Supersecretive billionaire Roman Abramovich — who kept his marriage to Dasha Zhukova hidden for years — isn’t providing an explanation for the couple’s separation.
But fingers in Moscow are mistakenly pointing at prima ballerina Diana Vishneva of the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia, even though both she and Abramovich deny they are anything but friends.
The News.Rin.Ru Web site reported three years ago that the oligarch had dumped the mother of two of his kids for the dancer, whom he had met a year earlier at a dinner for an international modern dance festival.
“It was roundly derided as absolutely false from all corners at the time,” an Abramovich source told me. “If you search the Internet, you’ll see photos of Diana and Dasha together since then. They’re friends. The two families are. (Diana is married, too.) In fact, they’ve even worked together on projects.”
Abramovich gave $300 million to his second wife, Irina, who bore him five kids. Even though he is said to have an ironclad prenup with Zhukova, she is expected to do very well in a divorce settlement. “He’s very generous,” one source said.