Mary-Kate Olsen is divorcing Olivier Sarkozy, her seventeen-years-older French banker husband. They said it was a weird match and they said it wouldn’t last, and look at that. But I didn’t predict that it would be so messy so fast. To recap, the lockdown meant that MK couldn’t file for divorce in mid-April, Olivier cancelled the lease on their New York apartment without telling her and now he’s trying to get her to move her sh-t out by the 18th. She said, slow your roll, you can’t do that in a pandemic situation, and she tried again to file for divorce, only the court rejected her filing again (because it wasn’t an emergency). Silver lining, maybe: at least her money is protected. So now we’re getting some stories about what was going on in their marriage:
Mary Kate Olsen has filed for divorce from husband Olivier Sarkozy after five years of marriage, and one insider says it’s partly because the two don’t see eye to eye on her career.
“She’s super career focused and he’s very French and wanted her to be more available,” the source tells PEOPLE of the banker, 50. “You can’t control a girl who has been on the billionaire track since her 20s.”
The former child star and fashion icon, 33, currently runs two luxury fashion brands with twin sister Ashley Olsen: The Row and Elizabeth and James. Mary-Kate and Ashley opened up to WWD about the successful business ventures in 2018, saying their detail-oriented approach to both brands ultimately keeps their partnership strong.
“He’s very French” ah, j’ai compris. He thought he was marrying a much younger, rich, silly American woman who would want to make his dinner and have babies and shut up. And MK was like “I gotta go to work, I’ll be back in a week.” Speaking of, E! News says that MK has already left the city so she can be with her sister Ashley and some friends:
After news broke that Mary-Kate filed an emergency order to divorce her husband of five years, a source tells E! News exclusively that the 33-year-old fashion mogul is spending time with her identical other half. We’re told Mary-Kate has left the couple’s Big Apple home to be with Ashley and group of friends outside the city.
“It’s gotten very ugly between them,” the insider reveals of Mary-Kate and Olivier’s current dynamic. It’s become a “heated divorce,” the source adds. “She’s done with constant drama.”
As a gossip blogger, I would love nothing more for this to turn into a gigantic tabloid mess with the NY Post running some absurd anti-French headlines (“Olsen Twin Seeks Liberté From Froggy Sarko”). But realistically, I know this is probably as good as it will get. Olivier is the wild card here – if MK had it her way, she would make this all go away quietly, with no “sources” running to People or E! News. But if Olivier keeps it dramatic, MK will squash him in the papers and in court. Hopefully.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid and Avalon Red.
Who the hell did he think he was marrying?
Those woman have been working since they could walk and he thought that was just going to….stop? For him?
HAHAHAHAHA !!!! Ahhh, inexplicable ego is a helluva drug.
Once I was in a relationship with a man 13 years older than me, and he was attracted by the “younger girl” (I was in my 30′ but whatever) he liked “you are so independent”.
The mess and the split happened because he discovered he couldn’t control me, I wasn’t some needy girl but a woman who has her own life.
I don’t know if it’s the case, but I can totally see this dynamic
What is interesting about this is that, with Mary Kate and yourself is…it was not new. This is who you were in the beginning and anyone with good sense would know that it will continue.
Some partners in relationships just don’t get that. As the late, great Dr Angelou said, ‘It someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time’.
A lot of men, of many ages, say they want an independent woman, but they really don’t. What they want is a woman that won’t ask anything of them and will cater to them 24/7. That just…doesn’t really exist. At all.
@Tiffany and Lauren: in my case he has a crazy job schedule, often travels, and in the beginning he was happy I wasn’t mad for him being away all the time, in the end : I don’t feel important for you.
I think what attracts them is “younger factor” and “a different kind of woman” but: once they realise what does “the cool younger girlfriend” and wildly successful like an Olsen girl, really means everything falls apart.
I have moved on with no regrets.
I was in a 2 year relationship in my 20s with a man my own age who grew to resent my independence over time (i.e. continuing to have my own friends instead of just associating with the girlfriends of his friends). I think being with me was his first realization he wanted total control in a relationship. Last I heard he did marry younger, but I know zilch about the dynamics in that marriage and don’t care to know.
Right? The goal seemed to be her life should revolve around him. Ugh get over yourself dude
I’m totally picturing a Private Benjamin situation now. You Goldie Hawn his ass, Mary-Kate!
Mary Kate and Ashley are sororal twins, the female version of fraternal twins. They look less and less like each other as time goes on. You can tell Mary Kate is the heavier smoker because her skin has a yellowish tinge, evident in side by side photos with her sister. Good for Mary Kate protecting her assets. She’ll get through this just fine, armed with her iron clad prenup and hopefully it is just that. It doesn’t appear he’s loaded with money if he was worried about paying rent on their apartment. Maybe it was just done out of spite because he couldn’t control her.
