Rags-to-riches Natalia to wed son of £84bn mogul
WHILE many of us were grumpily nursing hangovers y e s t e r d a y, Natalia Vodianova was still full of New Year’s joy.
For I can reveal that the supermodel accepted a proposal from the son of the world’s third-richest man.
Natalia, 37, is to wed Antoine Arnault, 42, whose father, Bernard, is boss of the world’s largest luxury-goods company, LVMH Moet Hennessy.
Bernard’s estimated £84 billion fortune makes him the world’s richest person after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Bill
Gates of Microsoft. The Vogue cover star confirmed her engagement by sharing a picture with friends on New Year’s Eve of herself sporting a sizeable sparkler on her ring finger while enjoying a loving embrace with Antoine.
She told them: ‘2020 here we come. I can’t wait to celebrate.’
Natalia was raised in a poor neighbourhood of Nizhny Novgorod in western Russia and would help make ends meet by working on a fruit stall. Aged 15, she was signed up by a modelling agency and went on to become a household name in fashion.
She was previously married to one of Britain’s most eligible aristocrats, Justin Portman, the 50- year- old son of property heir the 9th Viscount Portman. Their ten-year marriage, which produced three children, ended in 2011. Justin later blamed his alcohol problems.
‘I do not have time for her fashionable life,’ he admitted. ‘I thought she was ashamed of me. I became for her a kind of outmoded Louis Vuitton handbag. And then I went to the 28- day course in the rehabilitation centre.’
Earlier this year, the Daily Mail Diary disclosed that Justin, who has a reputed family fortune of £2.05 billion, had wed American actress Morgan Snyder, 36.
The surprise ceremony
prompted Natalia’s friends to speculate about whether she would change her mind on a second wedding. She had declared that she wasn’t interested in marrying Antoine, with whom she has two children. ‘I feel like we’re married,’ she said. ‘Why change anything?’ Clearly, she was won over by Antoine’s Gallic charm.