Elle ‘never legally married tycoon’
back SUPERMODEL Elle Macpherson and her billionaire ex Jeffrey Soffer may not legally have been husband and wife, it has been alleged.
It was reported the couple wed on Fiji in 2013 but according to sources Soffer, 47, has reportedly told friends that he and Elle, 53, were “never technically married”.
Elle, nicknamed The Body in her modelling heyday, is said to have moved out of the couple’s US home in June. The news has echoes of Mick Jagger’s split from Jerry Hall.
After the Texan model filed for divorce from the Rolling Stones star in 1999, Jagger claimed their Hindu wedding nine years earlier on the Indonesian island of Bali was not legally valid. He succeeded in having the marriage declared null and void by the High Court in London.
Elle and her two sons Flynn, 19, and Aurelius, 14, from a previous relationship with billionaire Arpad Busson, had lived with hotel heir Soffer in his Miami mansion for three years.
The couple started dating in 2009 but split in March 2012. They reunited that year when a helicopter carrying Soffer crashed in the Bahamas. Soffer suffered a fractured spine and Australian Elle flew from London to Miami to help nurse him back to health. Their 2013 nuptials were at the exclusive Laucala Resort in Fiji and according to Fiji’s tourism website weddings are “recognised as legal worldwide”.
However, its embassy in the US says those marrying in Fiji are required by law “to obtain and sign a marriage licence of their choice from a nearest marriage registry prior to the actual marriage ceremony”. The couple could not be reached for comment.