They’re saying he is worth 60 million.
You can really tell the difference between them in this photo with MK’s stepdaughter – in addition to MK’s smoker skin, Ashley has bigger and brighter eyes. https://www.vogue.com/article/youth-america-grand-prix-gallet-ballet-2018-mary-kate-olsen-ashley-olsen
Yet they look more alike than two sisters close in age typically do, especially when they were younger and playing same person/identical twins in various roles.
I actually prefer Mary Kate’s face – I think it is more interesting . . . both are attractive, of course.
One of them has had some work done a couple of years back. They were identical at some point before the nose job and other tweaks.
Well yes, he is retirement age and she is young and wants to work. Has been since she could sit up right.
Retirement age? He’s only 50!
I was being facetious as far as their age gap.
By the way I think this is the real story about why she can’t move on such short notice: she is not actually in the city right now and is riding out the pandemic elsewhere, so she doesn’t want to come into NYC to supervise a move. Basically anyone of means left the city months ago.
This makes so much sense. Given that evictions are suspended atm, I couldn’t wrap my head around the rush to be out by May 18. If no one is actually living in the apartment atm, it is more a question of making sure that furniture and other material assets stay put until she can arrange to have them moved, rather than risk having the landlord clear the apartment out. (BYW, where is he at the moment? Did he already move all his stuff out?)
She doesn’t have to supervise a move. It’s highly unlikely she’d be the one doing that even if she was in town.
I thought those two hit billionaire status a long time ago, like when they were still teens. I could totally be wrong
AS an aside, I thought MK and Ashley were paternal not identical twins?
She’s been working her ENTIRE life, and the owner of 2 companies. If he thought she was going to stop, that’s his own fault. Bet he didn’t mind the bank account and lifestyle all that work provided though.
Glad she left the city, but that does hurt her “this is an emergency, I have nowhere to go” argument.
She did not say she have no where to go, she said she can’t get movers to remove her property due to the pandemic.
It is the landlords right to get rid of property if you end the lease and don’t remove all your property.
In her case she said she didn’t know her husband ended the lease.
It was about her property, yes, but there was also a statement in the emergency filing that it would be “impossible” for her to find another apartment due to the shut down.
Not just that – many apartment and condo associations in NYC aren’t allowing moves in and out of buildings right now.
They’re not identical, they’re fraternal- E! News is incorrect. Just because they’re both female and look alike doesn’t make them identical.
They and their sister practically could be triplets. The younger one is prettier, IMO, but when the pose together I tbink the parents gota 3 in one deal.
Can she not just negotiate to take over the lease? I would think she would have enough fu-money to cover the apartment a couple extra months?
Just wanted to say that I have a grey oversized wool sweater from their Elizabeth and James line at Kohl’s that I LOVE! I feel so chic and fabulous in it. It’s the most I’ve ever spent on a sweater but I imagine I’ll have it for years.
Interesting view of the French, I’ve known plenty of them myself, and I’ve never met a person from France that specifically values a traditional family and upholds traditional gender roles like that, but maybe I’ve just been lucky 😀
Also, he’s already divorced from his first wife, the mother of his kids, so he only values “traditional family” as much as Trump does, which is to say he values them until he moves on to the next woman to start a new family.
Traditional in that context is really just ‘ drops everything to cater to me’
Yes, as a french I was a little bit annoyed reading that but I guess we also have some stereotypical ideas about americans…
Also, froggy sarko…. yikes, subtle racism is never ok.
@Wow2 being French isn’t a race.
@Alissa, oh, ok, then it isn’t racism, /just/ discrimination.
Point being, I bet the percentage of husbands who wouln’t want their wives to work is higher in USA than in France. IDK many french women who are SAHMs.
Yeah, I don’t understand what being French has to do with not wanting women have their own careers. Signed, someone who lives in France.
Agreed, such bizarre othering of the French. I’m married to a French man & have lots of French friends and my observation is that French women are often encouraged to maintain their careers after having kids.
I live next to france and have spent my fair share of time over there and I too was annoyed by this representation. I am biased though, I love france so much.
exactly.
leave that gross mofo! Run MK Run!
That’s not “French”, that’s “old dude doesn’t get his way”.
The court said it’s not an emergency, because it’s actually not an emergency. They, and Olsen alone, own and/or have access to multiple properties, meaning there is no risk of homelessness.
