Police in Montreal, Canada are investigating after the unfinished 8 bedroom, 11 bathroom mansion of Pornhub CEO Feras Antoon went up in flames over the weekend. The mansion was still under construction, though Antoon recently placed it on the market for an impressive $19.8 million Canadian.
The fire was reported on Sunday night, and ultimately required more than 80 firefighters until 2:30 a.m. the next day to stop the blaze. Neighbors were evacuated from their premises for fear the fire would spread. Police say that after the fire subsided, arson investigators were sent in to determine whether the disastrous fire was set intentionally.
“Police officers who arrived on site were able to see that the fire began inside the residence,” Montreal police media relations officer Julien Lévesque told Vice. “Earlier this morning… our arson squad from Montreal police took charge of the investigation. They were onsite this morning to analyze all the scene, meet some witnesses to try to understand what was the cause and the circumstances of the beginning of this fire.”
Antoon refused to speak to the media at length, citing the police investigation into the cause of the fire. “The residence was under construction. I am grateful that my family and I and our neighbours are safe. Out of respect for the ongoing police investigation, I will not be commenting further.”
Prior to the fire, local media expressed incredulity about the status of the luxury home. Antoon purchased the property with cash in 2016 for only $2.3 million, and began building the mansion. Still unfinished, Antoon put the mansion on the market for nearly $20 million, and nobody involved with the original purchase or construction spoke to local media when asked why the 61,130 square foot property was placed on the market.
“The imposing castle would have up to eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms and nine parking spaces. A piano room with an art gallery and a gym are also included in the description of the many rooms,” reported TVA Nouvelles, a French-language media company based in Montreal. “‘The exterior is almost finished as well as the interior partitions. This is a unique opportunity to acquire the mansion at this point and complement the proposed design or customize it to your own taste,’ reads the Royal LePage website.” The property was also planned to have multiple stories, with multiple elevators for the resident’s convenience.
For more than a year, Pornhub has faced allegations of willfully ignoring the presence of child pornography on the explicit website. As National File reported, in March of last year, “Pornhub admitted that ‘cases of children in their videos’ constitute ‘less than one percent of its content.’ As the website has 6.8 million uploads yearly, this could mean that the total number of child rape videos on the website could be as high as 68,000 per year.”