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‘I WENT FROM MILLIONS IN THE BANK TO LIVING ON FOOD STAMPS’
When NATHALIE BARIMAN married into the famous Bismarck dynasty, she looked set to live happily ever after – but the fairy tale soured and she found herself struggling even to buy food. She tells Dawn Emery why she has set up a foundation to help other wom
How a fairy tale wedding ended in a riches-to-rags divorce for Countess Nathalie von Bismarck Bariman
Having bumped into Count Carl-Eduard von Bismarck, quite literally, outside a spa on the Caribbean island of St Barts in 2003, Nathalie Bariman thought she had met her Prince Charming. Carl-Eduard, great-great grandson of ‘Iron Chancellor’ Otto von Bismarck and scion of one of Germany’s grandest aristocratic families, soon began pursuing the Canadian-American socialite in earnest, bombarding her with flowers and love letters.
Nathalie, 45, who has a degree in fine arts from Parsons School of Design in New York, was a successful businesswoman. ‘I had more than $6 million in the bank, I ran five companies and made my money doing real estate,’ she says. ‘I had a great life; I didn’t need him or his title, but we fell in love.’
Carl-Eduard, who was an MP for the German Christian Democratic Union party, had two failed marriages behind him when he met Nathalie. He had struggled with alcohol addiction in the past, but was clean at this point. The couple married in a Jewish-Protestant ceremony in the New York Hamptons in 2004, before moving into a wing of the picturesque Friedrichsruh Castle, the von Bismarck family’s seat in northern Germany. They had two children (Count Alexei, now ten, and Countess Grace, eight), and enjoyed an extravagant, jet-setting lifestyle entertaining their aristocratic friends.
But Carl-Eduard’s drinking habits gradually began to spiral out of control, leading eventually
to a bitter split in 2011. Nathalie says she was left penniless and ‘paying for food with food stamps’. She had no choice but to start a new life as a single mother and now she has set up a charity, the She Phoenix Foundation, using her experience to help other women who are struggling with divorce or coping with partners with addictions.
‘I was quite naive,’ admits Nathalie now. ‘When I met Carl-Eduard, I didn’t know that he had just come out of rehab. I had bad intuition – but addicts are like professional sociopaths. If you’d met my ex-husband and he told you that the sky was purple, you would have believed him. He was very funny and charming. I didn’t marry a bad man.’
Nathalie, who now lives in a rented apartment in New York, says that marrying into aristocracy brings a unique set of problems. ‘Everyone is afraid to speak up against them,’ she explains.
The modern-day Bismarcks, still one of the most influential families in Germany, have been dogged with scandal and controversy. Carl-Eduard’s younger brother Gottfried hit the headlines in 1986 when Olivia Channon, 22-year-old daughter of one of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet ministers, died in his Oxford University rooms. In 2006, his friend Anthony Casey fell to his death from the roof terrace of Gottfried’s flat, and Gottfried himself died from a drug overdose the following year.
There is talk of a family rift, and it has been claimed that Prince Ferdinand reportedly wants his youngest son Gregor to be his successor instead of Carl-Eduard. Meanwhile, their London-based cousin, Count Nikolai, has made headlines over his alleged wild behaviour and love life – he is said to have dated Princess Beatrice, and has been in an on-off relationship with Kate Moss, who is 13 years his senior.
Carl-Eduard’s own behaviour has also made him a frequent fixture in the German gossip pages. In 2007, he resigned from his political role after the Bild newspaper labelled him ‘Germany’s laziest MP’ for his poor attendance record. Three years later, police were called to Friedrichsruh Castle amid reports that he was threatening his mother with a hunting rifle, which he denied.
After Nathalie’s marriage foundered, she moved to the UK with her two children (then five and three), where she found a job as an interior designer, and Alexei and Grace attended the American School in London. Then Nathalie suddenly lost her job and, having spent much of her previous wealth during her marriage – including paying for renovations on the castle – found herself struggling for money.
‘I begged his family. I said, “This is the first time I’m asking for urgent financial help,” but they said no,’ she recalls. ‘Carl took off for India the next day to stay at a spa for six weeks with his new girlfriend, while I could no longer pay for rent, food or school.’
While the Bismarcks are rich on paper – their combined wealth has been estimated at nearly £700 million – their cashflow is said to be less healthy. ‘With the Bismarcks there is this joke that money doesn’t grow on trees, but they own the forest,’ says Nathalie.
With the cost of London living being beyond her, she and her children moved to Berlin for four months, before her family persuaded her to move back to New York so that they could help with financial support and childcare. Describing herself as a ‘Bismarck who can’t be sunk’, she now wants other women to learn from her mistakes.
Women often try to fix their husbands, she says. ‘She Phoenix runs Al-Anon-type groups [like the meetings for families affected by someone’s drinking] in which we teach women to stop being co - dependent. Like many women, it was my character to try to help people. But you have to realise that this problem is bigger than you.
‘In my seminars, women sit there crying, saying, “He did this and that; he’s a liar.” But I tell them to stop with the emotions and build their own self- esteem. If an addict has somebody to lean on, he will turn it back on to you; we call it the mirror image.’ Nathalie has held seminars in New York, Hamburg, London and Paris, and plans to expand the foundation in the UK.
She accepts that addiction can run in families but says, ‘I’m raising a new breed of Bismarcks. Alexei is the future Prince Bismarck, and that’s something no one can take away from him. But he’s anti smoking, drugs and alcohol. I’m raising him so he’s not a hunter like the Bismarcks. He’s allowed to stroke Bambi, not kill it.’
Nathalie – who has another daughter Mia, two, from a subsequent relationship (she won’t divulge the father’s name) – also advises women to shield their children from adult problems. She wants women to be inspired by her strength. ‘In my seminars, I tell them, “If you have a problem, go to the bathroom, cry, bang your head against the wall if you have to, but then come out and smile for your kids. They’re at a tender age, you have to try to keep it together.”
‘My kids know that sometimes Daddy catches “the flu” and has to go to the doctors and can visit them when he is better. Alexei learned about alcoholism at school and came back and said, “Mummy, does this mean my daddy is going to die at a young age?” I made a joke out of it. I said, “Don’t be silly, your daddy can’t die at a young age – he’s too old already!”
‘My children are very happy,’ Nathalie continues. ‘Another thing we teach at the charity is that children need a schedule and routines. When they come home, rain or
There are many women from aristocratic or royal families who have gone through the same thing as me, or worse