The Top 21 Architectural Digest Celeb Home Tours, Ranked by Their Absurdity

“This is like, my dream, to have all my pots lined up,” Paltrow tells AD. “These beautiful cast iron pots.” We’re then treated to exactly 10 shots of all these black and blue cast iron posts—filmed theatrically from a number of different angles. This is some Williams-Sonoma-ass dream that could only come from someone like her—but good for Gwyneth.

This pair of television actors met doing theater—and said they fell in love with the house because they could do theater with their kids using this honest-to-god Juliet balcony. Delightful! Since then, because they have young children, they’ve mostly used it for dance parties, with Patrick acting as a DJ. Beyond that adorable story, I’m a sucker for SoCal Spanish-design elements, mixing wood and iron and gorgeous white walls.

There is a lid for every pot, and that is never more apparent than when watching Travis Barker walk you through his home. This house is both so Travis but also has all the muted grossness of the Kardashian clan that I really get why he and Kourtney Kardashian vibe. The most specifically absurd thing in the house is the “entertainment room” (above), which features a cement pingpong table that took eight people to install. Next to it are two hard-to-find Dior (?) bikes (???). And then these three absurd things are just sitting next to the most normal-looking couch and West Elm-ass chairs I’ve ever seen.

Alyssa Edwards (aka Justin Dwayne Lee Johnson) lives in suburbia! Right off the bat, he says he knows people might be expecting his home to look like Peewee Herman’s Playhouse or Punky Brewster’s Treehouse, but he actually wanted something more minimal—and that appears to translate to aggressively normal. On the one hand, I totally get wanting to tone it down when your professional life is all glam, but the absurdity of just... a single drag room? When you’re a drag queen?? Too restrained, IMO!

Dita Von Teese’s 1927 English Tudor is essentially an Alice-in-Wonderland Fun House—if Alice was a 1930s burlesque star who was obsessed with taxidermy. “I’m a maximalist, I have a lot of stuff,” Von Teese. Among that stuff are Parisian tassels, a light-up cabinet of vintage feathers and powder puffs, a pool house turned into a British pub, Bettie Page’s one-page $60 model release from 1952, a room full of shoes and vintage hats, and a taxidermy tiger wearing a crown.

The first thing I did when AD released this video five years ago was Google Zedd’s net worth—I don’t remember how much it was then but I remember thinking how the fuck does this EDM DJ afford a $16 million mansion? (Currently, his net worth is about $50 million.) But he can probably afford it because he doesn’t seem to spend money filling his house with anything...except a Skittles machine, some art, and four ovens. It’s incredible but it also looks like a cross between a museum, a venture capitalist’s office, and a hotel—which is to say, in contrast to Dita Von Teese’s, there is no STUFF.

This is not an Architectural Digest video but we can’t talk about absurd celebrity homes without talking about Kim Kardashian’s $60 million Calabasas mansion that got dragged through hell for its much-too-minimalist aesthetic when she walked through it during her Vogue “73 Questions” in 2019. This is probably why she said “a few things have been updated” about her “cream house” when Vogue toured her home again in 2022. There is some new art and a few beige vases of pale pink pampas grass, as well as a “birthday trunk” that her mom gave her that is definitely in storage somewhere when Vogue isn’t there, but...still looks like a Patrick Bateman fever dream to me. Whatever makes you happy, I guess.

This $13 million Beverly Hills mansion is really a choose-your-own-adventure of absurdities: Ru Paul has 26 disco balls, a dining room called “the dining pavilion,” a giant gold light fixture that once belonged to Yves Saint Laurent, a wooden sewing box once owned by Ann Margaret that looks like a little temple, the list goes on and on. There is, of course, a giant walk-in closet of “the motherload”—aka all his drag archives dating back decades. But Ru Paul’s mansion is also huge, colorful, “decadent,” and filled with treasures: “If you’re gonna be on this planet, why not be happy,” he says. “Why not live in a place that make you happy.” This is ranked fourth most absurd but FIRST for most joyous.

This AD tour has lived in my head rent-free for years. Kendall Jenner, a woman who displays very little public personality (it’s why she’s become a decent model imo), has a James fucking Turrell!! In her home!!! Of course she can afford a Turrell, which easily go for high six-figures; it’s more that she has it. I don’t care if she simply paid a good art consultant—or an interior decorator who paid a good art consultant. This is such a flex, and I am incredibly jealous. James, please let me have an installation for a small fee. I will treat it with such reverence.

While some celebrities hang up all their fancy and expensive art and try to place furniture and homey things around it—Williams said nah, and just straight up made herself an actual art gallery. “Most homes actually have a formal living room and I didn’t want to lose that aspect but I also didn’t want a formal living room,” she tells AD. “So I was like, what if I had a formal living room but instead of it being a living room, it’s called an art gallery.” And she did just that! Among her pieces is a giant painting featuring a piece of moon rock, a chair made out of stuffed Elmos with X’s over their eyes by KAWS, a Leonardo Drew, doors from Nepal, and...one of Serena’s own original paintings! “I’m really kind of artsy,” she says. Cute!

This pair seems very proud of their kooky house, unlike most celebrities who seem to be preparing for a broker’s open when staging these videos. Ryan and Dun are also weirdly forthcoming. I literally laughed out loud when they said they thought one of the biggest flexes of a grown-up house is having a bust. And, while I totally understand that impulse, they lost me at the subject matter: Dun’s sister is a sculptor who created a bust of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for these two. Just imagine having that man’s massive body staring at you each time you go to the kitchen.

And the most absurd of them all: Kourtney’s kids’ playhouse is larger than most New York City apartments and obviously large enough that AD said, “Yeah, this is definitely worth a full YouTube tour.” Since Kourtney did the tour, we have no idea how her kids actually feel about the place, but to me, it looks like a stark wooden box that Joe from You would construct in the backyard of a lake house in order to keep you locked away. It’s got a huge leather Minnie to match the black leather BDSM Mickey (“I’m obsessed with all things Disney. My assistant got me [these] for my birthday. I think they’re Coach,” she says); about seven books; and a no-technology rule...which is the only thing I appreciate about it.

And, as an honorable mention of absurdity, throughout the whole video, whenever she stands still, she poses with her left leg popped out and knee slightly bent, as shown above. The forced eccentricities of the rich!