The French-Greek billionaire heiress, Athina Onassis, made a rare appearance at an exclusive charity event in France.
The 40-year-old woman, who has endured a slew of tragedies throughout her lifetime, including the passing of her mother when she was little older than a baby, is known to keep a low profile, especially after her husband’s betrayal in 2016.
Highlights
- Athina Onassis made a rare public appearance at an exclusive charity event in France.
- Her low profile is often attributed to personal tragedy and her ex-husband’s infidelity.
- Despite her reclusive nature, Onassis is frequently drawn to philanthropic causes.
In her recent appearance, she was seen in a flowing red evening dress with a ghost of a smile.
Greek tabloids have noticed that Athina Onassis is inclined towards charity events
Image credits: NurPhoto / Getty
The event she was attending, the Bal d’Été, was an exclusive cinematic gala directed by award-winning American filmmaker Sophia Coppola.
“Athina Onassis tends to avoid the spotlight, always opting for discreet and carefully chosen appearances — especially when they involve a philanthropic cause.”
Image credits: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff /Getty
The invite–only gala, which canvasses financial support for the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD), where it was hosted, also featured the likes of Kiera Knightley, Kirsten Dunst, and Anna Wintour, among 300 other members of society’s upper crust.
Prior to that, she was seen at a show-jumping competition in 2022
Onassis, who usually spends her time in the Netherlands and Belgium, was last seen in public in March this year when she attended another charity event at Amis du Centre Pompidou in France.
Prior to that, she broke tradition with her introverted routine of close to a decade to compete in the Longines Paris Eiffel Jumping show at Champ de Mars in 2022.
Image credits: Marc Piasecki / Getty
There, she was noted to have changed her hair color and departed from her no-makeup rule.
She also sported “fuller” lips and wore a lacy black dress as she hung out with Spanish aristocrat Arnaud Cabri-Wiltzer.
Her husband cheating on her is what made her a recluse
The perceived cause for her habit of skirting the spotlight is her Brazilian husband, Álvaro de Miranda Neto, cheating on her in 2016.
Image credits: Dutch National Archives
Onassis’ security team allegedly caught the Brazilian show jumper in bed with a woman in her (Onassis’) Wellington, Florida home.
According to an insider, Miranda begged his wife's staff not to tell her, but the news reached her ears anyway.
Onassis abandoned him and flew to Europe
An insider would later tell the Daily Mail, “It was apparently a one-night stand; there was nothing serious going on between them.”
Image credits: Pool MORT DE CHRISTINA ONASSIS / Getty
Onassis reacted by abandoning Miranda and returning to Europe.
When confronted by the Brazilian press, Miranda would say: “I am really in the midst of a storm. But I will not give up on my love. It won't be easy but I will fight until the end.”
Despite his claims, Miranda would marry another woman and have two children with her.
Her mother passed away when she was three due to years of eating disorders
Image credits: Michel Dufour / Getty
Onassis and her lineage are no strangers to tragedy.
Her mother, Christina, daughter of Aristotle Onassis, who owned one of the world’s largest shipping fleets, married four times and was found deceased in her bathtub in 1988 when Onassis was only three.
It was later established that she had succumbed to a heart attack following years of eating disorders.
Image credits: Milos Bicanski / Getty
Onassis would live with her biological father, a French pharmaceutical heir, Thierry Roussel, and his partner, Gabby, with whom he had been having an affair while Christina was still alive.
By the time she was 18, she had access to her mother's money, and her relationship with Roussel deteriorated to the point that she stopped using his surname.
Athina’s grandfather also passed away during a dark period in his life
Like her mother, Athina’s grandfather, Aristotle, would spend his last years in a dark place.
Image credits: Anadolu / Getty
In 1973, his son and Christina’s brother, Alexander, di*d in a plane crash. The next year, Alexander’s wife, named Athina too, succumbed to an overdose.
Still pining over the loss of his son, Alexander would pass away from bronchial pneumonia a year after that in March 1975.
This record of multi-generational misfortune has since earned itself the moniker, the “Onassis curse.”
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