The heiress granddaughter of legendary socialite Babe Paley has laid bare the shocking verbal cruelty she endured from her hedge fund manager ex-husband after he left her for a younger colleague. Flobelle 'Belle' Burden, 56, details two particularly brutal instances in her explosive new memoir, Strangers.
The Affair Exposed and a Vow of Retribution
The first alleged outburst came in March 2020, while the couple sheltered from COVID-19 at their $7.5 million Martha's Vineyard compound, Meadowpath. Burden missed a call one evening, only to receive a voicemail from a man informing her his wife was having an affair with her husband, Henry Davis, 60. Davis admitted to the infidelity with a 35-year-old colleague, initially dismissing it as meaningless.
The situation escalated when Burden's stepmother, Susan Burden, 78, texted Davis pleading for him to act honourably. "He was furious," Belle Burden writes. "He texted me that, because of what Susan had written, he was going to continue his affair. He texted me that because of what she had written, he would give me nothing at all." The next morning, Davis changed his stance on the affair and ended the marriage, offering Burden custody of their three children before departing for their $12 million Tribeca apartment in New York.
Privilege Weaponised in a Final Blow
The second instance of alleged cruelty occurred six months later, in September 2020, when Davis formally filed for divorce and demanded enforcement of a pre-nuptial agreement favourable to him. A distressed Burden phoned him, demanding to know why he had left. Davis reportedly retorted, "I didn't leave you. I changed residences."
When Burden challenged him, stating he had left her to deal with COVID-19 and their children alone, Davis's response cut deeply. "He said in a singsong voice, like a taunting child, 'Boo-hoo. Poor Belle. Always the victim,'" she recounts. "'You were in a nice house on Martha's Vineyard. You had everything you needed. I paid my share of the bills. What was so hard about that?'" Burden, an heiress to the Vanderbilt fortune, writes she was stunned to see her own gilded upbringing wielded as a weapon against her.
Aftermath and a Public Reckoning
The divorce was finalised in summer 2021. Burden, a pro-bono immigration lawyer, describes becoming a virtual recluse, using solitary walks on Martha's Vineyard to scream and cry out her anguish. She also recounts how many mutual friends distanced themselves after the split.
In June 2023, with Davis's approval, Burden published a searing account of the marriage's end in The New York Times' Modern Love column, titled Was I Married to a Stranger?. The piece caused a sensation and directly led to the writing of Strangers. The memoir traces Burden's lineage from socialite Babe Paley and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, and details her 1999 Hamptons wedding to Davis in a Calvin Klein dress, an event featured in The New York Times.
