My love affair with Big Mac ‘ lothario’
Ex-girlfriend tells how McDonald’s boss wooed her ... but lost interest when he became chief executive
THE British McDonald’s boss sacked over an office romance wooed a public relations manager by flying her on the company’s private jet – but lost interest when he got promoted, she claimed yesterday.
Denise Paleothodoros, 47, said ousted chief executive Steve Easterbrook took her on holidays to California and Mexico as the pair fell in love.
The Watford-born burger boss spent £2 million on an apartment for them in Chicago so they could live close to the firm’s head office.
But after his promotion to lead the company in 2015, Miss Paleothodoros said she was hurt at being ‘ excluded’ from his new social circle and they soon drifted apart.
The pair were together for four years before Mr Easterbrook went down a ‘ dark alley’ when they broke up in 2018, Miss Paleothodoros said.
McDonald’s fired Mr Easterbrook, 53, last year after a junior employee revealed they had swapped sexually-explicit text messages and videos. The global giant is suing its former boss to claw back some of his £32 million severance package for allegedly covering up flings with three other employees in his final year with the company.
Miss Paleothodoros said she met Mr Easterbrook in 2014 at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
At the time she was working for PR firm Golin which handled the McDonald’s account and Mr Easterbrook was the company’s global chief brand officer.
They informed their bosses of the relationship and after Miss Paleothodoros was taken off the McDonald’s account they kept seeing each other.
Miss Paleothodoros said they ‘connected’ because they were both going through divorces. ‘We spoke about building a future together. Sharing our life together, he referred to me as his life partner.’
Mr Easterbrook took Miss Paleothodoros on the McDonald’s private jet three times and paid the company back for each trip, she said. Their holiday destinations included New York, Mexico and Lake Tahoe in California.
In 2017, Mr Easterbrook bought a sprawling 19th-floor, three-bedroom condo in Chicago where he hoped they could live together. Miss Paleothodoros said: ‘Steve’s a great guy. Kind-hearted, giving, almost the perfect guy. The Steve I knew is a guy’s guy. He’s into sports and likes to drink beer.’ The relationship changed in 2015 when Mr Easterbrook became the chief executive of McDonald’s, the culmination of a meteoric career. Miss Paleothodoros told DailyMail.com his ‘priorities changed and I was not high on his list of priorities’. The couple have stayed in touch and last October Miss Paleothodoros asked to meet him. She said: ‘I had heard he wasn’t doing so well emotionally. But when I asked him, he said everything was fine.’ Weeks later Mr Easterbrook told her he was being fired. She said: ‘He felt ashamed and had a lot of regret about it, but never mentioned any of the other women. ‘The behaviour described in the lawsuit is so out of character for the gentleman that I knew’. Mr Easterbrook and his lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.