‘Broke’ tycoon pays £6m divorce price for boasts
A PROPERTY tycoon who claimed he had no ready cash must pay his ex-model wife £5.7million after boasting of his life on social media.
Preston Haskell IV, who once partied with Madonna and tried to buy Coventry City FC, called Alesia Vladimirovna a “gold-digger” as he claimed he was relying on handouts from his father to get by.
He even urged her to sell her £100,000 engagement ring to pay for her upkeep while he continued to live the high life, a court was told.
Yesterday, the globe-trotting London-based American, once said to be worth £160million, lost a bitter financial battle at the Family Court in London.
It came as Ms Vladimirovna, 39, and their three children face eviction from the £3.3million family home in
Chelsea after he cancelled the lease last year. The couple split in 2016 and after two years of supporting his family he said he had nothing more to give.
But social media posts revealed he had enjoyed holidays in South Africa, Turkey, St Tropez, Ibiza and Switzerland last year.
He had even posed with a bottle of £400 Chateau HautBrion 1966, with the words: “It was a beautiful year.”
Mr Haskell, 53, had also made no attempt to sell his £6.5million house in Cape Town or another villa worth £1million in Johannesburg. Mr Justice Mostyn said: “The marriage was blighted by the husband’s serial infidelity and abuse of cocaine and alcohol.”
Last March, a High Court judge ordered that he pay his wife £45,700 a month in maintenance – more than double what Mr Haskell had offered.
Mr Haskell must now pay Ms Vladimirovna around £650,000 by March and £5.1million by early 2022.