Jaw-dropping extravagance of Ronaldo’s SUPER WAG
She had this picture beamed on to the world’s tallest building. Her jewellery is worth €4m and she’s driven around in a €1.2m Bugatti. And she never travels with luggage because ‘everything’s waiting for me’. You’ll be f labbergasted by the...
SHE has 30 million followers on Instagram – more than Victoria Beckham – and a boyfriend whose footballing genius and staggering €591m fortune have made him a globally recognised superstar. But Georgina Rodriguez is concerned this might not be enough. The world, she believes, deserves to know more.
‘Many know my name,’ the 28-year-old girlfriend of Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo enigmatically declares in a new Netflix series about her life. ‘Few know who I really am.’
It’s not clear how much of the truth lies within her six-part show, I Am Georgina, which launched on the streaming giant’s site this week.
But what it lacks in substance it makes up for in jaw-dropping style as, luxuriating in yachts, planes, automobiles and the obligatory high-fashion retail outlets, she cements her reputation as no mere uberWAG, but the biggest WAG in the world.
The documentary is already proving to be something of a hit, according to a wellplaced source in Hollywood.
‘The show is in the top five around the world from England and the US to Russia and Scandinavia,’ he said, as Covid-weary viewers lap up the escapism.
The former Gucci shop-girl – described by one fan as ‘a cross between Elizabeth Taylor and a prettier Kardashian’ – used to travel to work in Madrid by bus before being spotted by Ronaldo five years ago.
Today, pregnant with his twins, she rides around in the footballer’s €1.2m Bugatti, declares her love for ‘big diamonds’ and vows never to go back to ‘flying commercial’ after being whisked around Europe in his €41m private jet.
In typically understated style, Cristiano celebrated her 28th birthday last week by paying to have the Netflix series beamed on to the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa Tower.
Georgina declares that her talented husband-to-be, whose discarded football boots are meticulously arranged in a museum-style display, is ‘more normal than normal people’.
But as the drama reveals, the world of Georgina and Ronaldo is anything but.
‘I was a waitress, I was a cleaner, I was a stock clerk, but now, I f***ing rule,’ she tells the viewers.
Let’s see if they agree.
BYE BYE, BUS-STOP – HELLO, BUGATTI!
THEIR eyes, and fingers, met in the most auspiciously luxurious of settings – the Gucci store in Madrid, where Georgina had a job selling handbags. Asked to stay late for a ‘VIP client’, the sight of Ronaldo gave her ‘butterflies in my stomach’, she recalls.
Then travelling to work by bus from the converted storage unit where she was living, she adds that ‘love changed my life overnight’.
And it was a modest life. Born in the small town of Jaca, northeastern Spain, her Argentinian father was jailed for cocaine trafficking in 2003 when she was just nine.
But when Ronaldo asked her out for dinner, their hands touched – and the rest, she says, is history.
‘It felt as if his hands had been with me many times before,’ she enthused.
‘And once our hands had brushed by accident we went for it, and held them together.
‘His hands felt familiar. They fit perfectly… my heart was going, ba-boom! ba-boom!’
From then on, Georgina was picked up from work in a Bugatti.
Isn’t everyone?
‘He’s a very normal man,’ she insists.
‘He’s more normal than normal people.’
A GARAGE ‘CLEANER THAN A HOSPITAL’
THE couple live in a sprawling hilltop home in Madrid, one of several luxury properties owned by Ronaldo across Europe.
‘The first time I went to Ronaldo’s house I got lost,’ Georgina says. ‘I wanted to go to the kitchen to get water, and I didn’t know where to go.
‘Sometimes it would take me half an hour to get to the living room because I didn’t know the way back, it was so big. Since I was a kid, I was used to living in really small apartments.’
But of its many attributes, including a lot of marble and a wall devoted to showcasing Ronaldo’s training shoes, Georgina chooses to focus on the garage which is, she says admiringly, ‘cleaner than most hospitals’.
The sage advice she gives their interior decorator includes making the home ‘more homogenous’, with no ‘plastic flowers’ and ‘no more books’.
Ronaldo’s private life has been complicated.
He has three children via an unnamed surrogate: Cristiano Jr, 11, and four-year-old twins Mateo and Eva. There is another daughter, Alana, four, with Georgina, and the couple are preparing to welcome another set of twins later this year.
Georgina is also clear about her needs on holiday.
She’s seen on the programme telling a travel agent that she wants a villa with ‘lots of bedrooms’ but insists the pool isn’t too close to the master bedroom as she doesn’t want their sleep interrupted by noisy children splashing around.
