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At the age of 38, Christina Onassis, the golden heiress to the Onassis shipping fortune, passed away in a friend’s home in Argentina on a balmy South American day in November 1988.
Christina was expected to lead a sheltered and carefree existence as the only daughter and remaining heiress of Aristotle Onassis. But every account from her colleagues and coworkers paints a picture of a lady who is miserable and star-crossed, haunted by the death of her family and the bad love she made.
Her troubles with her weight and drug usage were well-known, and she had been married and divorced four times throughout her life.
Christina Onassis’s Life Was Marked By Several Tragedies
Photo Credits -Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
She was nine years old when her parents split, and the publicity that followed the revelation that her father had an affair with opera singer Maria Callas made her feel humiliated for the rest of her life.
She was even more upset when, in 1968, her father wed the widowed Jackie Kennedy in a union that caused controversy worldwide. Jackie was referred to as “my father’s tragic fixation” by Christina Onassis, who thought she was chasing her father’s money.
The personal insults began to come rapidly and ruthlessly when Christina was in her twenties. Alexander, her lone sibling, was killed in a plane crash in 1973. Athina Onassis Niarchos, her mother, died just a year later from what was thought to be a drug overdose but which many believed to be suicide.
In 1975, Christina mourned, “I am all alone in the world now,” after learning of her father’s passing.
After the passing of her father, Onassis, a native of New York, abandoned her American citizenship and lived the rest of her life as a dual citizen of Greece and Argentina.
Since she was a 20-year-old secretary, she had gained knowledge of business and money in her father’s New York offices.
After his passing, she steadily tightened her influence over the Onassis Group, though there were some doubts about how much power she actually exercised and how much she left to day-to-day managers in the late 1970s.
The Heiress Enjoyed Luxurious Living But Had Bad Luck With Men
Christina lived a life of almost unheard-of luxury and prosperity for most of her life. She once paid $30,000 to have a private jet journey from Austria to Switzerland so she could retrieve a David Bowie cassette she had left there. She also once paid for a helicopter to fly from Austria to Switzerland to deliver Diet Coke to her.
Onassis would offer her friends cash—up to $30,000 per month—to free up their calendars when they complained that they were too busy to spend time with her. She once admitted to wearing diamonds to breakfast in an interview with Peter Evans, who authored a biography of her father.
However, Christina had a particularly bad love life. In 1971, her first marriage—to the divorced father of four, Joseph Bolker, who was 27 years older than she was—failed after only a few months.
Her second marriage to Greek shipping and banking heir Alexander Andreadis lasted 14 months. A third marriage, to Russian shipping agent Sergei Kauzov, in 1978 again ended abruptly.
Onassis’s fourth marriage, in 1984, to French pharmaceutical heir Thierry Roussel lasted less than three years but gave birth to Athina, Christina’s only child.
Roussel was unfaithful to Christina; during their marriage, his mistress gave birth to two children.
Christina, who was diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of 30, had been using a variety of prescription medications for some time. However, according to reports, she also self-medicated with other narcotics and utilized food as a coping mechanism for her demons. Her fourth marriage ended in divorce.
Onassis Christina Fled To Argentina
During a visit to friends who lived close to Buenos Aires in November 1988, some stories claim that Onassis was considering beginning a new life for herself and her daughter in Argentina.
They were hosting her at a posh country club outside of the Argentine capital.
Christina was discovered dead on November 19 at her friend’s house. Athina, her sole heir, was supposed to receive a reputed $250 million estate upon her passing.
Even though Christina’s death was determined to be the result of a heart attack brought on by years of drug usage, her final moments have remained a mystery, adding a sad chapter to the Greek tragedy of the Onassis family.
She is interred in the family graveyard on Skorpios Island with her adored father, Aristotle, and her brother Alexander.
