The vast wealth of a society heiress, whose memoir about her bitter divorce from her hedge fund husband became a bestseller, has been laid bare for the first time in legal filings.
Background of the Case
Flobelle 'Belle' Burden, 57, shot to fame after she exposed the gritty details of her divorce, in which she claimed her partner Henry Davis, 60, tried to lay claim to half of their multi-million dollar homes during the fraught settlement. Now for the first time, Burden's immense inheritance has been revealed - after she claimed in her book that her ex intended to leave her in dire straits.
Their relationship ended in March of 2020 inside their $7.5 million Martha's Vineyard home when Burden received a voicemail from a man telling her that his wife had been having an affair with her husband. Davis admitted it and insisted the affair meant nothing, but then changed his mind the next morning and ended the marriage. He told Burden she could have custody of their three children and headed back to the couple's $12 million 25th-floor apartment in New York's Tribeca district.
Contradictions in the Memoir
Burden went viral with an essay on their split, which was then expanded into her bestseller, 'Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage', in which she portrayed herself as being at the mercy of her ex-husband who taunted her with financial ruin. Yet financial papers, divorce filings and details of their prenuptial agreement, uncovered by The New Yorker, paint Burden as being financially steady throughout the proceedings, and not the fiscally down-on-her-luck mother-of-three she seemingly portrayed herself as.
Society heiress Burden with her husband of 20 years, 60-year-old Henry Davis, they abruptly split after he revealed he was having an affair with a younger woman. Burden said in her book that Davis insisted on adding a clause to their prenup that all income and investments during their marriage remained separate unless stipulated. They married in 1999 and agreed to share household expenses with neither able to make a claim on the other's income should they divorce.
Financial Assets Revealed
Burden, who has previously referred to herself as both 'lucky' and 'privileged', said in her book that her 'primary assets' were held in two trusts, and that she used the funds in one of those to buy the family's Tribeca apartment. According to records seen by The New Yorker, Burden paid just under $4 million with a million-dollar mortgage tied to it back in 2002. The other trust was then used to buy her Martha's Vineyard home, saying in her book that the assets of the trust 'matched the purchase price exactly'. Yet the financial records seen by the outlet revealed that she spent $5.4 million for the home, with the 'small mortgage' amounting to $3 million dollars.
After purchasing the home, she put Davis's name on the deeds alongside hers, so when they split he was entitled to 50 percent in both properties. A central point of her story has been that she was financially incapable of buying her ex out of either homes, saying instead that she would need to sell both. Despite her claims, The New Yorker uncovered documents filed in their divorce that highlight how in 2019, two years before the split, she reported an income of $800,000. That included $190,000 from the sale of her mother's home in the Catskills, the outlet reported.
Family Background and Trust Funds
Burden is the daughter of Amanda Burden, the former director of the New York City Department of Planning, with her late father, Shirley Carter Burden Jr, the great-great-great-grandson of Gilded Age railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt. She is also exceptionally close to her stepmother, Susan, who was Shirley's second wife. According to the outlet, their prenup also highlighted Burden's financial disclosure in 1999 that had her total financial assets sitting at $63 million dollars. This included the two trusts that she eventually tapped into to pay for the two family homes. The vast majority of her wealth, around $45 million, is not accessible to her due to the way the trust is structured. She also had an $8 million share in a charitable trust and $4 million in WAMBCO, her family's partnership. Her financial statement added: 'Belle has additional potential, contingent, remote or minor interests in a number of other trusts.'
In 2020, when the divorce was finalized, it was revealed she had an investment account and a six percent stake in WAMBCO, collectively worth over $10 million.
Discrepancies in the Narrative
The outlet also picked apart a passage in the book in which Burden drummed up dread as the divorce continued. She said: 'As the trial date approached, I started to accept what was going to happen. We would sell the house. We would move to a smaller apartment. I told myself every day, like a mantra.' According to the book, the two reached 'a settlement an hour before our trial was set to begin'. She continued: 'Maybe he always planned to resolve it before trial...but only after he brought me to my knees.' The court records however said the two never actually had a trial date set in place, only a status conference where logistics and dates are discussed, The New Yorker wrote.
The divorce settlement saw Davis drop his claim to half of the properties and give Burden $3 million out of an investment he held in WAMBCO. Burden also got to keep Black Point Beach on Martha's Vineyard, which Davis got her for her birthday in 2016, valued at $400,000. He also agreed to pay Burden $50,000 per month in child support until their youngest, 18, turns 22. That $600,000 a year does not include expenses for private-school tuition, extracurricular activities, transport, medical and dental insurance.
Last year, Burden placed the Tribeca apartment they shared for just under $12 million. Her Martha's Vineyard home was recently valued at $7.7 million.
Burden's Response
In a statement to the outlet, Burden said: 'When I wrote Strangers, I shared my heartache, my mistakes, and my shame. I owned my privilege as plainly as I could, and I respected the privacy of sealed court records. I stand by everything I wrote, including the fear I felt from my ex-husband’s threats, the contributions I made and could make to my family, and what happened to me financially and emotionally in my marriage and divorce. While I didn’t intend it, I am glad that women have taken my story as motivation for insisting on financial transparency in their marriages.' The Daily Mail contacted representatives of Burden for comment.
