Heir to Onassis billions weds Brazilian

Athina Roussel Onassis and Alvaro Miranda Neto. Picture / Reuters

SAO PAULO - As high-society weddings go, they don't come more rarefied than this. Yesterday, on a private estate in Sao Paulo, Brazil, one of the richest young women on the planet married a bronzed, handsome Olympic medallist at an event so exclusive that 500 security guards were in attendance.

But beneath the glitz (the dress alone cost US$35,000 [$49,000]) and the sparkle (1000 bottles of champagne stood on ice at the US$70,000-a-day reception venue), there were enough lurking subplots to fuel a whole season of Shakespearean tragedies.

For this was not your average little rich girl getting wed. Her name is Onassis, and for inheritance purposes, there is only one of those left in the world. On her 18th birthday in 2003, Athina Roussel-Onassis collected US$2.7 billion, and next month, when she reaches 21, she inherits sole control of her own financial destiny and the chair of the fabulously rich Onassis Foundation. Not surprisingly, there is no shortage of speculation that the groom, Alvaro Afonso de Miranda, 32, known as Doda, is as smitten with Athina's worldly goods as he is with the 20-year-old herself.

Hovering over the reception are the spectres of past Onassis marriages.

There is Aristotle himself, shipping tycoon grandfather of Athina, whose first marriage ended when his wife found him in bed with Maria Callas, and who then married Jackie, the widow of US President John F. Kennedy. And then there is Christina, daughter of Aristotle, who had four husbands, the last being Athina's father, Thierry Roussel. He carried on carrying on with his mistresses and nicknamed her Thunder Thighs.

They divorced after three years, and Christina died a year later of a heart attack.

Athina was raised in Switzerland with her father and his new wife in an atmosphere that grew ever more legally fraught. To date, there have been 95 lawsuits between Roussel and the trustees of Athina's fortune. Those trustees will relinquish power over the Onassis Foundation in January, when Athina is 21. So it would not be a surprise if the Brazilian magazine Veja proved correct in saying the couple signed a prenuptial agreement protecting all assets acquired before marriage.

The couple met in 2002 at a riding centre in Belgium. She is a keen rider who hopes to represent Greece at the 2008 Beijing Olympics; he was the winner of an equestrian bronze at the Sydney Games.

A year later, Onassis moved to Sao Paulo, where she shares a 989sq m apartment with Doda and Viviane, his 6-year-old daughter from his previous marriage. The couple reportedly have a discreet lifestyle.

Her new father-in-law, Ricardo Miranda, said: "She is not a stuck-up woman. She is a very intelligent woman who speaks Portuguese and likes to watch soap operas."

It was in the opulent setting of an estate in Sao Paulo's upscale Morumbi district where Doda took Onassis as his wife.

For her part, she is the third-generation Onassis woman to marry young and to a man significantly older than herself.

But the couple do seem to have some contact with reality. Instead of gifts, they asked that guests make donations to a local children's centre.

Whether the bride's father was there is not known.

She won a battle with him for control of a multimillion-dollar personal inheritance and he had questioned Doda's motives.


ONASSIS HEIRESS
* Collected US$2.7 billion on her 18th birthday in 2003.

* Will inherit the chair of the Onassis Foundation when she turns 21 next month.

* Raised in Switzerland with her father, Thierry Roussel.

* Met husband Alvaro Afonso de Miranda, 32, in 2002 at a riding centre in Belgium.

* A prenuptial agreement reportedly was signed before they were wed.

- INDEPENDENT