The Onassis family has a rich and luxurious background within the European socialite circle, stemming from the time when its founder Aristotle gained prominence as a shipping tycoon in the post-war era.
Despite the considerable wealth of the family – with the single heiress Athina, now 40, receiving a $2.7 billion inheritance on her 18th birthday – there have also been numerous sorrows and tragedies within the dynasty.
Athina has faced turmoil in her love life, after her ex-husband was reportedly found in bed with another woman 11 years into their marriage.
This has been just one of the challenges faced by the billionaire heiress, as she was a mere toddler of three when her mother Christina was discovered deceased in a bathtub, reportedly succumbing to the effects of long-term eating disorders.
Christina’s brother, meanwhile, had lost his life aged only 24 after dying in a plane crash.
The accumulation of toil and suffering faced by the family has led to some branding them ‘cursed’.
Here, FEMAIL looks at the devastating events faced by Onassis members over the years – and those closely linked to them…
ATHINA’S HEARTBREAK
The Onassis family has a long-standing and glamorous history in the European socialite scene, after its patriarch Aristotle (pictured with his children Christina and Alexander) decades ago established himself as a post-war shipping magnate. But as plentiful are the family’s riches – with sole heiress Athina, 40, having inherited $2.7billion on her 18th birthday – so are the dynasty’s plentiful heartbreaks
The accumulation of toil and suffering faced by the family has led to some branding them ‘cursed’. Pictured: Aristotle with widow Jackie Kennedy, who he married
Athina, 40, has notably strayed away from the spotlight, earning her a reputation as a reclusive heiress.
And despite inheriting a billion-dollar fortune as a member of the dynasty, tragedies in her life have led to suggestions she’s a victim of the ‘curse’ appearing to plague the family.
The socialite was embroiled in romantic woes and has only been seen a handful of times since her ex-husband was reportedly found in bed with a one-night stand in the $2million home that Athina bought in Wellington, Florida in 2016.
DailyMail.com had learnt that ‘Doda’ Miranda, who was formerly part of Brazil’s Olympic showjumping team, was discovered in bed with the woman by his wife’s security team.
A well-connected member of the international show jumping circuit told the Mail that Athina’s security team busted him ‘having sex with another woman’.
‘He begged them not to say anything, but one of them went straight to Athina. She immediately packed her bags and went off to Europe,’ the source said.
Athina (pictured left in March), 40, has notably strayed away from the spotlight, earning her a reputation as a reclusive heiress
The socialite was embroiled in romantic woes and has only been seen a handful of times since her ex-husband was reportedly found in bed with a one-night stand in the $2million home that Athina bought in Wellington, Florida in 2016. Both pictured in 2005
‘It was apparently a one-night stand, there was nothing serious going on between them.’
Doda spoke to Brazilian magazine Epoca at the time and said: ‘I am really in the midst of a storm. But I will not give up on my love. It won’t be easy but I will fight until the end.’
He has since gone on to marry another woman, journalist Denize Severo, and has welcomed two children.
Athina’s father, Thierry, 72 and his wife Marianne ‘Gaby’ Landhage’ – who raised Athina along with her half-siblings – were not in attendance at her and Doda’s wedding.
Alexis Mantheakis – the family’s former spokesman and then Athina’s biographer – told the Irish Times in 2005: ‘Athina is the third generation Onassis woman to marry young, and to an older man.
‘But, like all fathers, Thierry wants the best for his daughter. He would, for example, have liked her to go to university. It’s her life, of course, but Thierry isn’t very happy at her being so young and living so far away – and, understandably, that has put strain on the relationship.’
Athina is believed to have no contact with her father and has even dropped his last name.
However, tragedy befell the pair well before the marriage broke down.
Athina is believed to have no contact with her father and has even dropped his last name. Pictured, her mother Christina
In 2011, the Mail on Sunday learned that Doda’s ex-lover Cibele Dorsa – his first relationship, with whom he had a daughter – hurled herself to her death in the early hours of March 26, from her luxurious seventh-floor flat.
