The younger daughter of Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone looks every inch the pampered pit-stop princess. I’m bracing my wallet to take a huge hit – perhaps a £200 bottle of Cristal champagne, which is surely what this sort of person drinks. But she orders an abstemious cup of herbal tea.
And it doesn’t take long in Petra’s company to realise that she has inherited much more from her driven, successful father than merely his billions.
At the age of just 20, while her contemporaries are taking gap years or drinking the university bars dry, Petra is hard at work on her own successful fashion business.
Clearly, there is rather more going on inside that pretty head than you might expect at first glance.
‘I know people see me as a privileged girl and think, “Let’s take her for a ride,”’ she says crisply, ‘but I’m tough underneath.’
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It may count as one of Bernie’s bigger achievements that, despite his billions, he has managed to raise a hard-working, surprisingly level-headed daughter rather than a spoilt little madam.
Even Tamara, Petra’s equally pretty but rather wilder older sister, appears to be settling down: she has a presenting job on Sky Italia, and is the new face of luxury jewellery firm Moussaieff.
But most of the credit must go to Slavica, their statuesque Croatian mother, whom Bernie met in 1982 at the Italian Grand Prix where she was modelling T-shirts, and married after the birth of Tamara.
‘She dedicated her whole life to the three of us – my dad, my sister and me,’ says Petra. ‘She always put me and Tamara ahead of herself, which is the most amazing thing. I don’t think I could be a housewife or a stay-at-home mum. I’m too selfish.’
At times, ex-model Slavica’s determination to keep her own and her two daughters’ feet on the ground comes across as almost perverse. ‘We’ve got a dishwasher,’ says Petra, ‘but my mum never uses it. She thinks that she can do a better job with her hands, and she finds cleaning and ironing therapeutic.’
Recently, Petra moved to an apartment in the same Chelsea square as her family home. It has clearly come as a terrible shock that her parents are now divorced after 24 years of marriage. (In fact, it seems to have been as much of a shock to Bernie, who initially declared, when Slavica left the marital home, that it was because she wanted to get away from the builders. And he was apparently unaware of last month’s brief High Court hearing which issued the decree nisi, telling reporters, ‘I didn’t have a clue about it.’)
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There have been suggestions that Slavica could walk away with half of Bernie’s estimated £2.4 billion fortune – the largest divorce settlement in British history.
But Petra just seems deflated, and was recently snapped by paparazzi crying outside the family home. ‘I’m not taking sides at all,’ she says, sadly. Is there any prospect of her parents reconciling? ‘It’s every girl’s dream,’ she says, brightening up, ‘and there’s always hope, but I guess you have to accept reality. I’m really grateful for what I’ve had over the past 20 years and we’re all still talking.’
In fact, while her mother has been off travelling, Petra has been taking care not only of her mother’s bulldog Lola, but also of lonely Bernie himself. ‘He comes round in the evening to have dinner,’ she says, and I am suddenly visited by a disconcerting mental image of little Bernie and the bulldog being comforted together on a silken cushion.
Click Here To Read More:
F1 Tycoon Bernie Ecclestone’s Wife Files For Divorce
Bernie, Without Slavica, Back to Work and at His Mischievous Best
Bernie Tells All - Can’t Woo Back Wife Because She “Has Everything”
Bernie Ecclestone’s 24-Year Marriage Unravels
Bernie Says He and Slavica Could Marry Again One Day
