For years they were the glamour couple of Greenwich, Conn., but as they prepare to meet in divorce court tomorrow, locals are calling them something else.
“She’s a flake and he’s a snake,” sniffs one society grandee.
The marriage of former Victoria’s Secret supermodel Stephanie Seymour and billionaire paper magnate Peter Brant, which lasted more than a decade and spawned three photogenic children, was a symbiotic one. She gave him beauty and celeb cachet; he gave her money. Lots of it.
But in legal documents obtained by The Post, Seymour is now citing Brant’s “hostile, threatening and intimidating behavior,” including allegations that he changed locks and safe combinations at their home, took away her jewelry and told officials at youngest child Lilly’s school that her mother was not allowed to pick her up.
In turn, Brant, who did 84 days behind bars in 1990 for tax evasion, filed a motion asking that Seymour undergo drug and alcohol testing. He requested that portions of the divorce remain sealed because “the nature of allegations in this matter are very personal and are likely to receive untoward attention.”
While Seymour has admitted to drug use in the past, lately she has insisted her wild-child days are history. But they did make for some great headlines.
Back in 1993, when Seymour split from Guns N’ Roses rocker Axl Rose, he accused her of infidelity and physical abuse, claiming she swung at him with a chair and punched him in the crotch after a 1992 Christmas party.
On the polo field, Brant is equally famed for his explosive moods, with his bad manners earning him the nickname “The John McEnroe of polo.” In 2004 he stormed off the field after losing a Bridgehampton match (considered very bad form) and has even supposedly been known to strike opposing players with his mallet.
When the two hotheads first met in the early 1990s, it was a passionate affair. Seymour was a 25-year-old Victoria’s Secret beauty famed for dalliances with Warren Beatty and Rose. Brant, CEO of White Birch Paper and Brant Publications, was 48 and still married to Sandy Brant, his college sweetheart and mother to five of his children. Not everyone approved of Seymour.
“Greenwich housewife material she was not,” says one member of the stuffy town’s old guard.
But the lovebirds brushed off the gossip and married in 1995 in Paris.
Initially, Brant and Seymour’s marriage appeared blissful. Art connoisseur Brant had built an expensive collection of beautiful trophies, including polo clubs in Greenwich and the Hamptons, Interview magazine and, some say, his wife. And Seymour seemed game to play the stylish object of his affections.
But his taste for culture hasn’t sat well with everyone.
It was bad enough, says the miffed socialite, that he was founding polo clubs and trying to cast himself as “some kind of Medici prince,” while palling around with art dealer Larry Gagosian, who was sued for $26.5 million by the feds for tax evasion in 2003.
More appalling was Seymour’s decision to pose semi-nude in — gasp! — their Greenwich home for a shoot that later appeared in Juergen Teller’s racy 2002 coffee-table book, “More.” In one shot Seymour appears on all fours in her living room, naked from the waist down except for a pair of bondage heels.
Brant often boasted to townspeople that Seymour was an artist’s muse and he was proud of the provocative photographs, the Greenwich doyenne said.
He even went so far as to commission a controversial Italian artist, Maurizio Cattelan, to create a nude bust of Seymour that could be mounted on his wall like a set of deer antlers, according to art-world wags.
Of course, Seymour wasn’t your average unwitting babe. The 5-foot-10 beauty first gained tabloid fame in 1983 as a teenage unknown who seduced the swarthy Elite Models chairman John Casablancas — ending his marriage.
Seymour had a reputation as a man-eater, “working her way through a string of very handsome, very high-profile men,” says Michael Gross, author of the 1995 book “Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women.”
Her relationship with Brant, says Gross, was symbiotic. “They each gave each other a lift. He had a fairly raffish image when they got together, and she made him far more glamorous. She got stability and marriage. Together they packed quite a punch.”
But in the Hamptons, where Brant, 62, and Seymour, 39, are regulars, one society host disagrees adamantly.
“They were both strivers,” says the source. “Whatever the cost. You could tell she loved being married to the billionaire, and he thought he was lord of the manor, the cat that got the cream. But they didn’t fool anyone.”
Now, as their court appearance in Stamford, Conn., looms, an even less flattering picture is emerging of Brant controlling his wife and Seymour increasingly acting out, tired of his domineering ways.
In legal papers, Seymour says she’s filing for divorce because “the marriage of the parties has broken down irretrievably.”
At stake is custody of the couple’s three children, Peter Jr., 15, Harry, 12, and Lilly, 4, their 50-acre spread in Greenwich and estates in Sagaponack and Palm Beach — not to mention their vast collection of contemporary art.
Seymour is asking for custody of the children, exclusive use of their Greenwich home, alimony and an equitable distribution of the couple’s assets.
Meanwhile, Brant’s lawyer, Gaetano Ferro, told The Post that “Stephanie’s allegations have no relationship to reality.”
Greenwich insiders say Seymour better sharpen her stilettos, because Brant never gives up anything without a fight.
Says one source familiar with his style on the polo field, “He’s a bad sport,” before adding, more ominously, “He will use anything to get ahead.”
Additional reporting by Ginger Adams Otis