There are very few working courts, so my understanding is that any divorce without abuse issues is being considered non-emergency in New York at the moment. Protecting an incredibly rich person’s possessions over helping some poor women escape domestic violence would be a very bad look for the courts to make. This was the right call by the judge.
Pay the landlord another month’s rent, or pay him to move and store her items. It’s done all the time. If they’ve got a tenant lined up to move in, they’ll move the things into storage and bill her for the trouble. If she doesn’t pay in a certain amount of time, then the landlord can auction off her property to recoup his expenses, but that doesn’t happen immediately. If the ex takes marital property she feels she’s due, she can contest it in court, like every other divorce in America, except she can afford much more vicious lawyers to help her claw it back.
If she’s shocked by this ruling it’s because her celebrity and wealth aren’t being deferred to in the way she’s come to expect.
Exactly. She’s used to her money doing the walking and talking and breaking down the doors. In this situation her money doesn’t matter.
They were just strange enough that I thought they may work, but clearly she (or both of them) overlooked some obvious red flags early on in their relationship. I do wonder what it was that brought them together in the first place. I get why the Olsens date older – who in their peer group is really their equal in that industry? – but this seems like a surprising miscalculation for a woman who has otherwise had a very pragmatic approach toward her adult career.
Please, can anyone explain why Olivier Sarkozy appears to be 1 1/2 feet taller than Mary-Kate? She’s supposed to be 5 foot 5 inches, and he’s 6 foot 3 inches. In all of the photos she looks more like 5 feet even, and he appears about 6 foot 8 inches. Is she lying about her height?
Where did you read that she was 5’5″? I’ve always seen the Olsen twins height listed as 5’1″/ 5’2″.
One of the websites reporting this yesterday said something like “5footfive” but I think it was a typo, their publication style guide probably required them to replace the numeral 5 with the written version (or vice versa) and it was inserted into the wrong place.
The Olsen twins are not 5’5”, they are short, more like 5’1” or 2”. Elizabeth is taller than them and her height is reportedly 5’6”.
As someone who lives in Paris and has seen a lot of family dynamics, including Nicholas Sarkozy’s, I call BS on this divorce excuse. All Frenchwomen work. And they don’t even clean their own house, they all have a femme de ménage. Who also usually cooks. A man taking care of a woman is an American social construct. In France apparently men and woman even still split the bills when married. It’s a very you take care of yourself attitude. I’ve only ever seen one dynamic where the wife didn’t work but as soon as her son turned 2, she went right back (even though she had a nanny).
There is another reason for this divorce and it’s not the one she’s claiming.
I’m French, also living in Paris and in my 30s and none of my friends have a housekeeper. I would say only a very small and privileged part of the population can afford it.
Most people can’t afford a maid. My great-grandma on the rich side of the family had one, but that’s quite unusual and even the rich friends of my grandparents who lived in hotels particuliers close to the Luxembourg did not have one.
But French households can be heavy on the typical gender roles when it comes to chores (heck! My grandpa was barely able to figure how the stove worked and how to cook an egg) so it usually means that not only will the woman work full time, she’s also going to pick up the kids, give them a goûter while helping with homeworks and preparing diner… Which, well, is sort of true in most societies because few share chores 50-50
Anybody know NY laws because I don’t understand how he can cancel a lease without her signing off on it. In CA, even if she doesn’t “live” there anymore her name would still be on the lease until the term is up or she removes herself from it. And vice versa, if he wants to leave the apt then she can take over the lease herself. I’m confused about that.
As the daughter of a French-American couple this headline made me LOL. My dad is “very French” in the sense that he loves wine and cheese and takes them very seriously. He also loves to complain and grumble, why do you all think the French love to protest and go on strike. Americans are known for their “sunny optimism” so maybe Mary-Kate got sick of her husband complaining about everything all the time. But the whole wanting his wife to stay home and take care of you, that’s not “very French.” In fact my dad was doing the more stay at home dad stuff when I was growing up because my mom worked in financial services and had insane hours working late most nights. Very French is a real thing but it is not code for “1950s housewife.”
Not suprised he turned out to be a sexist creep! The guy was overly possessive in public. The weird pictures of them attending games was clue for me that he is controlling and clingy. Good that MK protectec her assets. Good luck to her
MK has been working her entire life.
She is very wealthy/runs 2 companies.
IMO, I am surprised it lasted 5 years. In photos he looks as if he treats her as a child, often he is patting her head. Wtf? She is 30+ y/o.
Good for her team that she got an iron clad prenup.
Move forward, never look back.
Huh? I Need to give my French neighbours ( iam in Germany) props for definitly NOT being stuck in traditional roles when it Comes to Family and gender. They are very progressive when it Comes to women in Business and offer way more child care than we as an example in Germany have.