Lily Safra (née Watkins; also Cohen, Monteverde and Bendahan; 30 December 1934 – 9 July 2022) was a Brazilian-Monegasque billionaire and socialite who amassed considerable wealth through her four marriages.
She was the daughter of Wolf White Watkins, a railway engineer of Anglo-Jewish origin who was born in Czechoslovakia and moved to South America during the electrification of Brazilian railroads, and Annita Noudelman de Castro, a Uruguayan of Russian Jewish ancestry.
At age 17, she met and married Mario Cohen, an Argentine hosiery magnate of Italian Jewish descent.
[5] He was a leader in the Brazilian household appliance distribution business, where he established the Ponto Frio [pt] brand.
The couple divided their time among homes in New York City, Monaco, Geneva, and the Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera.
[13] Ted Maher, a former U.S. Green Beret, was accused of starting the fire in order to gain acceptance from Edmond Safra when he would ultimately rescue him, but it went out of control.
[15] Edmond Safra left 50% of his assets to several charities, with the remainder divided among his family members and wife Lily, who received $800 million.
[16] Lady Colin Campbell's novel Empress Bianca (2005) was considered to be a defamatory roman à clef by Safra's solicitor, Anthony Julius.
Reacting to the legal threat in the United Kingdom, its publishers, Arcadia, withdrew the book and destroyed unsold copies.
[23] In connection with the 2005 sale at Sotheby's of furniture and art from her collection, Safra donated $3 million to charities in New York which she and her husband had supported for many years, along with a gift to Dillard University in New Orleans to help them rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.
[24] Sotheby's announced in 2011 that an auction of Mr. and Mrs. Safra's collections, including furniture, artwork, silverware, and decorative objects, took place in New York City.
[28] The entire record profits from the sale were donated to 32 charitable institutions around the world in the fields of healthcare, education, religion and culture, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Hope and Homes for Children in Romania.
Fox Foundation, including early funding for the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative and The Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders.
[42][43] In April 2019, Safra pledged €10 million towards the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris after the fire which greatly damaged the cathedral.