To me, there are hints of Meghan
Markle reprimanded for crossing her
legs at Buckingham Palace – just one catalyst
for her rejecting the Windsors. Mugrabi
frowns disapprovingly. “That [behaviour]
is very bratty to me. Deal with it! We
didn’t split up for those reasons. I’m going
a little darker and deeper. I’m talking about
financial control – telling me how many
children I can have, what to name them,
where I have to go on vacations. I’m not
allowed to talk to a lot of people – to my
friends from before I got married. I’m not
really supposed to be affiliated with my
family. And I am a free spirit.”
Now that spirit can truly express itself.
Newly single, just before the pandemic she
went to London and had a fling with an
Englishman she met on a dating app. “He
said he was 29 and I found out he was 25.”
He introduced her to friends, who in turn
introduced her to both the V&A and the Tate,
with whom she’s discussing the loan of some
of her collection. “So a brief love affair turned
into a love affair with London.”In June, she’s planning to a rent a house
here. “Where shall I live? I wondered about
Chelsea. I’m going to take my daughter and
bring her to all the parties. I’d like to move
my children here.”
“It’s not a permanent move, Libbie,”
cautions her PR. “The children still need
to see their father.”
Mugrabi shrugs this off. After all, her
and David’s animosity is apparently wildly
exaggerated. “David and I actually never
had a problem with each other. I kind
of felt bad for my ex-husband. He’s not
American; I gave him a green card. My
parents are divorced; I understand it. But in
Colombia it’s like, ‘You want a divorce? Off
with their heads!’ My dad tried to explain [US
divorce] to David. I don’t think he believed it.
I think he sees it now, but I told him the other
day, ‘David, you continue to play games with
the stupid lawyers.’
“He’s a nice guy,” she continues of her ex.
“We’re polar opposites. David doesn’t celebrate
anything; he doesn’t care about birthdays.
I celebrate everything. I think every day is
my birthday. But whoever said marriage was
supposed to be for ever?”
There have been various boyfriends
but now she’s happily single. “The Duke of
Westminster’s available,” teases her PR.
“What’s a duke?’ Mugrabi inquires. “I have
a family crest, whatever that means. But I’m
OK with not meeting someone. The most
important love we can have is with ourselves.” nThe Times Magazine 59Botox, performs “tweakments” at her high-end
Manhattan centre (Mugrabi says she’s had
Botox but no plastic surgery). “So my parents
had this really big idea that I’d marry a doctor.
But I was a rebel. I wanted to marry somebody
nobody knew that I knew.”
Brought up in the Sephardic Jewish
community between Deal, New Jersey, and
Palm Beach, Florida, Mugrabi was 22 and at
culinary school in New York when she was
introduced to her future husband by Jane,
who’d met him on a flight to Aspen. (“He
thought Mum was hitting on him.”) David was
the younger son of Jose, now 82, who was
born in humble circumstances in Jerusalem,
made millions in textiles in Bogota and then
moved into even more lucrative art dealing.
“David lived in Colombia until he was- When I met him he didn’t speak English.
It was definitely weird. He wanted me to stay
with him in Aspen. I wasn’t allowed. I went
home. He kept calling, but I was living at
home. My parents were like, ‘If you’re going
to sleep at his house, then don’t come home.
Just move into his house.’ ”
For the next couple of years they were
on-off. “I had another, very serious boyfriend
I was going to marry but my parents hated
him and banned me from being with him.”
Her engagement to David doesn’t sound like
love’s dream, happening after she joined him
for a weekend in the Hamptons. “He took me
to this really dodgy, weird house where they
were playing beer pong [when you try to land
a ping-pong ball in a cup of beer]. I never saw
something like that. When we went back to
his friend’s house, he was sleeping and I just
left. I was like, ‘This is not going to work.’ He
kept calling, my friend begged me to come
back, so I went back and he asked me to
marry him. I said, ‘When?’ I said, ‘Here’s
the deal: 90 days to get an engagement ring,
90 days after that to get married.’ ”
Ninety days passed – still no ring. “I was
like, ‘Do you want to go through with this?’
He said he couldn’t find the perfect ring.
But he got it in the end.” With a five-carat
diamond on her finger (later sold for $100,000
to fund the divorce), they married at the
Pierre hotel in 2005 with around 600 guests
(“I knew 30,” she’s said), including the actor
Owen Wilson and mega-gallery owner Larry
Gagosian. “And we had a beautiful marriage.”
Mugrabi threw herself into the family
business, which has no gallery, preferring to
sell privately, in the aftermath of lavish dinners
and soirées with wannabe collectors, often
industrialist billionaires and Middle Eastern
royalty, which she hosted all over the world.“My ex-husband is a practical man. He
didn’t really feel comfortable with art. He
likes money so bad. And golf. He likes the
deals; he likes to look at the [stock market]
ticker all day. He didn’t really want to work
with his father and brother [well-known
socialite Tico], but his father told him that if
he didn’t work with the family, he’s not going
to be part of the business.
“David saw that his brother used to go
to work at 11am, then go out for lunch, then
dinner, then be at a party and say he was
working. And David was like, ‘I guess it’s
not that bad.’ So we basically did it together.
Before we married, I had only been to, like,
St Tropez and St Barths. But I hadn’t been
to these crazy Third World places he was
taking me to.”
A typical memory was putting on a show
dedicated to her personal favourite artist,
Jean-Michel Basquiat, in Korea. “It was so that
the Samsung family came to see it. We didn’t
sell anything. We ended up making [the art
dealer] Tina Kim buy a small drawing for
like $40,000 or something.”She revelled in meeting artists. “A lot
painted me: Richard Prince, George Condo.
Damien Hirst did a painting of the kids called
The Babies. Kenny Scharf made me things.”
She was less enamoured with how many deals
were orchestrated. “Some art dealers hire
certain girls because they’re dating some man.
It’s those girls that do most of the sales; the
guys are old and creepy and rich and married.
That’s why after the divorce I decided that
I really didn’t want to do anything in the art
world except run away. That being said, the
art world doesn’t leave me alone. Artists are
following me all day. They love me.” She’s
said they compare her to the legendary art
collector Peggy Guggenheim. “She was fast
and furious and drove in her own lane and
no one could keep up with her.”
Mugrabi herself has compared her situation
to Princess Diana’s. “That’s fair. I married
very young,” she says soberly. “I used to
say to my therapist, ‘I worked for a lot of
my marriage. I sold a painting yesterday for
$3 million. But David just screamed at me this
morning for buying a cup of coffee.’ She was
like, ‘Libbie, it doesn’t matter if you sell the
painting. You’re under the reign of these
people and they decide how much you’re
allowed to spend or where you’re allowed to
go.’ They told me how to dress, they told my
children how to dress, where you sit at dinner,
how much food you’re allowed to put on your
plate. I went to etiquette school. I don’t need
somebody explaining.”‘I DIDN’T WANT TO DO ANYTHING IN THE ART WORLD, BUT ARTISTS LOVE ME’
STYLING: HANNAH SKELLEY. HAIR AND MAKE-UP: DANI RICHARDSON USING NARS AND LIVING PROOF