’s Ferrari ban would always be vague since Ferrari would refrain from making a public statement on the topic, and Kim herself wouldn’t be too keen on announcing that a car company banned her for life. What Ferrari made clearly certain is that Kim would definitely not be able to buy exclusive or special edition models, though.

Floyd Mayweather Jr.

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Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the wealthiest boxer of all time, and also one of the wealthiest athletes. Thus, you’d assume that Ferrari would be all too happy to sell him their cars, but he’s reportedly on the infamous blacklist despite his vast wealth.

This is majorly due to his tendency to flout Ferrari’s ownership rules that make an owner retain the car for at least over a year before even considering selling it. Floyd, on the other hand, is notorious for buying flashy new cars and selling them after just a few months of owning them, when he’s done with showing them off. He isn’t quite known as a ‘car collector,’ and thus, for Ferrari, the megastar is unworthy.

Nicolas Cage

Arguably, Nicolas Cage has garnered all the success possible from an acting career. At this point, he’s probably even bored, as he recently revealed a shock new career move away from acting. Undoubtedly, Cage has had great financial success through his long acting years, and at some point, he even became Hollywood’s highest-paid actor, according to Forbes.

However, due to an unguided flurry of acquisitions, Cage ran into tax problems with the government, thereby needing to sell off most of his properties to pay off his debts. Having a Ferrari Enzo, a rare and highly valuable sports car, among his fleet of cars, Cage decided to put the car on sale to finance his huge debt. As a result, Cage ended up selling the exotic car way below its actual worth. Ferrari executes weren’t happy with such a decision, saying it devalued their brand. Hence, they placed a ban on Mr. Cage from buying another Ferrari.