Taking Up With Billionaires

These days I come across a lot of women who are keen to exchange their beauty to enjoy the benefits of some or other man’s resources.Most of them cut pretty poor deals and the others cut one or other good deal only to lose the benefits they just gained via the next poor choice they make.The following is a reality check for women trading on looks to get ahead:

‘We are happy that we were able to reach an agreement for the benefit and well-being of our son, Augie.’ With these words Linda Evangelista and Francois-Henri Pinault closed a fiercely fought child support battle.

Canadian-born Linda Evangelista is a Vogue cover model many times over, including on the current Italian Vogue.She was one of the biggest names in modeling in the late 1980s and early ’90s,At the height of her career, she famously said supermodels ‘don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.’

Pinault is CEO of PPR, a holding company that owns Gucci, Yves St. Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Boucheron and other fashion lines. Forbes estimates his family’s net worth at $13 billion.He supposedly makes about $4million a year.Ladies,here’s the first thing to note: declared incomes and estimated wealth are complex issues.

The intercontinental twosome dated – sporadically, according to Pinault  – over about four months in late 2005 and early 2006. Augie was born in October 2006.After Pinault told Evangelista he didn’t plan to raise the boy with her,he supposedly wanted her to get an abortion , she willingly paid all the expenses herself at first from her roughly $1.8million-a-year income.But when a big contract with L’Oreal ended she needed Pinault to chip in.

Meanwhile,Pinault and the actress Salma Hayek married in 2009 and have a 4-year-old daughter, Valentina. He also has two children from a previous marriage.

Here are some things to remember when dealing with well to do men:

1.Beauty is not a monopoly.

2.The inner demons that drive many a man to wealth,make them less than ideal relationship material.

3,Quite a few of them are pretty tight fisted beyond the socially decreed expenditures they feel they must make.

4.His relationship with you,family etc. may not be his first priority.

5.If monogamy is your thing,don’t assume it is his thing.

6.If you are thinking of working or doing business together,be doubly careful.These men got to be where they are by cutting ‘heads I win,tails you lose deals.’ Don’t assume they will make an exception in your case.

7.They may wine and dine you lavishly and buy you expensive gifts in the heat of the moment but getting them to part with valuable assets is likely to be a long legal battle.And even then they are going to prefer handing you a fledgling business you need to make work rather than cash,cash equivalents or income yielding assets.One way or another you will earn your money.

8.I observe power struggles in many of these relationships.Also many of these men want carte blanche and absolute freedom along with the benefits of having access to the benefits of being in a relationship.

9.These men are far from generous with their time.So how much of time he spends with you,how  reachable he is ,and how much mind space he gives you are the best indicators of his commitment to you.

10.Don’t imagine you are going to change him.