Once they have six children – five of them aged under five – the noise from the pool might be the least of their worries.
TOO CHUNKY FOR A CAVALLI GOWN
FLEXING her credentials as one of the world’s most extravagant football WAGs, Georgina’s shopping skills leave her peers in the shade.
‘I love shopping,’ she tells the series, somewhat unnecessarily as she flits from luxury store to luxury store. There is high-stakes drama when she cannot choose between two dresses for the Cannes red carpet (spoiler alert: she selects the Gaultier frock, embellished with leather). In another moment of tense shopping footage, she grabs handfuls of designer shirts for Cristiano.
‘I love this one. And this one. I’ll take this white one too,’ she says. For good measure, she adds: ‘I like having nice things in my closet, and I like looking good.’
There is a moment of pathos, too, when she struggles to fit into a Roberto Cavalli gown. ‘One of them didn’t get over my knees,’ she admits.
It’s definitely her age, she concludes. She tells the shop assistant: ‘The thing is, years have passed and the years are adding up.’
Proving she has the same concerns as the rest of us, she stuffs a slice of salami into her mouth while being made up for a photo shoot in Madrid, reflecting, ‘I’m getting chunky, eh?’
‘I haven’t been able to stop eating candy, and I don’t think I ever will. I have a very fast metabolism and I hope it never changes because I love to eat’.
Conspicuous consumption is clearly a thing. An extensive handbag collection is also proudly displayed, accompanied by Georgina’s expert commentary.
‘I love Hermes, I love Gucci, I love Prada – it’s so feminine. I love Louis Vuitton. I love all brands. I love bags, I love dresses.’ But it is her €4m jewellery collection that truly sparkles.
She tries on a diamond and emerald necklace ‘as thick as a boa constrictor’ to wear at the Cannes Film Festival. ‘I love emeralds, sapphires, rubies. I love diamonds. What’s more expensive? Rubies or diamonds?’
Wistfully, she adds: ‘Years ago I used to go window-shopping and I’d dream of wearing all those jewels. Dreams do come true. The first jewels I got were heartshaped earrings with a matching heart-shaped necklace that Cris got me for Christmas.’
When a bee flies too close for comfort, she waves it away, saying, ‘They go straight for the gold’. Proving she is not completely lacking in self-awareness, she jokes of her shopping prowess, ‘She came for a present and leaves with half the store. I went from selling luxury items to wearing them on the red carpet’.
A MONOGRAMMED LIFE OF LUXURY
FROM a €41m Gulfstream jet to a €12m yacht and a fleet of luxury cars including the €1.2m Bugatti and two Rolls-Royces, Georgina no longer has to rely on the local bus timetable.
Just as schoolchildren have their names ironed into their uniforms, so Ronaldo has his insignia, CR, emblazoned on everything from his private plane’s leather seat headrests and silk pillowcases to the handle on his mansion’s front door.
When Georgina pops over to Paris to visit Jean Paul Gaultier to select a frock, his personal flight attendants tuck in her children for a nap, lay napkins on her lap, and serve an array of handmade tapas topped with caviar.
She never travels with luggage, she confides, ‘because I don’t need to. I have everything waiting for me’.
There is also no need to queue for theme park rides. One attraction in Madrid opens exclusively for Cristiano Jr’s birthday.
THE POWER OF ‘GEORGIOLOGY’
ASIDE from shopping, Georgina’s other superpower is predicting the sex of unborn children. Examining her sister Ivana’s hands, she declares she is expecting a girl.
This is established further by the ‘Georgiology Test’ – holding a necklace above Ivana’s open palm, which swings from side to side.
‘See, it’s a girl,’ she says excitedly. ‘This is for real. Yes, Georgiology exists and Georgiology is real.’
With decent odds of 50/50, Ivana’s gender-reveal party does confirm it’ll be a girl.
How far Georgina’s powers extend is unclear, but she maintains she is set to win the lottery and regularly buys a ticket.
Some may say she’s already hit the jackpot.
‘I consider myself a fortunate woman because I know what it is
to have nothing and I know what it is to have everything,’ she muses.
RONALDO’S LEFT ON THE BENCH
HE MIGHT be the most followed person on photo-sharing app Instagram, but Ronaldo takes a back seat in the Netflix show – and barely appears.
All the better to showcase Georgina’s talents, perhaps.
As she points out in the series, ‘Many people used to know me for being Cristiano Ronaldo’s girlfriend, and today they know me for who I am’.