The dirty laundry of one of Australia’s richest dynasties will be exposed in a series of explosive court cases after a fierce dispute erupted between divorced billionaires Héloise Pratt and Alex Waislitz.
The former couple have begun trading barbs in the Victorian Supreme Court, with legal action threatening to expose all their juicy romantic and financial secrets.
The sensational fight centers on control of the $1.3 billion stock investment empire run by Waislitz and co-owned by Ms. Pratt.
But the estranged lovers are now also embroiled in fierce legal battles on multiple fronts.
And it comes amid a sordid nude photo ‘sextortion’ scandal involving one of her new lovers.
Pratt is the eldest daughter of the late billionaire cardboard king Richard Pratt, chairman of the philanthropic Pratt Foundation and, according to the 2024 Forbes Rich List, the 29th richest person in the country with a personal net worth of $1.93 billion. dollars.
She is also the sister of Donald Trump confidant Anthony Pratt, who recently donated $15 million to the president-elect’s campaign earlier this year.
Pratt, 62, married Waislitz in 1994, and the businessman turned $1.15 million lent to him by his Rich List father-in-law into a billion-dollar money management company and a personal net worth of 1,480 million dollars.
Although the couple officially separated in 2015, they initially maintained friendly relations over joint ownership of Thorney Investments and joint custody of their three children, Jake, Milly and Joseph.
The two moved on romantically after their split, and Pratt hooked up with newly single rock star Jon Stevens, who had just broken up with his fiancée Jodhi Meares.
Billionaire socialite Heloise Pratt is now in a relationship with rock star Jon Stevens
Billionaire businessman Alex Waislitz is engaged to singer Rebekah Behbahani
The former Noiseworks singer’s 18-month engagement to James Packer’s first wife ended in a torrid dispute at their mansion in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in February 2015.
Meares, now 53, accused Stevens, 63, of common assault and domestic assault, and handed him a detained violence order, following the argument, with the allegations effectively confirming the end of their relationship.
Police eventually dropped the charges, which Stevens described as “ridiculous”, two months later, but by then the singer had been kicked out of his new band, Dead Daisies, and had more than 30 appearances canceled as a result of the allegations.
Around the same time, Waislitz was spotted in Ibiza with British club singer Vanessa Von Tain but, despite calling the Melbourne investor his “loved one” on social media during the trip, the romance soon fizzled out.
Waislitz, 66, has found a new partner in the arms of singer and actress Rebekah Behbahani, 34.
The couple moved in together in February 2019 and welcomed a daughter, Storm, that same year before briefly separating.
They are now being sued by Ms Behbahani’s sister, former Real Housewives of Melbourne star Venus Behbahani, in the Victorian Supreme Court.
The 40-year-old lawyer and mother of four claims her younger brother promised to give her a house in Melbourne’s exclusive Toorak in exchange for helping her launch her pop career and looking after her and her daughter during her brief estrangement from Waislitz. .
Heloise, with her brother Anthony, is the eldest daughter of the late cardboard king Richard Pratt.
Jon Stevens was engaged to Jodhi Meares until their bitter split in 2015.
Meares is the first wife of billionaire James Packer
Stevens rocking out with his band Dead Daisies
According to court documents, Venus Behbahani claims that Waislitz agreed to give Rebekah two townhouses and $2.5 million as part of a separation agreement after they separated in October 2019.
She alleges that her sister agreed to give her one of the homes as part of a gift deed and confidentiality agreement they drafted in December.
However, Waislitz and Rebekah ended up reconciling a couple of months later in February 2020, and their separation agreement was never enforced.
Instead, they announced their engagement in November of that year.
Despite the couple’s reconciliation, Venus kept her sister’s promise to gift her the Toorak house and began legal action against them last year after putting a caveat on the property.
In her defense presented to the Supreme Court, Rebekah claimed she was in a state of distress when she signed the agreement with her sister, while Waislitz denies they have any obligation to give anything to Venus.
In a countersuit, Waislitz accused her future sister-in-law of living in the house with her family without permission since Nov. 15, 2022, and sought orders to force her out and remove the warning she placed on the property. .
