Ex-Model Makes History With $97M Divorce Settlement

'This is what I am accustomed to,' Christina Estrada says
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 9, 2016 2:31 PM CDT
Ex-Model Makes History With $97M Divorce Settlement
Christina Estrada leaves court Friday in London after receiving the largest divorce settlement in English history.   (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)

Former model Christina Estrada made history Friday when she received a stunning $97 million divorce settlement from a British court, the Telegraph reports. And even that was less than half what she was asking. The settlement includes cash and assets from her ex, Saudi businessman Walid Juffali, and is the largest in English history. “This is what I am accustomed to," the Guardian quotes Estrada as telling the judge. "It is difficult to convey the extraordinary level of luxury and opulence we were fortunate enough to enjoy.” Estrada's initial request included annual payments of $152,000 for handbags, $780,000 for renting private jets, $107,000 for cocktail dresses, and more. The court says the final settlement meets Estrada's "reasonable needs."

Estrada, a US citizen, says she knows how all this is "perceived in the wider world." “Having grown up in a middle-class family … I am fully aware that the spectacular life Walid and I led was immensely fortunate and rarefied," the Guardian quotes the former model as saying in a statement. In 2012, Juffali secretly married a 25-year-old model with whom he started a family (Islamic law allows Muslim men to have multiple spouses). Two years later, he divorced Estrada, again without her knowledge. Estrada's lawyers had argued Juffali is worth $10 billion, but the 61-year-old businessman, who is currently being treated for terminal cancer, claims it's more like $147 million, the New York Daily News reports. (A US divorce settlement dwarfs the amount involved here.)

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