Lynn Tilton and Forbes debate her billionaire status; is she going broke?

Lynn Tilton wants to know why everyone is paying attention to her all of a sudden. The handcuffs and whips have been on her office wall for ages, and she offered her executives jello shots off her abs at the Christmas party years ago. It isn’t like she just started wearing leather body suits to meetings or suddenly began to say things like “It’s only men that I strip and flip. My companies I hold long and close to my heart.” That’s not news. But lately, she is.

When you hear Lynn Tilton talk business, it is easy to believe that the flashy star of Sundance’s new reality show, Diva of Distressed, is on the level. She made her billion by saving hundreds of thousands of American jobs, she says, and she wants others to get on board with her plan to save the economy.

But, over the last few weeks Forbes magazine has been taking a hard look at Tilton, and they’re not so sure she’s telling the whole story. Matt Schifrin , who forgot more about finance over breakfast than most of us will ever know, thinks that Tilton has been playing a shell game with her investments, letting some leverage interest payments for the others. He also thinks that her scheme is about to fall apart, and he wonders if that might have something to do with why all of a sudden Tilton has decided to go public, very public, by starring in her own reality show.

So, how does Tilton react to Forbes’ suggestion that she might be in trouble? Monday, she posted a response on her company’s website that didn’t address any of Schifrin’s questions, but asked why Forbes was so interested in an “obscure private equity firm owned by a self-made woman whose sole mission is turning around distressed companies on the brink of going out of business and saving jobs in this country? “

Someone might need to get a memo to Tilton–if you don’t want to get noticed, you might want to rethink the outfit.

PHOTOS: Patriarch Partners, Jeff Reidel