Lily Safra

Lily Safra is a Brazilian philanthropist and socialite who inherited a large fortune through her marriages. She is a citizen of Monaco and currently divides her time between New York and London.

Lily Safra’s Personal Life

Lily Safra was born Lily Watkins in 1938 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. At the age of 17, she married a popular Argentine hosiery businessman, Mario Cohen. They had three children namely Claudio, Eduardo, and Adriana. The couple divorced in the early 1960s. She married a leading appliance distribution businessman Freddy Monteverde in 1965. The couple had a child named Carlos. In 1969, Freddy Monteverde committed suicide. After his death, Lily married Samuel Bendahan, a businessman, in 1972. She divorced him after a year of marriage.

In 1976, Lily married Edmond Safra, a prominent Brazilian-naturalized Jewish Lebanese billionaire banker, and the founder of the Republic National Bank of New York. The couple lived in homes situated in Monaco, Geneva, New York, and Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera. They did not have any children together. Edmond Safra died in a fire, suspected to be arson, in their apartment in Monaco in 1999. This crime attracted heavy media attention.

Lily Safra – Honors, Interests, and a Scandal

Lily Safra, along with her late husband Edmond J. Safra, was honored at the annual Edmond J. Safra Memorial Lecture, Exploring cutting-edge research on Parkinson’s disease, highlighting frontline advances in research into Parkinson's disease, at King's College, London, in May 2008. She was recognized for making a generous gift to support research being undertaken at the College to study the causes of Parkinson's disease. She has also received the prestigious ‘Progetto Uomo’ award for her steadfast support of the Centro Italiano di Solidarieta in Rome, an organization that assists youth in need of help and addresses social difficulties and substance abuse among them. Lily Safra’s net worth is estimated to be $1 billion by Forbes magazine, which ranked her at the 701st position in the World’s Billionaires List in 2009.

Lily Safra is an avid art lover with a huge art collection. She was identified as the buyer of the most expensive sculpture when she bought the "Walking Man" by Alberto Giacometti on February 3, 2010, for $103.4 million at an auction in London.

Lady Colin Campbell’s novel "Empress Bianca" showed Lily Safra in bad light, as the main character in the novel, suggestive of Lily Safra, kills two of her four husbands. Safra took offense and she claimed that the novel defamed her. Her allegation had Campbell's book removed from shelves.

Lily Safra’s Humanitarian Work through the Edmond J. Safra Foundation

Edmond J. Safra established a major philanthropic foundation to help needy individuals and organizations. Following his death in 1999, Lily Safra took up the chairmanship of the foundation. Under her leadership, the foundation has assisted hundreds of organizations in more than 50 countries worldwide, and its work encompasses four areas, namely education, science and medicine, religion, and humanitarian assistance, culture, and social welfare.

Lily Safra Biography

Art Collector Lily Safra

Edmund J.Safra Foundation