The Dalai Lama's Extremely Rare Rolex

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Here's something I learned today: the Dalai Lama—the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism—likes to repair watches in his spare time. The Dalai Lama also owns an extremely rare Rolex. It's quite the watch! Check it out below.

– Michael Sebastian, editor-in-chief

Plus:

The Dalai Lama Owns One of the Rarest Rolex Watches Ever Made

The vintage Padellone, aka the "big frying pan," is considered a holy grail by collectors.

Among the many treasures in His Holiness the Dalai Lama's private collection is a Rolex few of us will ever see in person. The 90-year-old spiritual leader is known to enjoy repairing watches in his spare time, but one piece stands apart: a vintage Rolex "Padellone" ref. 8171, one of the most elusive models the Crown ever produced.

The Padellone, nicknamed the "big frying pan" for its oversize 38mm case, is one of only three Rolex references ever to feature a moonphase. Produced between 1949 and 1952, it combined a triple calendar with day, date, month, and moonphase indications, powered by the automatic calibre A295. The clean dial layout, large size, and unusual complication made it strikingly different from the more familiar Oystercase Rolexes of the era

READ THE STORY

Speaker Mike Johnson is under more pressure to release the Epstein files. Charles P. Pierce explains how a special election in Arizona might force a floor vote to unveil DOJ records. >>
See any good movies lately? With fall in full swing, Max Cea lists the best movies of 2025 so far. >>

The Lost Art of Sweating Your Ass Off with Other Guys

As the sweat dripped off me, falling onto the tile floor before disappearing into vapor, the fog from my massively hungover brain began to clear. Maybe I would have been okay last night if I'd only drunk two martinis and a few glasses of Chablis, I thought, but then I made the fatal error of tossing back a shot of fernet with the bartender. Even though I'm every bit of 45, I had attempted to relive my 20s. The night out ruined my morning, and I knew I'd get zero work done that day, so I did the only sensible thing: I had a schvitz. I knew that sitting in a steam room, and then drinking cold vodka and eating pierogies with a handful of fat gentlemen from post-Soviet republics, and then letting a guy named Valery smack a bouquet of oak leaves all over my body, and then going back in for more steam, was the only activity that would heal me.

A good schvitz, hungover or not, is exactly what men need right now. In the right company, it not only soothes your physical discomfort but also—perhaps most important—rewires your brain.

By Jason Diamond

Sabrina Impacciatore on The Paper Season 2, Esmeralda's Origins, and a White Lotus Return

"Nature and technology, they're not a great match," Sabrina Impacciatore tells me while Zooming from a garden in Beverly Hills. The Wi-Fi keeps dropping out. "I'm in this crazy place," she says, wearing an oversized t-shirt by the French fashion designer Isabel Marant. Behind her, the cypress trees at Greystone Mansion look like they were airlifted from Tuscany.

At a certain point, she drops into a whisper: "I have to confess something," Impacciatore says. "I am a very naive person." When the 57-year-old actress is on set, "the magic happens"—she becomes someone else without remembering her performance—but she worries about the psychological toll it takes to play a cynical or manipulative character. "I don't want to lose my innocence. I want to stay naive."

When Impacciatore was a child in Rome, she believed the world was a vast cinema playing the movie of her life. Now, after decades gracing the silver screens of Italy, she's become a TV star in America. She stars in Peacock's half-hour comedy The Paper, a spin-off of The Office where she plays Esmeralda Grand—a gonzo, scene-stealing, Machiavellian foil to Domnhall Gleeson's straight-laced Ned Sampson.

By Adam Morgan