In typical Hollywood melodrama fashion, the plot thickened recently in the endgame saga of 92-year-old billionaire media mogul Sumner Redstone when he excommunicated his longtime live-in girlfriend, Sydney Holland, and kicked her out of his Beverly Park mansion.
Redstone and Holland, 44, had been together for some five years, and after moving in she played an important part in Redstone’s life, acting as gatekeeper to those wanting to see him and even, some say, getting involved in his business correspondence (an allegation Redstone has denied). In recent years, some think, he had changed his will to include both her and another longtime friend, Manuela Herzer, 51. They are each said to have received around $60 to 80 million of Redstone’s cash already. (Holland, contacted recently, declined to comment on the matter. Earlier this year, Redstone told Vanity Fair he would not discuss the contents of his will, but before the recent turn of events Herzer said she believed both she and Holland were beneficiaries.)
But Holland’s charmed life ended, a source tells Vanity Fair, after Redstone’s attorneys were informed of her relationship with a former actor named George Pilgrim, 49, who lived in a house she owns, in Sedona, Arizona. When Redstone heard the news, this source says, he exploded and told Holland to “get the fukk out of my house” and within two days every trace of her was gone, including Holland’s two-year-old adopted daughter, Alexandra Red, whom Holland has described as delighting Redstone, toddling around the house and sitting on his lap. “Sydney is out of his life,” explains the source, who is familiar with the situation. “It’s now, ‘Sydney who?’ There’s no fukking with this man ever. As Ace Greenberg [the late former chairman of Bear Stearns] used to say, ‘If you mess with Sumner you are going to lose.’”
Why Sumner Redstone Really Kicked Sydney Holland Out