The beautiful but troubled 36-year-old actress and Playboy model left behind suicide notes in which she spoke about the arrangement under which the heiress and Miranda were bringing up her daughter Vivienne and Fernando, her son from a previous relationship.
The boy was born to Cibele during her first marriage, to Brazilian businessman Fernando Oliva Snr.
She agreed to hand over the children to Athina and Doda, but missed the youngsters so unbearably that, she said in one of her last notes, it felt as if ‘my heart has been cut out’.
‘Cibele decided to do this. It was her decision to allow the children to live with Athina and Doda,’ Mr Oliva told The Mail on Sunday. ‘Her life was very complicated. She was a working actress, emotional and unstable. With Athina and Doda they have a very simple and healthy lifestyle.’
Alexis Mantheakis, a former aide to Athina’s father, Thierry Roussel, also said: ‘It seems the Onassis curse has struck again. I am sure everyone thought they were taking the best decisions but, according to her last messages, Cibele was despondent that she had given up the children.
‘This poor woman saw herself as Athina’s rival but she had little to fight her with except her looks. She felt she was no match for this billionaire heiress who was younger and had enormous riches, fame and power.
‘The Onassis money caused nothing but problems. I am sure the children will grow up in a good environment but the question is whether anything can make up for the loss of the mother who loved them very much.’
Athina’s marriage breakdown is not the first heartbreak she has endured – after tragically losing her mother at the age of three. Pictured in 2017
It had been a tough time to endure for Cibele, who was due to marry Brazilian TV presenter, Gilberto Scarpa, that month.
But weeks earlier, he had fallen to his death from the window of her flat in an apparent suicide. Cibele later wrote on Facebook: ‘To live without my two children and without the love of my life has wounded my whole self.’
A Brazilian magazine reported that it had received a statement from Doda, saying: ‘I don’t have to defend myself against criticism by Cibele.
‘I have many emails from her, praising me as a father who never failed to give her moral and financial support.’
After Christina’s death, Athina went to live with Roussel and Gaby.
Doda told a Brazilian magazine in 2011 that they intended to start a family within a few years.
‘Athina is still very young,’ he said, adding that having a baby would interrupt her budding showjumping career.
‘I also have a very busy life,’ he said. ‘When a baby comes I want to reduce the number of competitions to be more present.’
In her early childhood, Christina (pictured with her young daughter) bonded with her daughter and gave Athina her own flock of sheep, complete with a shepherd, when she learned the nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep. She also gave her a private zoo
It was previously reported that Christina(pictured holding her daughter Athena, with husband husband Thierry Roussel) had died of a heart attack brought on by years of eating disorders
Aristotle, who never recovered from his son and heir’s death, then passed away from bronchial pneumonia in March 1975. Alexander pictured top left, in March 1975
Athina reportedly became pregnant in 2013 but suffered a miscarriage – and Doda had said that Athina spent much of her time looking after Vivienne.
CHRISTINA AND ALEXANDER’S TRAGIC DEATHS
Athina’s marriage breakdown is not the first heartbreak she has endured – after tragically losing her mother at the age of three.
In her early childhood, Christina bonded with her daughter and gave Athina her own flock of sheep, complete with a shepherd, when she learned the nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep. She also gave her a private zoo.
It was previously reported that Christina had died of a heart attack brought on by years of eating disorders.
A decade and a half earlier, Christina had lost her entire family in little more than two years. Her 24-year-old brother Alexander was killed in a plane crash in January, 1973, and their mother, Athina ‘Tina’ Onassis, died of a drug overdose the following year.
Aristotle, who never recovered from his son and heir’s death, then passed away from bronchial pneumonia in March 1975.
Christina had four marriages, none of them lasting more than three years. Athina (whose father was Christina’s final husband, French pharmaceutical heir Thierry Roussel) was her only child.
