We've heard a rumor based on a source who claims to have seen it that billionaire hedge fund manager Steven Cohen, who runs SAC Capital Advisors, keeps a live and very large pig with a tattoo in his 35,000 square-foot Connecticut mansion.
A spokesperson for Cohen declined to comment for this story.
Apparently, the tattooed pig is actually a walking piece of art.
Cohen is a huge art collector. His expansive collection includes pieces by Monet, Picasso, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol, according to a 2010 Vanity Fair profile.
We did some research and the only artist known for inking swine is Belgium-born Wim Delvoye. Delvoye is also known for making the Cloaca—a machine that turns food into feces (a.k.a. the "poop machine").
Delvoye runs an Art Farm outside of Beijing and has been tattooing live pigs since 2004. His ink designs can be anything from Louis Vuitton "LVs" to Disney princesses. We're not sure what sort of tattoo design Cohen's pig has, though.
So how do you tattoo a pig?
Well, the pig isn't awake during the inking process.
"To tattoo a pig, we sedate it, shave it and apply Vaseline to its skin," Delvoye said in an interview back in 2007 with ArtAsiaPacific.
The tattooing actually adds value to the pig. According to an article in Complex magazine, some of the pigs have sold for over $150,000.
We were unable to get a comment from Delvoye or his studio at the time of publication.
If anyone has seen the pig or is aware of the transaction, please email jlaroche@bjinnox.com.
