The Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis, who was born 118 years ago today this Friday, was one of the most notable personalities of international social life from the 1950s to the 1970s. He was notably the lover of Maria Callas from 1959 to 1968, then husband of Jacqueline Kennedy, from 1968 until his death.
What happens to his granddaughter Athina, who enjoys a fortune estimated at nearly a billion euros? She is quite simply an equestrian show jumping champion. She notably represented Greece at the 2013 European Championships and participated in the 2014 World Show Jumping Championships.
Our colleagues at Capital specify that it “orchestras the Longines Athina Onassis Horse Show, one of the most important show jumping competitions in the world, the 10th edition of which was held in May 2024, in Ramatuelle (Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur).” “At the same time, she owns numerous properties and companies in France and Brazil.”they add, while revealing that she was elected to the board of directors of the Casino distribution group. Which means that she “will ensure, among other things, the application of governance rules, the management of conflicts of interest, the ethics and CSR policy.”
Note that Athina preferred to give up the family island left by her grandfather. Indeed, in 2013, she sold the island of Skorpios, the emblem of her family, to the daughter of a Russian oligarch. For 100 million euros. For what ? In order to get as far away as possible “tragedies that have overwhelmed his family for several generations”as pointed out Liberation.
Athina facing the family curse
-Repeated tragedies, brutal deaths and incessant misfortunes have never ceased to strike the members of Aristotle Onassis's clan. In Skorpios, we find “four tombs which line up next to the small chapel drowned in the song of the cicadas. The last to have been buried there, in 1981, was Artemis, the faithful sister of the shipowner Aristotle. But there are three other white marble steles which trace the lines of a destiny worthy of a Greek tragedy: the tomb of Onassis himself and, above all, those of his two direct heirs, his son, Alexander, and his wife. daughter, Christina.”
With the death at just 38 years old following a heart attack of her mother Christina, Athina then became the sole heir of the Greek shipowner but above all experienced very difficult times. As if the curse continued… Orphaned by her mother at 3 years old, the young teenager in fact continued to be carried around during her young years between her middle school in Switzerland and her high school in Belgium.
She then found herself in a terrible legal battle with her father – French business leader and pharmaceutical heir Thierry Roussel – over the management of the fortune, not to mention her terrible fall from a horse which caused the death of her favorite stallion . And alas, her misfortune continued since Athina found herself betrayed by the man of her life, the Brazilian rider Alvaro de Mirando Neto. She learned of his many infidelities. So, “she immediately breaks up, freezes the joint accounts and leaves Brazil. The divorce will be pronounced in 2016, after a new deal remained secret with the handsome and flighty rider who, of course, demands his share of the loot“, says Libération.
Gala specifies that Alvaro would have initially asked for crazy sums. Namely 11 million euros in one payment then monthly alimony of 350,000 euros to which were added several horses and certain real estate. But in the end he would have barely touched anything.
