Perelman sounds more confident about his philanthropy changing the world than his businesses. Revlon has championed breast and ovarian cancer programmes and Perelman’s $2.4m gift funded the development of the breast cancer drug Herceptin. He also has high hopes for another breast cancer drug in development. If it works, “we’ll have almost single-handedly funded the end of breast cancer. That would be pretty cool, right?”
His sole arrives, accompanied by grilled asparagus spears and a charred lemon half. My gnocchetti are light, the flavour of the red shrimp clear through the spicy sauce. The conversation turns to Perelman’s fifth wife, psychiatrist Anna Chapman. “She is so fantastic,” he says, beaming, before giving me the 20-second version of his epic personal life. “I married [real estate heiress Faith Golding] very young, then I met Claudia [Cohen, a Page Six gossip columnist], who from the day I met her until the day she passed away was my best friend in the world, then I was with two … interesting women,” he says, smiling as he glosses over his marriages to political activist Patricia Duff and actress Ellen Barkin. “And then I met Anna.” The couple married in 2010.
Perelman, who has reportedly spent more than $138m on four divorce settlements, says he does not regret any of his marriages, “even though some were very, very difficult”. This does not quite capture the bitterness with which some of them ended. In 1997 he began a $15m child custody battle with Duff. Perelman – who says he had to decide whether to worry about the bad press or be a good father – won but hostilities flared again in 2008 resulting in a fresh settlement.