Charlie Zakkour grew up between two very different parents and it shows on Next Gen NYC

Charlie Zakkour walked into Bravo’s Next Gen NYC, introduced as a crypto trader and private investor who had been ruling New York City’s club scene since he was 14. He was 29 years old, blonde, and instantly polarizing.

Viewers either found him entertaining or insufferable, sometimes both within the same episode. But the people asking the most important question were not asking about his crypto portfolio or his dating history.

They were asking about his parents because anyone who has watched even a few episodes of the show already suspects that the answer to Charlie Zakkour lies somewhere in his upbringing, not in his nightlife.

His father, Anwar Zakkour, is a private investor who, according to his LinkedIn, is originally from Copenhagen and has been working in banking for decades. The resume behind that description is significant.

Anwar began his banking career at Morgan Stanley in London, then later joined Citigroup as a mergers and acquisitions managing director. He has also worked at J.P. Morgan as a Global Vice Chairman in Investment Banking, as well as Cendant Corporation, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Majid Al Futtaim.

He eventually served as Chief Investment Officer for a firm in Dubai before stepping back into private investment. By any measure, Anwar Zakkour is a man who built serious wealth through decades of high-stakes work in global finance. 

Charlie’s mother, Elizabeth Williams, is an art collector. She has appeared on Next Gen NYC and comes across as significantly warmer than her former partner.

In one memorable scene, she jokingly referenced a disturbing childhood drawing Charlie had made about his father, which landed somewhere between funny and quietly revealing about the emotional climate Charlie grew up in. 

A Father Who Provided Everything Except What Charlie Actually Needed

According to Charlie, his mother raised him until he was ten, but she could not provide a stable environment. That is when he went to live with his father. What followed was a childhood defined by financial comfort and emotional distance.

Charlie compared his father to Logan Roy from Succession, describing their relationship as strained and emotionally distant, saying his father is the kind of man who has extremely high expectations and shows zero emotion.

He spoke on camera about how badly he wanted his father’s approval and how little his father gave back in terms of warmth or acknowledgment. 

That dynamic plays out visibly on the show. As a cryptocurrency trader, Zakkour gets money from his dad that he then uses to invest in cryptocurrencies.

In the premiere of Next Gen NYC, producers showed Zakkour telling his barber that he was going to pretend to pay for his haircut with his own card on camera, but what he really wanted was for them to put the bill on his dad’s tab.

His castmate Georgia McCann pointed out on the show that Charlie reportedly receives around 10,000 dollars a month from his father. According to The Sun, Charlie filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and admitted he had just 1,500 dollars in his checking account.

His roommate Dylan Geick added that he had never seen Charlie employed and did not think he made any money at all. 

The Legal Scandal That Brought His World Into Focus

In May 2025, cryptocurrency investor John Woeltz was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and torturing an Italian crypto millionaire named Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan at a location described by sources as a frat house for crypto traders.

A blonde man was pictured outside the cryptocurrency torture house, which Page Six later identified as Charlie Zakkour from Next Gen NYC. However, Charlie avoided any legal ramifications as he was not arrested or charged.

It is believed that Charlie and other high-profile crypto traders would sometimes hang out at the location. He was in no way linked to the crime itself and simply happened to be present when the arrest occurred. 

The episode added another layer to an already complicated picture. A young man whose father gave him money but not guidance, whose mother gave him warmth but not stability, who grew up in the orbit of extraordinary wealth without ever learning how to build something of his own.

Charlie was introduced to Next Gen NYC fans as a crypto trader and private investor who had been ruling NYC’s club scene since he was 14. That description is technically accurate.

It just leaves out the part where the money, the access, and the whole lifestyle came almost entirely from a father he is still trying to impress. 

Charlie Zakkour is many things on screen. Charming, reckless, thin-skinned, and occasionally self-aware in ways that make his worst moments easier to watch.

But above all, he is the product of two very different parents whose influence never quite balanced out, and Bravo cameras have given the world a front-row seat to exactly what that looks like in practice.