 His maternal grandmother was an art world fixture and set and costume designer Marie-Christophe de Menil.He was a great-grandson of Dominique de Menil and John de Menil, French aristocrats who were heirs to fortunes based in textiles and oil-drilling equipment (from the Schlumberger oil dynasty) and founders of Houston's Menil Collection.He was rebellious as a child and, at 13, was sent to the Hidden Lake Academy in Georgia, a residential treatment center specializing in the treatment of children with oppositional defiant disorder.