Tragic Hamptons mogul Brandon Miller tried to ‘keep up with the Bezoses’

Pretty little lies led to a bonfire of the vanities.

That sums up how rich millennials in the Hamptons are explaining the tragic downfall of real estate developer Brandon Miller, who was found unconscious in the garage of his $8 million Water Mill home, leaving behind his social influencer wife Candice Miller and their two little girls.

Brandon, 43, the principal partner at Real Estate Equity Corporation, was married to Candice Miller, founder of the lifestyle and mommy blog Mama & Tata and a prominent face on the Hamptons social scene.

He died July 3 after several days at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital where he was taken after being found unconscious in his car — his collection of classic, expensively restored rides included a 1958 Porsche 356A Speedster, a 1971 Ferrari Daytona coupe and a 1968 Ford Bronco. The local fire department was alerted by a carbon-monoxide alarm in the garage.

No cause of death has officially been released.

Brandon was thought to be about $17 million in debt at the time of his death, a source told The Post.

His wife and young daughters — who had been staying at a luxe hotel on the Amalfi Coast in Italy as part of a lavish trip to Europe that was chronicled on Candice’s Instagram — flew home and were reportedly able to see him before he died.

His death laid bare a carefully-curated fairy-tale life, shown to the world on Candice’s Instagram and blog (which have now been shut down), in which he appeared as the lucky and affectionate head of a family who professed their love to each other every night. They shuttled between their lavish homes in the Hamptons and Manhattan.

“It’s not longer keeping up with the Joneses. It’s like keeping up with the Bezoses, but no one can compete,” one Hamptons socialite told The Post.

“There’s a whole kind of rich now that never existed before. They [the Millers] were trying … They were living way beyond their means, and now the truth has come out. There are probably 10 or 20 people in the Hamptons who qualify as billionaires. But you can be sure they’re not the ones sharing their lives on Instagram.”

Candice — whose friend circle included Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, stylist Rachel Zoe and Ivanka Trump, as well as her cousin, Something Navy fashion blogger Arielle Charnas — inspired both envy and resentment for showing off what everyone presumed was enormous wealth and a perfect family.

Candice is also a head buyer for the Tenet shop in Southampton and runs a vintage-inspired clothing line called Black Iris.

She bragged about her weekly Aida Bicaj $800 facials and her membership at the Tracy Anderson exercise studio, threw $100,000 parties and spared no expense when she and Brandon renewed their vows in 2019. The theme was “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Sources told The Post she even downloaded full-length movies while flying on private jets — a practice which can cost into the thousands.

But while money was flowing out of the Millers’ hands like water, it was slow coming in, allegedly due to questionable business dealings and lawsuits that were piling up.

Two sources told The Post that Brandon had borrowed about $17 million from friends in the couple’s social circle, ostensibly to buy a downtown Manhattan building. But the building was sold to someone else and Brandon was forced to tell investors he had used their money for something else.

He had been hit with lawsuits — including one concerning a luxury furniture rental and another over $50,000 in boat-related fees — just months before his death.

Brandon was sued by an interior designer April 19 after he allegedly “failed and refused to pay” $102,730.27 for the company’s luxury rental services, according to the complaint obtained by The Post.

He also “refused to return” more than $64,000 worth of furnishings from his and Candice’s Park Avenue apartment, the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court alleged. That home, according to a property listing, spanned more than 4,300 square feet — with five bedrooms, a private elevator and a great room alone that measured 800 square feet. Worth around $11 million, it rented for just shy of $50,000 a month.

The Millers moved there after selling their Tribeca penthouse for about $9 million.

Separately, Miller was sued on May 15 by Lighthouse Marina for allegedly failing to pay his balances on his boat, MillerTime, which had been docking at the Long Island, New York,…