One would think you wouldn’t mess with a billionaire’s jewelry collection, especially when that billionaire is New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and especially when that jewelry is a Super Bowl ring.
But apparently you really, really wouldn’t mess with Russian President Vladimir Putin … even if he’s stolen that ring.
“He put it on, and then he looked at me, and he said, ‘I could kill someone with this ring,’” Kraft recalls in the documentary “The Dynasty” on Apple TV, confirming the tale of Putin pocketed one of Kraft’s six Super Bowl rings. “So I did a whiplash, and I said, ‘Mr. President, you could kill someone without it.’”
Funny stuff. Witty stuff. (Dangerous stuff?) Mr. Kraft messing with President Putin. … all the result of the Patriots owner having visited Russia following his team’s Super Bowl win over the Eagles in 2005.
So yes, Putin asked and Kraft allowed him to try on the ring.
Putin then – per Kraft – took the ring, put it in his pocket and left.
“He took the ring off, and I had my hand out, and he took the ring,” Kraft said. “He put it in his side pocket. Three KGB guys come around him, and he’s off.”
Kraft says he was later instructed by the White House to say that he gave the jewelry to Putin as a gift.
“A call came in from the White House, and they said, ‘It would be good for US-Soviet relations if you (explain that you) meant to give them the ring as a gift.”
Russia has for the record maintained all along that the ring – with its 124 diamonds and its $25,000 value sitting in a display at the Kremlin – was indeed a gift. … and associates of Kraft occasionally note that the owner enjoys telling this story so, so much … well, even if it is a bit exaggerated.
We will avoid the politics of it all here by simply saying … no, we have no interest in crossing Russian President Vladimir Putin. So we will leave that – and the jokes – to Mr. Kraft.
