High life
For love
or money
Taki
onstantine (Gus) Niarchos is the youngest son of multi-billionaire Greek shipper Stavro Niarchos, and the most likely to get the family name into The Guinness Book of Records. Not that Gus is a track and field athlete. In fact, he's not at all a sporting type. What he has done to be eligible for the record book is to get married in New York City without a pre-marital agreement, an act that makes the Charge of the Light Brigade seem cowardly by comparison.
Needless to say, he is now paying — or refusing to pay, rather — for his folly. The last figure that was quoted by those in the know was £100,000,000, which in view of the fact that he was married less than eight months comes to roughly £400,000 per night of marital bliss. It is the kind of lolly that makes even an honest woman think twice before getting hitched to a poor man, and vice versa.
Not that the present Madame Niarchos is alone. Mrs Michael Tyson, or as she's better known, Robin Givens, is also asking for lots of moolah, and she was married almost as long as the estranged Alessandra Niarchos. Mind you, Mrs Tyson wants $125 million for being libelled by the champ, not for having been beaten up, which she says she was. The heavyweight champ called her 'the slime of the slime' in print, which in my opinion was excessive. After all, just because the little woman wants to take some of the root of all envy you've made by beating up people doesn't justify the insult. I've said far less hurtful things about women far worse than Robin and have paid far less for the libel.
But back to Gus. One of the reasons I like him is because he's a problem child. The other is because his older brother is my little girl's godfather. And I have been known to have accepted the Niarchos hospitality, however long ago. But that doesn't alter the fact that I also like Constantine's wife, a girl I hardly know and have never spoken to in earnest. Her name is Alessandra Borghese, and she is of the same family as the one the gardens in Rome are named after. What I do know is that I find her incredibly attractive, and sexy as hell. Constantine and she got hitched rather suddenly. They nevertheless were in love, or so close friends of the couple tell me. The father of the groom apparently went bananas when he heard
about it, as there are all sorts of stories circulating around town about the attrac- tive Italian principessa, stories which every jet-setter worth his salt knows by heart but I cannot possibly repeat in view of the ludicrous libel laws of merry old England. What I can do is quote the great Nigel Dempster, a libel avoider if there ever was one, who described them as follows: 'Niar- chos blames his break-up on the influence over his wife of three women, Marina Cicogna, Florinda Bolkan and Gloria [Ridiculous, my adjective] Thurn and Taxis.'...
The papers are now sealed, and both sides are determined to fight it out to the last. When I spoke to a member of the Niarchos family, and put in my two bits that it would be a great pity for the proverbial dirty linen to be washed in front of the tabloid press, I was told that Papa was adamant that the sexy princess get nothing. This in a way saddens me because they're both young kids and the last thing they need is the kind of Pulitzer publicity they're bound to get. The kind that — and again I'm restrained by libel laws — some of the clever chappies who have been ripping off the pathetic Christina Onassis these last few years deserve, and I fervent- ly hope one day they receive. I know all about their dirty tricks. But, alas, for the moment, my lips are sealed.
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