David Cholmondeley's Best Friend Spent Some Time in Prison

Francois Marie Banier and David Cholmondeley used to party hardy with A-listers in a Parisian home they purchased in combination.

Mar. 15 2024, Published 7:Sixteen p.m. ET

The controversy surrounding a potentially missing Princess of Wales has kicked up all forms of royal dirt. One tale the press and social media is revisiting is a rumor that dates back to 2019 about Prince William and Lady Rose Hanbury. Kate and Rose had been buddies who had been part of a gaggle of buddies name the Turnip Toffs, but issues changed when rumors about an affair between the Lady and the Prince began circulating. William's lawyers sent letters denying this affair various British tabloids.

What the media ceaselessly failed to recognize is the fact that Rose has been married since 2009 to David George Philip Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley. The couple shares three kids in combination, however what seems to have grabbed the public's passion is Cholmondeley's friendship with Francois Marie Banier, a person with a checkered past. Here's what we know about their decades-long friendship.

Francois Marie Banier and David Cholmondeley's friendship began in the Eighties.

According to Vanity Fair, Francois and David were buddies because the early Nineteen Eighties regardless that we don't know how these two crossed paths. Their friendship has grown within the years they have got identified every different, such a lot so that Francois is the godfather to David and Rose's twin sons. Before those two had settled into maturity, that they had a proper good time in Paris the place they purchased a area together, according to Inquisitr.

Apparently the duo would constantly throw large parties with A-list celebrity visitors together with Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Richard Burton, and Liz Taylor in attendance. One supply advised the outlet that David returned to his Parisian roots — and his perfect buddy — when the rumors about Rose's alleged affair hit the entire tabloids. "Rose is up there in Norfolk in a nice stately pile," said the snarky snitch. "She’s a pretty girl and David is often a long way away in Paris or London." Hey, from time to time you gotta get away.

Francois Marie Banier spent just about 3 years in jail for exploiting the mental frailty of the L’Oréal shampoo heiress.

Perhaps Francois welcomed his friend back with open palms as a result of he understood what it supposed to really feel ostracized. In 1987, Francois used to be tasked with photographing then-billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, in keeping with The Guardian. She used to be the hair to the L’Oréal shampoo throne and in an instant took a liking to the younger artist regardless of their 25 yr age distinction. He was 40 to her 65.

She piled lavish items on him, issues that the general public can only dream of. There have been Picasso artwork, existence insurance budget, and of course cold laborious money. Twenty years later, Bettencourt's daughter started to suspect that this not going friendship used to be in point of fact a con perpetrated via Francois to sucker her mom out of cash and different treasured property. She took prison motion towards him which led to a broadly publicized trial.

Francois claimed Bettencourt was once of "sound mind" when she bestowed upon him gifts value €414m (over $500 million), together with existence insurance insurance policies, artwork by way of Picasso, Matisse and Mondrian, manuscripts and cash." However, the court was made aware of the fact that Bettencourt was "suffering from increasing dementia and, through 2011, was not able to inform what 12 months it used to be." Eventually Francois used to be found to blame in May 2015 and was sentenced to two and a half years in jail.

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