Is Libbie Mugrabi the world’s most fabulous philanthropist? (2024)

In her suite at the Rosewood hotel in central London, the fashionista, art-world impresario, multimillionaire divorcée and now saviour of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Libbie Mugrabi – dressed in a turquoise bra top and matching track pants from the designer St John, black Manolo mules with crystal buckles, hefty Balenciaga earrings and a black baseball cap styled backwards bearing the legend “Divorcée Glam” – is becoming extremely animated.

She’s hatching plans to host a V&A fashion fundraiser to rival New York’s legendary Met Gala, for which – until now – London has had no equivalent.

“When shall we do it? Next year?” she asks. Let’s not put a date on it, her old-school, dapper PR warns gently. “But I’m going to talk to the V&A about it,” retorts Mugrabi in her quickfire, squeaky New Jersey tones. “When I first mentioned it they said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Look, I’m friends with [UK-US billionaire philanthropist Len] Blavatnik and this person and that person,’ and they were like, ‘Oh.’ It’s maybe over the top, like everything else I do, but I think each table should go for $1 million.”

Met Gala tables sell for around $150,000, she’s cautioned. “But this doesn’t have to be for 1,000 people. Why can’t it be for 200 VIPs, or 100 with 10 tables? We’re not going to copy the Met; I’m talking our version. High-low fashion – an event where people can wear gorgeous suits with sneakers or a gorgeous gown with a baseball cap.

“I went to the Met Gala twice,” Mugrabi continues. “I hated it. I don’t like the way fashion people act. I find them very, very rude. Even if you sat with someone at lunch yesterday they’re probably not going to say hello to you. They think they are above others. I’m from the art world and art is welcoming. I’m all about inclusivity.”

If anyone can rescue the V&A from its post-Covid financial doldrums and zhoosh up the London scene, it’s Mugrabi, 42, fresh from her divorce from David Mugrabi, the 50-year-old scion of the Israeli-Colombian Mugrabi dynasty, with a net worth of $5 billion, largely derived from an art collection that includes 1,000-odd Warhols (the largest assemblage in the world), not to mention hundreds of Renoirs, Picassos, Hirsts, Koonses etc.

Now, the split dubbed “New York’s nastiest divorce” has (sort of) ended with a settlement of $100 million and she’s seeking a new focus, somewhere far from her £59 million former home on the Upper East Side and “controlling” in-laws, and a new purpose as benefactor extraordinaire.

Already, her contribution has allowed the V&A to save its Fashion In Motion programme – free-to-attend catwalk shows featuring both emerging and established designers – from the post-pandemic axe. Matching Mugrabi with a museum with the largest collection of dresses is genius, given her legendary passion for fashion. During their divorce, David’s lawyer pronounced, “One of the major issues of why the marriage disintegrated was Mrs Mugrabi’s profligate spending,” adding she would spend “$10,000 in the blink of an eye” on daily trips to boutiques such as Chanel and Valentino. Mugrabi confirmed to The New York Times, “I spend more than six figures a year on fashion.”

“Anybody who doesn’t take fashion seriously has no soul,” she affirms now. She continues, “I would really like to do something amazing at the museum. Because I’m a very cultured girl. I know a lot and I had never heard of Fashion in Motion before. To be honest, I’d never been to the V&A before [2021], but oh my God it’s my favourite place. It’s magic. A lot of young girls from New York have a very strong connection to it. I mentored Sammy Cohen – daughter of Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer – when her dad went to jail and she goes, ‘Libbie, the V&A is my dream. I went there every day when I did a year abroad.’ I have not heard these girls talking about any inspiration they get from a New York museum. It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Mugrabi pauses. “How come they asked me to do it?”

Because she’s glamorous? “I am very glamorous,” she agrees. “But there are many other people they could have asked. Have you heard of Lauren Santo Domingo?” She’s referring to the former US Vogue staffer and socialite.

Her style is – shall we say – more classic than Mugrabi’s. “Yes. They’re not going to want Lauren, because London’s hip. It’s the coolest. And the people are funny. They have a sense of humour.”

I mention that museums have struggled further to find donors after a spotlight was shone on one of their biggest benefactors, the Sackler family, because of their heavy involvement in the opioids crisis. Mugrabi’s eyes narrow. “Jackie Sackler’s a good friend. She’s a very nice lady. I couldn’t say a bad word against Jackie.”

Mugrabi’s rake-skinny at 5ft 7in (she’s complained that David was shorter than her, so she couldn’t wear heels), with a tilted nose, huge lips, tanned skin and longish blonde-brown hair. She landed in London at 6am, just a few hours before we meet.

