Skype founder's high-flying hanky-panky

Antics run into turbulence

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 8th March 2007 18:56 GMT

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As an entrepreneur, Janus Friis fancies himself a disrupter. But that term could just as aptly apply to his high-flying hanky-panky aboard a recent transatlantic flight with the stepdaughter of one-time 007 actor Roger Moore.

According to the Mail on Sunday, the billionaire founder of Kazaa, Skype and Joost, with the help of Christina Knudsen, made several attempts to liven up the 12-hour flight, which perhaps ironically was on the Virgin Atlantic carrier. The couple adjourned to the first-class lavatory on two occasions, each time to the objections of flight crew members who rapped on the door and reminded them that such rendezvous were prohibited.

So the couple retired to Friis's on-board bed, a move that also prompted the reprimands of attendants. The Mail's account was based on unnamed witnesses, but the report cited a Virgin representative who confirmed that two passengers acted in a "disruptive manner" on the flight, which was bound from Heathrow to Los Angeles just ahead of the Oscars fluff fest.

Not one to accept herd-mentality conventions, the entrepreneur balked at the admonitions. "Mr Friis was quite lively and started saying, 'What's the big deal?'" one witness told the Mail. "It was at that point that other passengers started to become quite irate. Everyone else was trying to sleep." ®

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