Model demanding £250m in divorce ... to buy a fur coat, handbags and art
THE model ex-wife of a Saudi billionaire has demanded a staggering divorce payout of a quarter of a billion pounds to allow her to maintain her luxury lifestyle.
Former Pirelli calendar girl Christina Estrada, 54, has revealed her list of planned spending – to include mansions, trips on private jets, designer clothing, jewellery and art – to the High Court.
Yesterday a judge heard how her cash demands were ‘firmly in gasp territory’.
Mrs Justice Roberts will decide at a hearing in London later this month how much of Sheikh Walid Juffali’s fortune – previously estimated at around £4billion but now said to be lower – should go to his ex-wife after their 13-year marriage broke down.
Her ‘extraordinary’ schedule of intended includes £68million for a seven-storey London home, £4.4million for a country house in Henley, Oxfordshire, £495,000 to buy five cars and £1.05million to spend on art.
She is also demanding £1.02million annually to spend on clothing and accessories,
‘Excessive and exaggerated’
including £280,000 a year on jewellery, £272,000 on dresses and £40,000 alone for a new fur coat each year.
Miss Estrada is asking for £6.52million a year in maintenance costs and an annual £335,000 for domestic staff including a butler, chauffeur and two cleaners. She also wants an annual travel budget of £2.1million to cover flying in private jets costing £3,700 an hour, it was revealed.
Her ex-husband’s lawyer Justin Warshaw QC said her claim that she needs £250million for personal costs was ‘excessive and exaggerated’.
Yesterday American-born Miss Estrada, who was dressed in a white designer outfit, looked relaxed as she attended the preliminary hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice. But Mr Juffali, 61, was unable to go as he is battling lung cancer.
Mr Warshaw wrote in his summary of the case that Miss Estrada, who featured in the 1993 Pirelli calendar, was already independently wealthy, with assets worth more than £16million including homes in Beverly Hills and London.
Mr Juffali currently pays £70,000 a month for living expenses, £50,000 a year to run her California home and £1million a year for the cost of the former marital home – a ten-bedroom property set in 40 acres next to Windsor Great Park.
He has already offered her £32million, to include a lump sum payment of around £7million, maintenance payments of £2million for five years as well as buying a £6.5million house for their daughter. But the court heard Miss Estrada rejected the offer.
The case is likely to focus on the scale of the oil baron’s fortune. Charles Howard QC, representing Miss Estrada, said Mr Juffali is ‘claiming effectively to have given most of his wealth away’ already.
Assets worth more than £500million have been given to three other daughters, while a £10million blue diamond ring previously requested by Miss Estrada has also been ‘given away’.
Mrs Justice Roberts told the hearing: ‘He has provided this family with an extraordinary standard of living and it is one they have both enjoyed.’ She said she will determine ‘whether it’s appropriate for her to continue to use private jets or if she has got to do the same as the rest of us and travel by scheduled carrier.’
This is the second expensive divorce battle for Mr Juffali.
He paid out £40million to his first wife after their 24-year marriage ended in 2000, when he began a relationship with Miss Estrada.
Mr Juffali and Miss Estrada married in 2001. But in 2012 the model discovered he had secretly married Loujain Adada, a Lebanese model 32 years his junior. Under Islamic law he can have four wives, but he divorced Miss Estrada in 2014 in the Muslim way by saying ‘I divorce you’ three times.
Miss Estrada began her fight for a divorce settlement after Mr Juffali’s claim for diplomatic immunity, based on his role as a representative of the UN International Maritime Organisation, was rejected.
Miss Estrada has previously been linked to Prince Andrew and South African casino magnate Sol Kerzner.