American singer-songwriter King Princess has weighed in on the OceanGate Expeditions submersible catastrophe.
The musician, 24, real name Mikaela Mullaney Straus, shared a now-deleted TikTok video in which she criticised “billionaires” for exploring things just because “they had the money to”. Her remarks were made one day after it was confirmed that the five passengers onboard the Titan submersible had died after the craft imploded.
The “1950” singer is the great-great-granddaughter of Isodor and Idea Straus, who were first-class passengers on the Titanic and died when the ship sank. Isodor was the co-owner of American department store Macy’s with his brother Nathan. He also served a short term as a member of the United States House of Representatives before he died.
Follow live updates on the Titanic sub news here.
When Ida learnt that her husband would not be able to join her in the lifeboat due to the “women and children first” policy, she refused to leave him and stayed onboard the ship until it sank. The couple’s story was portrayed in James Cameron’s 1997 film about the tragedy.
In a now-deleted TikTok video, King Princess commented on the missing OceanGate submersible: “I think there is a cycle of bajillionaires wanting to explore s*** and then dying.”
“Like, look at my f****** family, right? Who wants to take a boat across the ocean? That sounds terrible. But they did it because they had the money to, and they died. So now these people are like, ‘Oh, I have so much money. Oh my god, I just want to go to the inhabitable depths of the ocean.’ In a GameCube? No. Dead! Sorry.”
Straus continued: “Rich people are not exempt from making really stupid decisions, obviously. Why do rich people go to space? You don’t need to be there. You’re not a f****** scientist. Because they make terrible decisions, constantly.”
She added: “I hate this world… The sheer irony of these billionaires going down to visit the gravesite of other billionaires — amongst other people who were on the Titanic, there weren’t just billionaires — and then dying is so crazy to me.”
In another TikTok post addressing the missing OceanGate submersible, Straus wrote: “Not the ghost of my ancestors snatching up these bajillionaires.”
The submersible, named Titan, was on its way to visit the wreck site of the Titanic 12,500 ft deep in the Atlantic Ocean when it lost contact with its surface ship, the Polar Prince. The Titan was equipped with a four-day emergency oxygen supply.
OceanGate Expeditions founder and CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, renowned French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman were all aboard the Titan.
It was confirmed on Thursday (22 June) that the five men onboard had died.
The pressure chamber of the OceanGate Titan was found among other debris, approximately 1,600ft from the bow of the Titanic on the sea floor by a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) on Thursday.
In an interview with The Rolling Stone in 2019, Straus spoke about her descendants who died on board the Titanic.
“They were like, ‘We’re going to die together now,’” Straus said.
“That’s a crazy thing to say; a crunch time decision, and very my vibe. They were very rich and Jewish, [but] I didn’t inherit any of this money. It was a little frustrating, but whatever.”
