Neurosurgeon Tim Steel and wife Emma set to fight over $23m property portfolio
After neurosurgeon Tim Steel was found not guilty of assaulting his ex-model wife Emma Steel, their bombshell divorce is about to go thermonuclear, with a property portfolio valued at $23 million at stake, writes Annette Sharp.
NSW
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Weeks after a Sydney court found Sydney neurosurgeon Tim Steel not guilty of assaulting his wife Emma, the warring couple are gearing up for a new showdown over a prenuptial agreement the surgeon is said to have had his partner sign 12 years ago to protect a property portfolio now put at $23 million.
Yesterday sources said the couple — who, along with an $8 million house in Bellevue Hill, own properties in Woollahra, Balmain, Potts Point and Darling Harbour, as well as a KFC in Engadine, will “go to the mattresses” in their war over their assets.
The question yet to be answered concerns the validity and detail of a prenup this column is told the medico had his fiancee sign prior to the couple’s 2008 wedding.
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Mrs Steel, 41, who has two children with the neurosurgeon and one son from a former marriage to jockey Shane Dye, clearly has fine tastes, with the Downing Centre Local Court last month hearing the $24,000 monthly allowance she was given by her husband didn’t always last a month.
The ugly marriage breakdown has shocked and divided Sydney society, with some high-profile socialite divorcees rallying behind Mrs Steel, while others in the medical and legal fraternities have sided with the surgeon, who is head of neurosurgery at St Vincent’s Hospital.
On Mrs Steel’s side, from the outset, has been socialite Heidi Onisforou, ex-wife of Sydney property developer Theo. Publicist Roxy Jacenko is also reported to be friends with the glamorous ex-model.
SYDNEY ISO-CIALITES MAKING WAVES
North Queensland is enjoying something of a fashionable revival, with some of Sydney’s more restless iso-cialites seizing what may prove a brief window during COVID-19 lockdown to jet north and soak up some sun while dreaming of the European summer that might have been.
Among those first to flee the winter chill of their quiet Sydney hometown was renowned party lover and fundraiser Skye Leckie, wife of former TV executive David Leckie, who was looking very much at home stretched across the bow of a pleasure cruiser off the Queensland coast last week.
“Skysie” spent part of last week snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef with sons Harry and Ben.
Missing from the Port Douglas sojourn was part-time Seven consultant David, 69, who keeps a lower profile these days and remained in residence at the family’s Noosa home.
Also enjoying the Queensland sun was reluctant socialite Nadi Crichton, statuesque wife of multi-millionaire luxury car importer Neville Crichton.
Three years after the couple wed, the pair are rarely seen together, Nadi having retreated to the US in the months after the couple’s extravagant 2017 wedding to seek treatment for a mystery illness.
Her 75-year-old husband revealed his beautiful young wife, 41, was battling Lyme disease — and he was at Noosa too.
MAG BOSS RECOVERING
As the axe fell last week again at what was previously Bauer Media and is now Mercury Capital, one of the longest-serving editors still on the books, Fiona Connolly, editor-in-chief of Woman’s Day and other titles, confirmed her recent treatment at St Vincent’s Hospital for a rare and progressive auto-immune disease.
News of Connolly’s illness has been well-guarded by her loyal staff while she’s this year been undergoing chemotherapy.
As Bauer expanded and contracted this year, Connolly has been overseeing production of a handful of titles from her hospital bed while simultaneously undergoing a stem cell transplant. Yesterday, while not naming the illness she is fighting yet clarifying it is not cancer, mother-of-two Connolly said she’ll be back at work “in a couple of weeks”.
We wish her a speedy recovery.
FREEDMAN GOES TO GROUND
Mia Freedman and husband Jason Lavigne went to ground and firmly remained there last week as talk of their stoush with their landlords made headlines around town.
It’s not their only headache; sources say the couple are also struggling with their business, with their well-known website hit severely by the advertising downturn impacting all media.
Sadly Freedman could not be reached to comment on either matter by our deadline yesterday.