Annette Sharp: Society couple Charlie and Ellie Aitken split up
The much-envied, two decades-long marriage of society darlings Charlie and Ellie Aitken is believed to have ended abruptly last week, writes Annette Sharp.
NSW
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Charlie and Ellie Aitken are no strangers to fevered speculation about their marriage, and so won’t be surprised to learn half of Sydney — the rich half — has talked of little other than the Aitkens for the past week.
After ambitiously juggling work and play for the past decade — on private jets, on luxury yachts, on charity committees, on red carpets and on the business and social pages of every metropolitan newspaper published in this city — the glamour couple are understood to have split up.
Neither responded to our attempts to reach them for comment on Friday.
The Aitkens’ union is said to have ended abruptly a week ago, with close sources claiming the curtain finally came down on the much-envied almost-20-year marriage on November 12.
A day later the roster of directors of the Aitkens’ investment business, Aitken Investment Management, changed when founding investor and formerly close friend Christopher Nasser resigned his position.
By Monday, Ellie, too, was moving on after resigning her post as executive director of the couple’s business. She remained a director, however.
The two couples, the Aitkens and the Nassers, pub owners who once owned Fairfield’s Crescent Hotel, have been firm friends for years — so much so that Chris Nasser was quick to put his hand in his pocket when the Aitkens launched their business in 2015.
In October, Ellie paid generous tribute to Nasser’s look-a-like wife Hollie — and their friendship — with a gallery of photos posted to Facebook and Instagram: “Happy happy birthday to my beautiful (Hollie). So lucky to have you in my life. Here’s to sharing many more good times together in the years to come.”
The Aitkens have informed close friends the break-up is irreconcilable.
Former stockbroker Aitken is said to have moved out of a home the couple was renting in the eastern suburbs and into a serviced apartment nearby.
According to well-placed sources, the power couple — he the son of Perpetual Bank investment legend John Aitken and a former stockbroker, and she a mergers and acquisitions lawyer who dabbled in fashion design before joining her husband at the family funds business — have been working to keep their marriage afloat for some time.
The sale of the couple’s envied trophy home in Darling Point in 2016 is said to have struck the relationship a serious blow.
The house, her dream home in Eastbourne Rd, was sold for $10.3 million just eight months after former Bell Potter MD Aitken launched his fledgling funds management business.
The couple, along with their two young children Olivia and William, next became tenants in the guest cottage of renowned Bellevue Hill mansion Barford.
More recently the family have been living in rented digs near Bondi.
While Charlie counts some of the nation’s richest businessmen among friends and associates — Twiggy Forrest, Kerry and Ryan Stokes, and James Packer reportedly among them — it is attractive Ellie who is regarded as one of the country’s top networkers.
In recent years, as her husband’s profile and personal ambitions have soared, Ellie has been feted by half of the fundraising committees in Sydney.
She has variously served as the co-chair of the Australian Ballet Ambassador Board and chair of its International Tour Committee, deputy chair of the Sydney Children’s Hospital’s SunSCHine fundraising committee, a mentor at YWCA Big Brothers Big Sisters program, a fundraiser for the Black and White Committee and the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and director of The Australian Children’s Music Foundation.
At Ellie’s 40th birthday at Manta restaurant in 2019, newly retired Liberal politician Julie Bishop was the guest of honour, while TV personality Samantha Armytage joined guests.
It is five years since Ellie became the subject of international intrigue when she accompanied Russell Crowe (whose ex father-in-law established the aforementioned music foundation) to a pre-Oscars event in Beverly Hills, sending US media into a spin as it sought to identify the mystery bombshell at Crowe’s side.
In September, she joined rival non-bank lender Pallas — run by 50-something property developer Charles Mellick.
The move came two months after media magnate Kerry Stokes pulled his financial support from Aitken Investment Management in June.
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Originally published as Annette Sharp: Society couple Charlie and Ellie Aitken split up
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