Watch Paparazzi

Rapper Timati spotted wearing Richard Mille

Russian rapper and entrepreneur Timati was recently spotted wearing the Richard Mille RM 70-01 Tourbillon Alain Prost, a watch so rare and purpose-built that its appearance on any wrist — let alone in a public sighting — qualifies as a genuine horological event. With only 30 examples ever produced, the RM 70-01 sits at the outermost edge of even Richard Mille's famously exclusive catalog.

The Richard Mille RM 70-01 was developed in close collaboration with Alain Prost, the legendary French racing driver who claimed four Formula 1 World Championships and later channeled his competitive obsession into competitive cycling. The brief was precise: create a tourbillon that a serious cyclist could actually wear while riding. The result is a skeletonized manual-winding tourbillon movement — Caliber RM 70-01 — housed in a case constructed from Carbon TPT, Richard Mille's proprietary layered carbon composite made from filaments less than 30 microns in thickness, stacked at alternating 45-degree angles and fused under high pressure. The construction produces extraordinary rigidity with a density so low the entire watch feels almost weightless on the wrist.

Engineered details go further than materials alone. The crown is repositioned and secured to prevent accidental winding or setting during the physical demands of cycling, and the entire architecture is designed to withstand the chronic vibration that a road or track bicycle transmits through the handlebar and into the rider's body. The tonneau case dimensions sit at approximately 50.00 x 42.70 mm — large, but consistent with Richard Mille's sport-first philosophy.

For collectors, the RM 70-01 occupies rare territory even within Richard Mille's universe of limited releases. A production run of 30 pieces means secondary market appearances are genuinely scarce, and the watch's explicit athletic provenance — signed off by one of motorsport's most cerebral champions — gives it a narrative weight that purely decorative ultra-luxury pieces lack.

Timati has long positioned himself among the most watch-literate figures in Russian hip-hop culture, with previous sightings covering the full spectrum of Richard Mille references. The RM 70-01 is, by any measure, among the most serious pieces he has been photographed wearing. At a list price of approximately $815,000, it is also one of the most valuable.