The widow of billionaire Richard Lugner – who has today passed away aged 91 just weeks after marrying his sixth wife – has broken her silence as she penned a heartfelt tribute to her husband.
Forty-two-year-old Simone ‘Biene’ Reilaender, who was 49 years his junior, called the late entrepreneur ‘the dream of her life’.
‘And when I saw you shining, from the way I saw you shine, I knew was yours too,’ she wrote on Instagram. ‘In love.’
She also shared a painting of Richard to go with the sweet message – having only a few posts earlier shared details of her wedding dress at their nuptials.
Richard was known for his extravagant lifestyle, many wives and glamourous dates with A-listers – and died after suffering several health issues.
The construction tycoon and socialite, who made headlines for paying the world’s VIPs to attend Vienna’s annual Opera Ball, passed away in his Viennese villa on Monday, Austrian media reported.
Lugner – nicknamed Mr Concrete – was notorious for the celebrity friends he was often seen partying with, with the billionaire reportedly paying six-figure sums to stars like Kim Kardashian, Geri Halliwell and Paris Hilton to be on his arm at the Opera Ball.
Speaking to Kurier in April – just a few months before their June wedding – Simone said that ‘everything she wanted in a man was like Richard’.
‘A successful man who represents something, who you can cling to, look up to and learn from,’ she gushed.
‘Men like that are very rare at a younger age these days.’
And after they tied the knot, Richard had told the outlet: ‘It was a fantastically beautiful wedding, the speech by the registrar was beautiful, the celebration was beautiful and the bride is beautiful.’
Since 1992, Lugner invited acting icons like Goldie Hawn, Joan Collins and Jane Fonda as a special guest for the event, with Fonda saying he paid her ‘quite a bit of money’ to attend.
Born in Vienna on October 11, 1932, Lugner quickly made a name for himself in the construction business by focusing on small-scale projects amid the 1960s building boom, according to APA news agency.
In 1975, Lugner landed his first major coup, when he was commissioned to build the Vienna Islamic Centre, Austria’s first and biggest mosque.
More than a decade later, he built his eponymous ‘Lugner City’ shopping centre.
The eccentric 91-year-old was an integral part of Vienna’s high society, with Lugner frequently dominating the headlines, including criticism he faced over his sexist comments.
A fan of the limelight, Lugner had been inviting the world’s celebrities to the famous Vienna Opera Ball since 1992, most recently bringing Priscilla Presley to the event and dancing the night away with the former wife of Elvis Presley.
Sarah Ferguson attended the Opera Ball with Lugner in 1997, after he paid her a fee said to be between $50,000 and $150,000
More former guests of Lugner include celebrities like Sophia Loren, Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, Jane Fonda – who attended last year’s event – Geri Halliwell and Joan Collins.
American actress Fonda said she accepted the Austrian building tycoon’s invitation to attend the Vienna Opera Ball because he offered to ‘pay me quite a bit of money.’
While the amount the tycoon paid his guests of honour has mostly remained a closely guarded secret, he seized on the opportunity to promote his brand and made sure to invite at least one star per year to the ball.
One of the star guests Lugner invited to the Opera Ball was Kim Kardashian, who he famously called ‘annoying’ after she and her mother Kris Jenner attended as his double date to the bash in 2014.
Kim claimed she fled the event because she was reportedly offended following a reported racial slur from a guest.
After the ball, Lugner – nicknamed Concrete due to his roots in the building trade -claimed the star would not dance with him despite being paid a jaw-dropping $500,000 (nearly £400,000).
But Kim insisted she was approached by a white male who was working at the event in ‘blackface’ and began to mimic her then-fiancé Kanye West, which was why she ran away.
Despite calling the Vienna Ball ‘super glamorous’, Kim admitted she had been already suffering anxiety largely because the event was ‘super claustrophobic’.
In 1961, Lugner got married to Christine Gmeiner and their union lasted until 1978.
He then married Cornelia Laufersweiler in 1979, but got swiftly divorced four years later in 1983.
His wedding to his third wife, Susanne Dietrich, followed a year later, with the couple divorcing in 1989.
Lugner was married to his fourth wife, Christina Lugner, from 1990 to 2007, before tying the knot with his fifth wife, Playboy Bunny Cathy Schmitz, in 2014. The couple with a 57-year age difference got divorced just 809 days later in 2016.
The billionaire announced his relationship with Simone Reilaender in 2021 and the couple got married in front of 50 guests June this year – just weeks before his death.
Lugner had four children: Alexander and Andreas Lugner, from his first marriage, Nadine Jeannine Cutter from his relationship with actress Sonja Jeannine, and Jacqueline Lugner from his fourth marriage.
During the late 1990s, Lugner first dabbled in politics, winning almost 10 percent of the presidential vote in Austria in 1998.
In 2016, he ran for president for a second time, but finished last, securing just over two percent.
Last month Lugner was treated for a ruptured heart valve at the Vienna General Hospital and was reportedly suffering several health problems recently.
It followed several cancer diagnoses. In 2016, Lugner announced that he had prostate cancer, which he managed to defeat after several months of radiotherapy.
He was then diagnosed with skin cancer in 2020 and the disease returned in 2021 after he underwent surgery following both diagnoses.
Lugner’s cause of death has not yet been revealed.
Credit: Daily Mail