ARISTOTLE’S ‘ABUSE’
Aristotle was 40 when he first married teenage Athina Mary ‘Tina’ Livanos, 23 years his junior – and the pair had Alexander and Christina. The couple pictured in a throwback snap
But the couple’s union had deteriorated over the years, plagued by Aristotle’s cheating – he famously had a very well known affair with opera singer Maria Callas
Aristotle ‘tortured’ Maria emotionally and physically during their relationship before cruelly and infamously dumping her for Jackie Kennedy whom he married in 1968
Aristotle is the man often credited to accruing the family’s wealth by massing one of the world’s largest privately-owned shopping fleet; after, despite having an opulent upbringing, losing their wealth in the aftermath of World War I.
But by the early 20s, he made his way to Argentina and found work as a telephone operator with the British United River Plate Telephone Company – while also studying commerce and port-duty administration.
Eventually, he made his fortune with his first shipping company, going onwards and upwards.
But his love life – and reputation – was far from smooth-sailing. Aristotle was 40 when he first married teenage Athina Mary ‘Tina’ Livanos, 23 years his junior – and the pair had Alexander and Christina.
But the couple’s union had deteriorated over the years, plagued by Aristotle’s cheating – he famously had a very well known affair with opera singer Maria Callas.
However, it appeared that Aristotle’s reputation began to fester far worse beyond infidelity.
In a 2021 biography about Maria’s life, drawing on her previously unpublished letters, it was claimed that she was regularly drugged by her violent lover – the Greek shipping tycoon.
‘Callas the singer may have had the upper hand in the music world but Maria the woman was a victim of circumstance,’ according to biographer Lyndsy Spence, author of Cast A Diva: The Hidden Life Of Maria Callas.
The correspondence with her husband and agent, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, showed that ‘she was really so subvervient and obedient to him, and I started to realise that is who she was as a woman’, Spence told the Daily Mail at the time.
‘She was such a submissive person and that really contrasts with Callas the diva. And when you’re that way inclined, of course you attract abusers.’
And that includes Meneghini, Aristotle and even her own parents, added her biographer.
Nobody abused her quite like brutish Aristotle, however,; she claimed. He ‘tortured’ her emotionally and physically during their relationship before cruelly and infamously dumping her for Jackie Kennedy whom he married in 1968.
From the diaries of a close friend of Maria, Spence has discovered that Aristotle would ply the singer with the powerful hypnotic sedative methaqualone, also known as Mandrax, to which she became addicted along with Nembutal, a barbiturate used as a pre-anaesthetic.
She took it willingly, but with Maria effectively sedated, Aristotle — whose ‘depraved’ sexual requests shocked even the notorious Paris brothel keeper Madame Claude — was able to sexually abuse the singer in demeaning ways, says her biographer, she wouldn’t have permitted if she had been fully conscious.
Spence also claimed that Maria was at the time already suffering from ‘mental health issues’ as she coped with the twin pressures of her career and ageing. These were compounded by her discovery that Aristotle was making heavy use of Madame Claude’s ‘girls’ and even had the bedroom at his Paris home decorated like a brothel.
Athina is now the only living Onassis grandchild of Aristotle.
Notoriously reclusive, she is rarely seen in public, However, she recently made a surprising appearance at a charity gala and appears to have opted for a new look.
The French-Greek socialite, who reportedly splits her time between a small town in the Netherlands and Belgium, was snapped at an art event hosted by the Amis du Centre Pompidou in Paris last month.
Athina – who does not have any children – is often photographed sporting a solemn expression, her signature bleached hair and her riding gear – however, she looks almost unrecognisable after re-appearing on the high society scene.
In the image – which was taken on March 11 – she has switched out her golden tresses for chocolate brown strands, which she wore in an elegant blow-dry.
Although she is often seen with little to-no-makeup, the secretive socialite wore a glamorous full face of cosmetics, including blush, contour, mascara and eyeshadow, with her lips looking fuller than in previous years.
Athina donned a sheer black lace dress, along with a glitzy sequin blazer and wore a silver jewelled crucifix around her neck. She posed for a picture with Ines de Cominges, the only daughter of Count and Countess Rafael de Cominges of Madrid, and artist Arnaud Cabri-Wiltzer.
