Nick Cannon is going through a divorce, so he’s entitled to some stupid purchases. He’s rich so you might expect him to buy a ridiculously fast supercar, maybe some high end electronics, but he went one better. Cannon commissioned a jeweler to make him “the most expensive shoes in the world.” According to the jeweler, those were Cannon’s exact specifications because he wanted to make an impression while hosting the America’s Got Talent finale, and the jeweler delivered. Cannon sported a tacky, flashy pair of Tom Ford loafers to the ATL finale which were adorned with 14,000 diamonds, 340 carats worth. They cost him $2.2 million dollars. Holy… Here’s the story from Nick’s website. He’s loving this PR and is trying to beat the record for the most expensive shoes in the world.

The 33-year-old host will be wearing an all-diamond pair of shoes valued at $2 million, currently being reviewed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Valuable Pair of Shoes in the world.

But Cannon’s leg muscles better be in shape: The custom blinged-out pair of Tom Fords have more than 14,000 full-cut round white diamonds set onto white gold, with a total carat weight of 340 carats. They were created by Jason Arasheben, founder of the jewelry business Jason of Beverly Hills.

“I’m expecting a ‘wow’ factor for tonight,” Arasheben said. “Not very often do I get a request for the most expensive shoes in the world. When Nick approached me last year, he said he wanted to make history and be so over-the-top. He wanted to set a new standard in diamonds. ‘How can we make the most expensive pair of shoes in the world and make this finale special?’ he asked me.”

The process took more than 2,000 hours of work and close to a year to complete.

“It took four months alone to source all of the diamonds and create them the same size to make the shoe,” he said.

The designer said he and his team ruined seven pairs of shoes until finally successfully remaking a pair of patent-leather Tom Fords to create flexibility.

“We didn’t want him looking like Frankenstein when he walked,” he said. “We still needed to consider functionality.”

To secure the diamonds in place, Arasheben said he created prongs and a diamond mesh sewn into the patent-leather sole for each stone.

Secure they might be, but the precious stones could still fall off.

“He’s not going to win a race or play basketball with these,” Arasheben said. “It’s still a piece of jewelry. As long as he’s not too overly aggressive in the shoes, everything should be all right.”

[From NickCannon.com]

Cannon is reportedly worth $20 million, so he just spent 10% of his net worth on a pair of shoes. Whenever we run these type of stories of celebrity expenditures, people inevitably chime in with the argument “it’s their money, they’re entitled to spend it however they wish.” While that may be true, we’re also entitled to point out how stupid and wasteful it is. We’ve heard of incredibly expensive shoes before. Usually they’re designed and commissioned by a shoe company for a celebrity to wear to a high profile event. Shoe designer Stuart Weitzman regularly makes a pair million dollar shoes each year for a celebrity to wear to the Oscars. Victoria’s Secret similarly makes million dollar bras every year. This is publicity for Cannon, like it’s publicity for the fashion companies. I wonder if he’ll try to write it off his taxes.

Cannon didn’t quite succeed in commissioning the most expensive shoes in the world. In 1989, jewelry designer Harry Winston made a replica of the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. The shoes contain 1350 carats of rubies and 50 carats of diamonds and are valued at $3 million. Better luck next year. Cannon did beat the price of the original ruby slippers from the 1939 film. Those shoes are valued at a relatively paltry $660,000 and currently reside at the Smithsonian museum.

Cannon also owns at least two diamond custom Rolexes.

Photos from Instagram and WENN.com