She’d missed two flights she’d been booked on because she’d been having dinner with David and their 15-year-old daughter. But aren’t the exes supposed to hate each other? “I’m very close with my ex-husband. The guy is the father of my children. It’s more than friends. We’re like family.”

She’s visibly trembling as she embraces me (New York’s fascination with her divorce, similar to our fixation on Wagatha Christie, has made her wary), but rapidly she warms up as we try on the array of baseball caps (“trucker caps”, she corrects) she’s designed, available on her website in multiple bright colours with slogans such as “Queen”, “F*** It” and “Bougie” for $125 each (all are currently sold out). “They’re very pop art.”

They’re the first offering from Mugrabi’s new apparel line, L’SCHER, from her maiden name, Scher (“She wanted to call it ‘Libbie’, but there was a trademark issue,” her PR explains), which will soon expand to encompass sweatshirts, keyrings, bags and vibrators. “It’s going to be cool, fun accessory fashion, mixed with chic.”

She gets even more excited showing me the outfit she’s created from a £20,000 Balenciaga dress she bought in Miami for the Times photoshoot, chopping it up in the changing rooms to form four separate garments. Weren’t the sales staff horrified? “No. They asked her to design for them,” her PR says. “They didn’t officially ask me; they asked if I would like to,” Mugrabi corrects.

She wouldn’t, preferring life as a free agent. Having helped her in-laws acquire their billions, she’s now intent on reinventing herself as a designer/philanthropist. “Philanthropy’s always been big in my family. In my religion, Judaism, God gives people money to help the poor. It’s not to hoard it away for themselves. I’m trying to educate my children to do what’s true to my roots.”

It’s a refreshing outcome after some deeply unpleasant years. These officially began in 2018 at the family’s nine-bedroom Hamptons estate, when Mugrabi, mother of Mary, 15, and Joseph, 13 (“And I’m Jewish!” she yelps when I remark on the names. “But it was David’s parents’ names and I’m a good rule-follower”) discovered David, naked and asleep with his head on the breast of an also naked brunette in the TV room.

Divorce papers were served. The ensuing two-year mudfest featured such highlights as Mugrabi accusing David of removing at least $180 million worth of art from their Hamptons home before it was classified as assets, and the couple “wrestling” over a $500,000 Keith Haring sculpture she – in turn – tried to remove from their townhouse, screaming at her accompanying friend and sister, “He’s going to kill me.” David granted her a monthly $25,000 allowance, which she fought, claiming she was used to spending $3 million annually, itemising flowers at $400 a week, household staff at $450,000 a year. She had a chef, a driver, three nannies, three cleaners and enjoyed “probably” 30 holidays a year.

Even after settling, the couple returned to court with David claiming she had not returned several artworks, a Ferrari and a Porsche. (Mugrabi’s team said everything has since been returned.) At one point, David allegedly tried to evict Mugrabi from his condo where she was living, saying she hadn’t been paying her $30,000 monthly rent. Mugrabi filed a police report accusing David of trying to dump a damaged Warhol and Basquiat on her. “You can’t help but think it was a malicious act,” her lawyer said.

The fighting boosted a Covid-weary world’s gaiety, but for Mugrabi it was hell. “I don’t think you could ever judge anybody in a divorce; it would be like judging someone if one of their family died that day. It’s one of the worst experiences. The kids are coming to you, you’re in pain and they’re in pain. It’s heart-wrenching.”

She starts to cry. “As a mother, you’re told you’ll only have your child half the time. When it comes to financials, your spouse is allowed to take every single thing away from you and then you have to wade through a distorted, long, corrupted court system to try to get anything back. He’s allowed to cut off your credit cards. He’s allowed to leave you homeless. You have to beg to get your phone bill paid.”

Now, she’s planning a free advisory service for women going through divorce. “Because I didn’t know what to do. My friends didn’t know what to do. Like, we wouldn’t know to start hiding money three months in advance. Who does that? But somebody needs to really tell you these things, besides your mum, so you don’t feel like you’re being bombarded and to really understand how to protect yourself and your children. Because generally speaking, when a man wants a divorce, he does anything. Look at [Jeff] Bezos.”

David called Mugrabi a gold-digger, but, she sniffs, “I was wealthy when I met David. I gave him the money to join a golf club.”

Her grandfather was “the first plastic surgeon in New York. He was the largest collector in the world of Rolls-Royce cars.” Her father, Charles Scher, is also a prolific car collector and eminent plastic surgeon. Her mother, Jane, a nurse, with a dog called Botox, 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 circ*mstances in Jerusalem, made millions in textiles in Bogota and then moved into even more lucrative art dealing.

“David lived in Colombia until he was 15. 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.”

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.