The novel life of the granddaughter of the shipowner who drives Mary Callas crazy and married Jackie Kennedy

Athina Onassisthe last heiress of a lineage wrapped in glamor and tragedy, turns 40 this January 29. In a life that has developed under the imposing shadow of a last name, its history has been narrated as if it were written in the pages of a novel or a melodrama. It could not be otherwise for those who carry in the blood the legacy of Aristotle Onassis, the Greek owner whose fortune, romances and dramas marked an era. But, unlike his grandfather, whose life was deployed with exuberance in a world scenario, Athina has preferred the anonymity refuge, weaving his own destiny away from the reflectors and the weight of his inheritance.

Athina’s story is not a simple story of wealth and privileges; It is a mosaic of loneliness, melancholy, struggle and identity search, which resonates as an echo of the Greek classic tragedies that Aristotle well knew, the man who turned the last name Ossis into a synonym of power and excess. To be born in the Onassis family is not just a matter of material privileges; It is also inheriting a saturated story of tensions, expectations and scars. The fortune that Aristotle Onassis built with its fleets of oil and freighters not only bought islands, mansions and romances of high profile but also a legacy of personal tragedies.

Athina Helene Roussel Onassis was born in France, daughter of Christina Onassis, the only descendant that Aristotle remained, and the French businessman Thierry Roussel. She was the granddaughter of a tycoon who had conquered two of the most emblematic women of her time: María Callas, the opera diva, and Jackie Kennedy, the widow of the American president. From the beginning, Athina was a figure full of symbolism, a link in the chain of a lineage that seemed condemned at the same time by her fortune and her misfortune. When Christina died suddenly in 1988, Athina was only three years old. The girl was a mother orphan and was raised in Switzerland by her father and stepmother, Gaby Landhage, in an environment that was presented as serene but was deeply marked by legal battles around her inheritance.

Money: a blessing and a curse

Ossis fortune was never just a matter of numbers; It was an inexhaustible source of conflicts. Athina’s grandfather, visionary and methodical, had planned that his wealth could become a double -edged sword. That is why he established a rigid administration structure that put control in the hands of third parties, with the intention of protecting his only granddaughter from the dangers that lurk those who are born with too much.

When he turned 18, Athina inherited control of a considerable portion of family fortune, but with him came the weight of expectations and power struggles. One of the deepest wounds was his exclusion from the Onassis Foundation, the jewel of his grandfather’s legacy. Although by statute the presidency should have assumed when reaching the age of majority, the executives of the institution considered that Athina did not share the values ​​or cultural connection with Greece they expected. That rejection symbolized a definitive fracture between Athina and the past he never asked to inherit. Since then, he decided to live under his own rules, moving away from public life and the scenarios associated with the Onassis surname.

The shelter in horses and complicated love

In the midst of noise and litigation, Athina found an unexpected refuge: horses. The riding became its passion and its exhaust valve. It was through this equestrian world that he met the Brazilian rider Álvaro de Miranda Neto, Dodawith whom he married in 2005. Athina and Doda’s marriage promised to be the beginning of a new stage, one in which the love and simplicity of a life dedicated to sport would be the antithesis of the family drama that had marked his childhood. But, as with so many promises, reality turned out to be much more complicated.

The rumors of infidelity and the constant weight of Athina’s immense fortune ended up wearing the relationship. After 11 years of marriage, they divorced in 2016 in the midst of a legal process that presented the cracks of a union that had been as criticized as idealized. After his divorce, Athina adopted an even lower media profile, dedicating himself completely to his horses and avoiding any interaction with the press. Far from the luxury scenarios that defined the life of his grandfather and his mother, he chose a discreet life, in which equestrian competitions and the days in the stables replaced the parties and meetings of the Jet Set.

Despite his fortune, Athina has proven to be a figure that rejects the stereotype of the “rich girl”. His life has been a constant struggle to reconcile his identity with the weight of his inheritance. He has avoided returning to Skorpios, the private island of the Onassis that was sold to a Russian tycoon, and has not tried to claim his place in the world of Greek high society.

The woman behind myth

Now, about to release its 40 years, Athina Onassis remains an enigmatic figure. Her story could have told himself as a classical Greek tragedy, but she seems to have found a way to rewrite the script. Away from the media bustle, his life takes place between horses and selected friendships, an absolute contrast with the spectacularity that defined his grandfather’s life. It is difficult to imagine that Athina does not reflect, at least occasionally, on the legacy of her last name. Aristotle Onassis, the man who challenged the chances of building an empire, and Christina, the woman who never found happiness, left in their hands a story that few could endure.

Athina, however, has chosen a path of her own, perhaps more lonely, but also more authentic. Their silence and reserve are not signs of weakness, but of a force that few understand: the ability to find peace in a world that always wanted to define it by its last name and not who really is.

While Athina Onassis celebrates her 40 years, the question that arises is not how much money she has, but how she has learned to live with him. His life has been an act of balance between luxury and simplicity, between expectations and the desire for anonymity. It remains to be seen what course will take the last descendant of an empire that once sailed through the seas of the world with the security that nothing was impossible. But if Athina has shown something, even in the shadow of such a heavy name, it is possible to find the light.