Family Reins
The Extraordinary Rise and Epic Fall of an American Dynasty
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The story of the iconic Anheuser-Busch dynasty, written--for the first time--by a Busch heir. As an heir to the Anheuser-Busch company and fortune, Billy Busch was raised on the real stories of how his family built one of America's oldest and most iconic brands. Since the company was formed almost 150 years ago, the Busch family, their beer, the famous Clydesdales in their advertising, and even their style of business have become a symbol of the American dream--that not-so-outdated belief that hard work, grit, and a positive can-do attitude make anything possible. Growing up on the family's ancestral estate as a prince to the King of Beers, Billy lived a life only kids could dream up--living in an amusement park, traveling by private rail car and yacht, and playing with his pet elephant, Tessie. But as he grew up, he realized that the Busch family legacy was not just wealth and privilege. With no separation between family and business, Billy's father--more boss than dad--continued the tradition of preparing the next generation for corporate leadership, with high and exacting standards for his children. For Billy, all of this, combined with a dysfunctional family environment, was all too normal. Family Reins tells the story of a legendary American family, their rise to power, and their fall from grace through poisonous infighting, succession struggles, and a seemingly endless string of tragedies, scandals, and loss.
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I picked up Family Reins hoping for a juicy tell-all or an insider's history of the storied Busch family of St. Louis. But the book was relatively tame, and it felt like there was a lot of missing information and many glossed over details. A little Googling revealed some of the facts that Billy Busch left out of this whitewashed memoir:
1) Billy had a daughter with a former girlfriend, who posted on Facebook that he had neglected and abandoned her. She is never mentioned in the book or on the (canceled) MTV reality show focused on his beautiful blonde wife and 7 other children.
2) He was charged with assaulting an 11 year old boy at his son's basketball game. And also of punching a fast food worker in the throat at the drive-thru window.
3) Although he has no official position with Anheuser-Busch (the company was sold to InBev in 2008), he told TMZ that his ancestors would have “rolled over in their graves” if they knew about the furor caused by putting a transgender influencer's face on a promotional only case of beer. Budweiser drinkers, according to Billy, “want their beer to be truly American, truly patriotic,” which apparently means no queers.
The stuff Busch does include in the book is pretty alarming as well. Sure he was a “poor little rich boy” who had everything except love, and his family did suffer its share of tragedies, but that doesn't mean it was okay to literally bite a guy's ear off in a bar fight. Although he claims to love animals, he seems to take more pleasure in describing how many of them he and the other male Busches took down in their game hunting. And he thinks it's hilarious that his dad, Gussie Busch, told him to shoot the black pigeons on their property and spare the white ones (because racism is funny?).
Really, the best thing you can say about Billy Busch is that he is not the guy who joked with DT45 about grabbing women by the p***y on the infamous Access Hollywood tape (that slimebucket's last name is Bush, no “c.”)
