Hugh Hefner, Image: Getty
He’s a tycoon who made his money selling cigarettes, an Instagram star whose shots of semi-nude women score thousands of likes and the owner of a blinged-out wardrobe—oh, and a fleet of Lamborghinis.
Travers “Candyman” Beynon is the Gold Coast’s answer to Hugh Hefner, with the bevy of babes—and the chauvinist antics—to boot. Known for his sex-fuelled parties, boasts of four women sharing his bed at night and his fortune from the FreeChoice tobacco business, he’s just let a photographer into his sleazy mansion, and the results are jaw-dropping.
From a pet pig called Chauvinist to a fountain he built in honour of Rome’s Trevi Fountain, “The Travi Fountain”, there was plenty of fodder.
The shameless self-promoter started life in a working-class Melbourne family. His parents were strict (he told The Australian that when he was five, and wouldn’t sleep, his parents locked him inside the family car overnight) and pushed him to succeed at AFL. He was gifted—but then he broke his back on the field. Instead, he took up modelling, providing a loan to his parents which they used to set up their tobacco business… and which their son took over a decade later.
In a business where you can’t advertise, Beynon has turned to more unconventional marketing: his life. He parades his 26-year-old wife, Taesha, and lookalike live-in girlfriend on Instagram, along with a harem of women with brunette tresses, inflated bosoms and plumped-up lips.
Yet, he says, he’s a doting family man. His 18-year-old son from a former marriage, Valentino, lives in the mansion with his girlfriend, Shona. His 15-year-old daughter, Luciana, says she’d like a husband just like her dad.
His two small daughters with Taesha were the subject of controversy last year when their nanny spoke out about them living in the party house last year.
She’s not the only one speaking her mind. On A Current Affair, Taesha’s grandfather Graham Appleby, called the Candyshop Mansion a “borderline cult”. “Shattered, absolutely shattered,” he said. “I don’t spend a lot of time looking at the [social media] photos because it breaks my heart.”
