Lily Safra
| Lily Safra | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Lily Watkins 30 December 1934 Porto Alegre, Brazil |
| Residence | London, England |
| Nationality | Brazilian, Monagasque |
| Citizenship | Monaco |
| Occupation | Socialite, philanthropist |
| Net worth | $1.29 billion (September 2016) |
| Spouse(s) |
|
| Children | 4 |
Lily Safra (née Watkins, born 30 December 1934) is a Brazilian philanthropist and socialite who attained considerable wealth through her four marriages. By March 2013, her net worth was estimated at $1.2 billion; according to Forbes, she is one of the richest people in the world. Safra has a significant art collection and owns the historic Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera.
Safra was born Lily Watkins on December 30, 1934, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, daughter of Wolf White Watkins, a Czechoslovak railway engineer who moved to South America, and Annita Noudelman de Castro, a Uruguayan of Russian-Jewish ancestry. She grew up in Rio de Janeiro but moved with her family to Uruguay.
At the age of 17, she met and married Mario Cohen, an Argentine hosiery magnate of Italian-Jewish descent. They had three children: Claudio, Eduardo, and Adriana. (Claudio died with his three-year-old son in a car crash in Brazil around 1989.) Lily and Cohen divorced in the early 1960s.
In 1965, she married Alfredo "Freddy" Monteverde, (formerly Greenberg.) He was a Romanian Jewish immigrant who was forced to flee Europe in 1939. He was a leader in the Brazilian household appliance distribution business, where he established the Ponto Frio brand. He and Lily adopted a child, named Carlos. In 1969, Monteverde committed suicide. According to biographer Isabel Vincent, Monteverde left all his assets to his wife.
One month after her husband's death, Lily Monteverde moved to London. Her late husband's banker, Edmond Safra, helped her secure control over her late spouse's entire fortune. She dated Safra for some time but the romance ended. Her family, who is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, did not approve of her relationship with Safra, who was of Sephardic Jewish descent.
In 1972, Monteverde married businessman Samuel Bendahan, also a Sephardic Jew. They separated after two weeks, and she divorced him after one year of marriage.
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