Posted on: Thursday, July 31, 2003
Younger celebrities stoke cigar comeback
By Mike Snider
USA Today
The cigar-chomping habit that captured yuppies in the early '90s looks to be making a mini-comeback, with younger celebs — including female stars — and hip-hoppers leading the way.
Let's name-drop some recent stogie sightings: Mark Wahlberg in "The Italian Job." Jay-Z, Nelly and Snoop Dogg brandish cigars in recent music videos. The most recent one seen puffing in a music video is Sean "P. Diddy" Combs in "Shake Your Tailfeather," the theme from "Bad Boys II." "That '70s Show" stars Ashton Kutcher and Wilmer Valderrama, along with Tara Reid, Busta Rhymes, Denzel Washington, Will Smith and Matthew McConaughey, have been seen puffing on cigars lately.
Actress Brittany Murphy, singer Eve and model Naomi Campbell are three more spotted lately, cigar in hand. And Lisa Guerrero, new "Monday Night Football" reporter, was featured in the June issue of "Cigar Aficionado."
At recent Sony PlayStation 2 parties in Los Angeles and the Hamptons, free Zino Platinum cigars — considered a highly prized cigar — were given out as part of the festivities. And the co-creator of the Zino Platinum Crown cigar, Peter Arnell, provided 400 Zinos for the wedding of his pal, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Jay-Z, who says he has smoked cigars "on and off since 1996," is partial to Zino Platinums, which come in large silver matchboxes of three cigars for $87 to $117. They have a cachet among the hip-hop crowd, he says. "You got your big cigar going, a nice glass of cognac, you feel like you've made it."
U.S. imports and sales of cigars have risen during the past few years, rebounding from the downturn that followed the cigar craze of the early '90s. Last year, Arnell and former music exec Steve Stoute, who had formed their own creative agency, sensed a shift away from cigarettes to the occasional cigar. "We noticed it in the clubs and in the street," Stoute says. The duo worked with high-end tobacconist Davidoff to bring Zino Crown Platinum cigars to market late last year.
