Salim Mehajer: April Learmonth went from humble beginnings to princess bride in wedding that shocked Sydney
AUBURN’S flashy deputy Lord Mayor Salim Mehajer and the reality show that was his million-dollar wedding has drawn all sorts of unwanted attention to matters far more serious.
IN THE west Wollongong suburb of Figtree, they call her their own Princess Mary. And it is a fairytale of sorts: formerly strawberry blonde beautician transforms into a Kardashian-esque cosmetically enhanced businesswoman.
She wins the heart of a wealthy, up-and-coming politician/property developer, converts to Islam, and he publicly describes theirs as “the story that defines love”.
But just a week in and Prince Charming is starting to look more frog than royalty.
Auburn’s flashy Deputy Lord Mayor Salim Mehajer and the reality show that was his million-dollar wedding to the former April Learmonth has drawn all sorts of unwanted attention.
With portions of the guest list capable of inspiring a new franchise for Underbelly (possible working titles: The Developers, or simply, South West Sydney), last weekend’s nuptials have made international headlines.
What at first looked like the justified gripes of neighbours annoyed at disruptions to Frances St, Lidcombe, when 50 Harley-Davidsons, four helicopters and a $50 million fleet of luxury cars shut down their suburb for a few hours, has brought a laser focus to matters far more serious.
Police are looking closely at the bikies who formed the Mehajer motorcade, some of his Auburn council peers are still trying to get him sacked and he is being investigated for possession of a fake pistol (that he says is just a children’s toy) which featured in the pre-wedding video released by the couple that has now gone viral.
His rap sheet of driving offences, dodgy business acts and even two fires at properties related to family members have been fodder for countless media reports.
As has the classy fact the wedding was delayed for his dad, Mohamad Mehajer, to be released from his 3½ year jail term for conspiring to cheat and defraud the National Australia Bank of more than $3 million.
And the Baird government has ordered a review of changes to the NSW Local Government Act, which have allowed developers such as Mehajer to be elected to local council while at the same time building vast fortunes.
In April 2012 the state government amended local government rules allowing councillors who are also property developers to vote on broad planning regulations directly affecting their own investments.
The changes to Section 451 of the Local Government Act meant property developer councillors could vote on things such as building heights, density and zoning in areas where they owned land or buildings, where previously they would have had to exclude themselves.
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Mr Mehajer, who was elected to Auburn Council six months after the law was changed, was able to legally vote in favour of changes to Auburn Council’s planning rules in December 2013, permitting greater building height and density for the suburb’s mixed used buildings.
In June, Mr Mehajer’s company Sydney Project Group, whose slogan is “reaching new limits”, received approval for a 11-storey building containing 137 units with an investment value of $30 million in John St, Lidcombe. The original development application had been for a eight-storey building containing 65 apartments.
There is no suggestion that Mr Mehajer broke any planning laws but the relaxation of the rules has sparked concern from politicians who claim it legitimises what would previously have been an abuse of the system.
“We opposed the changes because we said it would be abused — and it is now being abused,” said Greens MLC David Shoebridge this week.
It’s unclear just how wealthy Australia’s showiest local councillor is but Mehajer, 29, is the director of six intertwined development companies based in Western Sydney, the most active being Sydney Project Group, which is constructing five high-rise apartment blocks along John St, Lidcombe.
Very little has been heard from 29-year-old Aysha Mehajer, the former beautician who is now estimating director of Sydney Property Group, according to the company’s website (which shut down several times last week amid all the attention).
The former Woonona High School student was described by friends as hardworking and enthusiastic about the salon at which she worked, next door to the house she shared with her mum in Figtree.
Then known as April Learmonth, she started driving either an Audi R8 or BMW X6 M series about 2009 and a former colleague said the luxury car sported a logo for a Sydney construction company.
“She was not frightened in stepping forward. She had a lot of initiative. A lot of people that age are not that capable, she was not your average 22-year-old,” he said, adding that locals were now calling her “Princess Mary of Figtree”.
“I hope everything works all right for her.” A former customer of the salon MC Beauty said April confided to her she had her freckles removed and had posed as a bikini model in a magazine.
She said she was stunned at her physical transformation.
“Hell yeah, I’m gobsmacked. I never saw her with false eyelashes. She didn’t get done up like that,” she said.
Aysha’s former client said she was worried about how she was faring, given all of the negative attention, given that “she hasn’t said a word”.
The former principal of the beauty college where then-April trained after graduating from high school described her as “a tiny little thing”.
“She had just come out of high school the year before. Her hair was straight and red and then, for graduation night, she surprised us all by going and getting this amazing spray tan that concealed her freckles and had her hair lightened to strawberry blonde,” said Tracey Rovere, from Illawarra College of Beauty Therapy.
Of course Aysha Mehajer’s grandest Cinderella moment was last weekend, where she twirled before hundreds of guests in a 22kg pearl and diamond encrusted gown, to the beat of a troupe of Arabian drummers.
But in the swirl of attention following Australia’s flashiest wedding, even Aysha’s dress generated its own controversial headlines.
On Wednesday, her new husband fired out a press release saying he would be suing another designer for $2 million in damages because she had failed to deliver the originally planned dress in time for the wedding. This unnamed Sydney designer chose to defend herself on a current affairs show that night, alleging Aysha had failed to turn up for fittings.
She claimed that, after Aysha did attend one of their final appointments, she became furious with how her frock was turning out, scratching and tearing at the unfinished gown.
Instead the creation of the dress was left to Melbourne designer Natalie Georgys.
She said Aysha walked into her World of Nektaria studio on August 3 and convinced her to construct a dress that would usually take more than a year. “We were really lucky with her, she was just like: ‘Make it, and make it look amazing,’’’ Georgys said.
The new Mr and Mrs Mehajer were last week difficult to track down. Fittingly, given how much they appear to have been auditioning for a reality show since leaping to attention last Saturday, they have been active on social media.
Mehajer’s Facebook feed is filled with photos and videos of the pair, as well, it must be said, as messages of support.
Requests for interviews are referred to Mehajer’s solicitor and the pair has cancelled several scheduled media appearances.
By Thursday, the attention was clearly starting to wear, with a burly associate of the councillor outside his house abusing a young Daily Telegraph journalist before chauffeuring him away.
But Mehajer has promised to tell his and Aysha’s side of the story.
“My very own media release containing all the FACTS will be announced soon,” he posted on Facebook on Thursday.
“Stay tuned.”
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