That case is scheduled for trial on May 27 and is expected to last 15 days.
Meanwhile, Pratt also launched legal proceedings against her ex-husband, filing her own explosive lawsuit in the Victorian Supreme Court last month.
He has accused Mr Waislitz of “acting” “dishonestly” by paying himself and his charitable foundation $1.147 million without his knowledge or approval.
Sisters Venus Behbahani and Rebekah Behanhani fight over a house in Toorak.
Venus Behbahani starred in the fourth season of The Real Housewives of Melbourne
Pratt also accused him of withholding board documents and financial information from her regarding Thorney Investments, which Waislitz runs and she co-owns, and his other related companies.
The heiress brought the action following a breakdown in their former friendly relationship after finalizing her divorce and spending much of the past two years trying to divide her financial interests through lawyers.
Waislitz responded to his ex-wife on Christmas Eve when he presented his defense before the Supreme Court by angrily rejecting her accusations.
In it, he described her case against him as “shameful” and insisted that she had not become involved in his business dealings and that her claims against him could be dismissed.
Like Waislitz and her fiancé, Pratt is also fighting a separate legal battle with a brother.
The socialite’s half-sister, Paula Hitchcock, won a small legal battle in her separate fight to claim a share of the Pratt family’s vast multimillion-dollar fortune in October.
The 27-year-old daughter of Pratt’s late father and his lover Shari-Lea Hitchcock is suing her half-siblings, Mrs Pratt, her brother Anthony Pratt and her sister Fiona Geminder, after they were excluded from the Pratt Family Trust.
Ms Hitchcock has asked the New South Wales Supreme Court to set aside an exclusion deed which prevented her from claiming the inheritance as Pratt’s daughter under the terms of the Trust.
She argued that both her late father and his wife, Jeanne, always recognized and accepted her as a full member of the family.
Paula Hitchcock sues her half-siblings for a share of the enormous Pratt family fortune
Ms. Hitchcock is the daughter of the late billionaire Richard Pratt and his lover Shari-Lea Hitchcock.
Richard Pratt and his wife Jeanne recognized Mrs. Hitchcock as their daughter.
Jeanne Pratt with her three children, Anthony, Heloise and Fiona
She claimed that Mrs. Pratt assigned her a bedroom in the couple’s family home, regularly invited her to attend the weekly family Shabbat, and that the couple had listed her as their financial dependent in 2007.
Her half-siblings argued that Ms. Hitchcock’s case should be dismissed because she was not the child of both parents as required by the Trust and insisted that her mother’s acceptance of Ms. Hitchcock did not “make” her daughter of Mrs. Pratt.
However, Judge Michael Meek rejected her argument and granted Ms Hitchcock time. to modify her claim that she meets the criteria for a “daughter” of the Pratt family.
“I reject the brothers’ contention that there is no rational basis for concluding that the fact that (Ms. Hitchcock) is recognized by Mr. Pratt as a member of his family implies that she could be considered a ‘daughter’ of Ms. Pratt,” he determined.
“What appears to be relatively clear is that the definition of ‘child’… is formulated in broad terms that may include a child who is not the biological child of either Mr. Pratt or Ms. Pratt.”
Meanwhile, on another unrelated legal front, Rebekah Behbahani was forced to call the police earlier this year after an anonymous social media account posted a trove of “intimate images” of her online on June 20. without your permission.
The account uploaded a second cache the next day before the profile disappeared, and Ms Behbahani told police she was the victim of an “extortion” attempt.
There is no suggestion that any member of the Pratt family, Ms Behbahani’s sister or Mr Waislitz were responsible for publishing the images.
‘I am deeply distressed by this malicious invasion of my privacy. “No one deserves to be subjected to such heinous acts,” Behbahani said in a statement at the time.
‘This unlawful conduct is part of a long-running and escalating campaign which is now the subject of police investigation.
‘It’s been a living nightmare. We will not give in to extortion. “I am confident that the perpetrators will face the full weight of the law.”