Can selling underwear make you the richest man on the Eastside?

American Apparel founder Dov Charney has appeared before his workers wearing only underwear and has masturbated in front of a magazine writer. But there is at least one thing about this Silver Lake resident that hasn’t been over exposed. His wealth.

The stories about American Apparel’s soft-porn ads and Charney’s sexually-charged persona often overlook the fact that he is among the most well paid executives in Los Angeles and a very rich man. Perhaps the richest man on the Eastside (nominations, please). Last year, Charney, who sold off his company but remains in charge as CEO, earned a salary topping $8 million. In addition, the company granted him stock options worth nearly another $8 million.

Of course, Charney, like everyone else with stock and a 401k, has taken a big hit. Still, the American Apparel stock he got when he sold the company is now worth, at least on paper, nearly $200 million, based on Thursday’s closing stock price. That would buy enough $17, American Apparel pocket t-shirts for just about everyone living in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

What does Charney do will all this wealth? Well, some of it goes to keeping up his landmark home, the Hathaway Estate, which looms high on a hill above the Silver Lake Reservoir. Charney moved out of an Echo Park bungalow after he purchased the 11,743-square-foot house in 2006. The price: $4.1 million.

The most recent issue of Portfolio magazine provides a hint of how Charney lives behind the gates of his Silver Lake mansion:

“With a squeak of a vintage sneaker, Michael, a handsome 21-year-old, emerges from a creaky bronze elevator and asks Charney if he needs anything else for the night. Perhaps a stick of gum? Michael is both an assistant of sorts to Charney and one of his half-dozen roommates, mostly twenty-somethings who work at an American Apparel factory a few miles away and come home at night to their boss’s mansion (where Charlie Chaplin once lived), making it their own by hanging posters on the walls and piling clothing here and there. In return, they are on call to do Charney’s erratic bidding. As Michael leaves, Charney explains to me, “I used to have girls around, but it’s easier with boys.”

Perhaps the less we know about Charney, the better.

Photos from Jezebel and Silver Lake News websites