Douw Steyn’s ‘bride’ hunts for the fine print
IN an ornate gilt reception room in London’s Lanesborough Hotel in August 2007, insurance billionaire Douw Steyn stood beside Donné Botha, radiant in her £30 000 dress.
The priest, the Rev Simon Wilkinson, asked the couple in front of a host of family and friends if they would honour and protect each other for the rest of their lives.
Steyn, in a black suit and his trademark dark glasses, replied: “Can’t we just do it for a month?”
Botha — whose dress was designed by Elizabeth Emanuel, who also made Princess Diana’s wedding dress, said in turn: “Two weeks is better for me.”
They may have been joking, but the exchange proved prophetic.
The relationship was over about a month later, but the London ceremony is now the focus of a battle in the High Court in Durban.
Ultimately Steyn could lose as much as half of his estimated R10billion estate if the legal fight over whether they were legally married is decided in Botha’s favour.
Success for Botha could also mean Steyn’s subsequent remarriage to actress and radio personality Carolyn Steyn in 2013 might be invalid. The Steyns previously married and divorced in 2003.
Steyn, now 64, met Botha, a personal trainer 14 years his junior, in 2005 at a party in Sandton and they soon became engaged.
Botha, who now lives in Ballito, said in court papers that the ceremony in London was her “dream wedding”.
She insisted the ceremony constituted a legal wedding, but argued that if it did not theirs should be declared a “putative marriage”. This is one in which one or both of the parties believe in good faith their marriage is valid, while in fact it is not due to legal technicalities.
She also cited a prenuptial agreement they signed in April 2007, which Steyn said he could not remember signing because he had drunk about two bottles of vodka at the time.
Steyn said there was no legal marriage, and that the London “wedding” event was only a “blessing ceremony” — and he is backed up by Wilkinson who said the ceremony “could not result in marriage because the legalities had not been attended to”.
At the time, Steyn was living in London but often came back to South Africa. When he did he stayed at the Saxon Hotel, which he owns. He now lives in “Palazzo Steyn”, a R250-million mansion in Fourways.
Of the London ceremony, he said in court papers: “I surprised her . . . I called her up and said come over to [London] and we will get married.
“I didn’t realise that it takes six weeks to get a marriage licence. When she arrived I said to her that her friends and family are here so let’s have a ceremony.”
He said he was already planning at the time to return to South Africa permanently and had told Botha they could get married after that. But then they broke up.
Botha said Steyn only told her about the problem with the marriage licence after the ceremony.
“He said, however, that it did not mean we were not married. It was simply a matter of paperwork . . . I changed my name to Donné Steyn.”
Steyn’s attorney, Sharon Wapnick, in an affidavit on his behalf, portrayed Botha as a gold-digger, accusing her of embarking on a “series of attempts to unlawfully extract large amounts of money from him”.
In 2009, Wapnick said, she demanded R30-million.
“After he refused to pay, she laid charges of assault and crimen injuria against him but the prosecutor declined to prosecute.
“Then in 2013, after he married Carolyn Steyn in a much-publicised affair, she instituted a private prosecution against him for the self-same charges. This too was dismissed.”
Wapnick said there was no reference during the London ceremony to “any union, groom or bride” and the minister did not pronounce them to be “man and wife”.
Wapnick said the prenuptial contract was a pro forma agreement with blank spaces which Botha filled in herself, coerced Steyn into signing and “quickly faxed off” to her lawyer while he was intoxicated.
Wapnick said Steyn was “reputedly an extremely wealthy man” and this was not the first time someone had tried to extract money from him. “He has taken a firm resolution not to succumb.”
Lawyers for Steyn and Botha declined to comment further. A date for a hearing has not been set.
He said that it did not mean we were not married. It was simply a matter of paperwork