Drake rolled into his 40th birthday with a two-city celebration, capping it off Friday night with a lavish bash at Casa Cipriani in New York City that packed in more than 400 friends and family members. Guests walked away with designer handbags from Chanel and Hermès, a shot at winning up to a million dollars in cash, and a surprise set from the Backstreet Boys.
The scale of the celebration was staggering even by Drake's own standards. According to TMZ, the rapper hosted more than 400 of his closest friends and family at the exclusive Casa Cipriani venue, with attendees treated to luxury giveaways including designer handbags from Chanel and Hermès.
Beyond the bags, Drake reportedly turned the party into a high-stakes game show, with cash prizes ranging from tens of thousands of dollars all the way up to a staggering $1 million, per the same TMZ report. The outlet also detailed the night's biggest surprise: a live performance from the Backstreet Boys, who took the stage for the crowd gathered at Casa Cipriani.
A Birthday Week That Started in Toronto
Friday's Manhattan blowout wasn't Drake's first stop on his birthday circuit. Days earlier, on October 21, the rapper kicked things off with a private gathering in Toronto's CN Tower that included some of his closest friends as well as OVO signee Popcaan, according to XXL.
From there, the celebration moved south. The crew then headed to New York City, where Drake was spotted on October 22 dining with friends at Italian restaurant Mamo, XXL reported. The outlet noted the Toronto superstar officially turned 40 on Saturday, October 24, making the Casa Cipriani event the capstone of a multi-day run of festivities.
Industry Buzz Swirling Around the Milestone Birthday
The birthday celebrations landed amid chatter about Drake's upcoming plans. XXL reported that Drake is said to be in the Coachella discussion for next year's festival, and that he had recently promised a 2027 tour in support of his trilogy of albums, Iceman, Maid of Honour and Habibti.
Lavish party favors are something of a signature for Drake. At his 32nd-birthday celebration, a 2000s-themed party in Los Angeles attended by Kendall Jenner and Shay Mitchell, he similarly handed out Chanel bags to his guests as a party favor, according to Yahoo Finance.
The generosity has extended well beyond birthdays. During his It's All a Blur tour, Drake once gifted a fan a bright pink Hermès Birkin bag, and at a separate Los Angeles show, he surprised a birthday-celebrating fan with a brand new Chanel handbag, per Billboard. He's also handed out cash on the spot, giving one fan $50,000 after learning they'd spent furniture money on concert tickets, and flying a Houston superfan first-class to Atlanta with $10,000 in spending money and VIP seating, Billboard reported.
Elsewhere, Drake has pledged a Turks and Caicos trip to a newlywed couple who skipped their honeymoon for his Atlanta show, given away another $50,000 to a Miami fan, and capped his tour's final hometown stop by raffling off a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon through a random seat-number drawing, according to the same Billboard account. Separately, PurseBop reported that the rapper once gifted several exotic dancers Chanel bags at a Miami strip club, underscoring just how routine the designer-handbag giveaways have become in Drake's orbit.
As for the Casa Cipriani crowd, the exact guest list, the handbags' specific styles and values, and who ultimately walked away with the game show's top cash prize remain unconfirmed. What's clear is that Drake closed out his fourth decade the way he's long closed out milestone nights: with designer bags, surprise cash, and a performance nobody saw coming.
