EXCL: Zac Goldsmith and banking heiress wife Alice Rothschild separate (2024)

One of the billionaire Sir James Goldsmith’s most memorable quotes was his oft-repeated aphorism on fidelity: ‘When a man marries his mistress, he creates a vacancy.’

Now, there would certainly appear to be a vacancy in the love life of the late tycoon’s elder son, Lord (Zac) Goldsmith, as the Daily Mail can reveal that he has separated from his wife Alice Rothschild.

Before they were married, their relationship had been the subject of a tabloid exposé while Sheherazade Ventura-Bentley was still his wife.

Last night, a spokesman for the couple confirmed that the marriage of Lord Goldsmith, a government minister, had ended after a decade.

‘Alice and Zac have made the difficult decision to separate,’ the spokesman told this newspaper. ‘They do so amicably, and are committed to jointly raising their three children in a happy and healthy environment.’

Friends of the couple insist no one else is involved in the split.

Lord Goldsmith, 48, who has an estimated fortune of £300million, married Ms Rothschild, 39, in 2013.

They have a nine-year-old daughter Dolly, born in the year they wed, a son Max, seven, and youngest daughter Edie, five.

The couple married in a tiny thatched cottage within the London Wetland Centre, a nature reserve in south-west London, whichcost just £500 to hire for the evening.

After fitting 42 guests in at their 30-minute ceremony, Mr and Mrs Goldsmith were driven from the bird sanctuary to a grander reception for 170 at Petersham Nurseries in nearby Richmond.

The simple event was a far cry from Mr Goldsmith’s first wedding to Sheherazade Ventura-Bentley,daughter of actress Viviane Ventura and financier John Bentley, in 1999.

Their lavish ceremony for 350 people took place at the Ritz Hotel in London. The couple had three children; daughters Uma Romaine and Thyra, and a son James.

But, ten years later in 2009, they separated and divorced. The announcement came four months after Lord Goldsmith, an aspiring MP at the time, was reportedly told by senior Tories to 'resolve any conflict in his love life'.

His relationship with Ms Rothschild, however, started in 2006. At the time she was Lord Goldsmith's sister-in-law; his brother Ben, 42, was married to Alice’s sister Kate, 40. Kate and Ben split in 2012 after Kate allegedly had an affair with American rapper Jay Electronica.

Gossip soon emerged about Lord Goldsmith visiting Ms Rothschild in the afternoons. Initially the meetings were explained away as her helping him organise a poker tournament.

Eventually, four days after becoming a Tory MP for Richmond Park in 2010, he publicly confessed to adultery.Friends insisted he 'agonised' over leaving Ms Ventura-Bentley.

But his admission helped smooth the divorce, which took place at the High Court in only 30 seconds.He lost an estimated £20million in the settlement.

In 2016, Lord Goldsmith was selected as the Tory candidate in the London mayoral election, but lost to Sadiq Khan after a highly acrimonious contest.

The same year, he lost a by-election in Richmond Park that he had initiated by resigning his seat. He stood as an independent, but lost to the Lib Dems, who overturned his majority of 23,000.

He regained the constituency as a Conservative candidate at the 2017 general election with majority of just 45 votes and was appointed as a minister by his friend Boris Johnson.

Although he lost Richmond Park at the 2019 general election, it was announced shortly after that he would continue to serve as a minister by being awarded a life peerage and sitting as a member of the House of Lords.

His father’s love life was similarly unconstrained by convention. Aged 20, James 'Jimmy' Goldsmith eloped with 18-year-old Maria Isabel Patino, heiress to a Bolivian tin mining fortune, in January 1954.

But the marriage was cruelly brief. Struck down by a cerebral haemorrhage in her seventh month of pregnancy, she died that May. The couple’s child – also named Isabel – survived.

His second wife was Ginette Lery, who worked for him as a secretary, but it was not an exclusive relationship.

By the time Ginette gave birth to a son, Manes, in 1959, Goldsmith was having an affair with Sally Crichton-Stuart, later to marry the Aga Khan.

The pattern continued after Goldsmith and Ginette married in 1963, and had a daughter, Alix.

By then he had switched much of his attention to Lady Annabel Birley, daughter of the Marquess of Londonderry – and wife of Mark Birley, founder of the Mayfair nightclub Annabel’s.

More than a decade later Goldsmith divorced Ginette and married Lady Annabel – by then also divorced – in 1978. With her, he had daughter Jemima and two sons, Zac and Ben.