Billionaire celebrates daughter’s milestone with wife AND his lover
LAST time that viewers of the BBC’s extraordinary documentary Robbie’s War: The Rise And Fall Of A Playboy Billionaire saw socialite Heather Bird, she was shown living in a small, dark bedroom, where she allegedly had to cook on a camping stove.
At the weekend, however, the American was happy to pose with her estranged husband, the flamboyant property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, at the Bat Mitzvah of their teenage daughter, Violet — despite the presence of his Polish model girlfriend Julia Dybowska. In keeping with the dress code, Heather, 48, and Robbie, 57, both wore white, with his jacket emblazoned with flowers, changing outfits later.
‘It was the most lavish party,’ reports one the guests at the Bat Mitzvah, a Jewish celebration of a girl’s coming of age.
Guests included gold bullion dealer James Stunt, the ex-husband of Formula One heiress Petra Ecclestone, restaurant tycoon Richard Caring and colourful property developer Bruce Ritchie.
The party was held at Tchenguiz’s £20 million Kensington mansion overlooking the Royal Albert Hall, which has a ballroom, swimming pool and roof terrace.
According to the BBC programme, Heather, who is separated, although not divorced, from Tchenguiz, lived on the first floor and tried to avoid Robbie and his 27-year-old girlfriend who occupy the fourth.
Regarding his wife’s living arrangements, Tchenguiz later told this newspaper: ‘There is no [camping] stove. It would be a fire hazard.
‘This house has two kitchens. Heather has a fully equipped one on the third floor as well as the use of the main kitchen in the basement.
‘The children have a cook to prepare their meals.’
The Iranian-born businessman and his brother, Vincent, came to prominence in the Eighties as two of the West End’s biggest landlords, with a portfolio of more than 600 buildings said to have been worth £4.5 billion.
But Robbie lost £1.6billion in the Icelandic banking crisis.
He was then wrongly arrested for fraud after the 2008 financial crash, and the Serious Fraud Office has since paid him £1.5 million in damages.