Last night on the masculinist tragicomedy that is HBO’s Ballers, an intriguing plot line unfurled in which party-guy wide receiver Ricky (John David Washington) tries to make up for his philandering ways by buying estranged girlfriend Bella (Annabelle Acosta) a ring worth $400k.
The ring, purchased in a private VIP room at Bvlgari from a velvet tray presented by an upselling blonde with dollar signs in her eyes and a protective glove on her hand, is a seven-karat, princess-cut yellow diamond in what looks like a hulk-sized prong setting. It’s terrifyingly huge. “I feel like she’s about to read my fortune,” says Ricky appreciatively, a newly poured glass of French champagne at his side. “She bout to take your fortune,” quips Ricky’s friend TTD, psychic himself.
The episode was appropriately entitled “Gaslighting,” and made the point that a jewel with the price tag of a house cannot necessarily make up for cheating, particularly the type done in the confines of a totally secret “fun house” kept for throwing out-of-control, fratty parties in which various drugs and shots are procured from the naked flesh of anonymous video chicks. After Bella rhetorically asks Ricky if the ring is for engagement purposes, she dismissively (and awesomely!!) throws that shit in a fountain, forcing Ricky, a public figure, to jump in after it while screaming, “Baby, that’s a $400,000 ring!”
“Kobe spent four million, you delusional prick,” she yells back.
“He makes more than me!” screams poor Ricky, his socks and jeans soaking up shallow pool water. He grovels around for the fortune and keeps screaming: “Baby, come back!”
You can’t put a price tag on love, people. Even still, many have tried! The $400,000 number isn’t all that arbitrary: many a celebrity has copped a ring for that exact amount, to varying degrees of success in the romance department—and the most recent example may have been the inspiration for the Ballers plotline. So what do these suckers look like? And why do they cost more than most people make their entire adult working lives? Let us investigate.
Draya Michele’s Engagement Rock
In June, it was reported that Orlando Scandrick, cutie cornerback for the Dallas Cowboys, popped the hot q to girlfriend Draya Michele, of future Iggy Azalea career dunk Basketball Wives LA. In doing so, he did indeed gift her with a seven-carat, $400,000 ring designed by Jason of Beverly Hills, which is “bringing a new sheen to the trendsetting diamond industry.” And yet, in a fascinating turn of Life Imitating Art, the duo is rumored to have broken up in the months since—and she allegedly tossed his Yeezys in the pool, Bella style, in a fit of rage. Why imagine wild plotlines when the reality is right in the headlines, and on Deadspin?
The Ring
The kind of rock you can see across the runway with the naked eye.
The Lesson
If you feel you may have reason to get back at your man, just make sure you’re near a body of water at all times.