Billionaire Formula One Heiress Tamara Ecclestone Declares 'Traumatizing' $32 Million Jewelry Heist at Her 57-Room Mansion Was an 'Inside Job'
Nov. 11 2024, Published 5:42 p.m. ET
Tamara Ecclestone is claiming the 2019 robbery on her home was an inside job.
The Formula One heiress and daughter of Bernie Ecclestone's $32 million worth of diamonds, jewelry and watches were taken from her sprawling 57-room mansion in Kensington, England. However, she's now alleging the crime could have been carried out by someone she knows.
RadarOnline.com can also reveal that none of the 400 stolen items from the house have been recovered.
"The biggest letdown really is that the [other] people who did it will probably never be extradited to the UK," she explained in an interview with The Sunday Times about the lack of consequences for the perpetrators. "I think it is worse getting caught and then nothing happening to them."
Ecclestone was so shaken by the experience, which took place while her husband, Jay Rutland, and one of her daughters Sophia were out of town, she almost did not return.
She said: "I just felt violated. We thought about moving, or moving country. But then I thought, actually, this is my house and, before this happened, this has been such a happy place."
"[The burglary] definitely made me feel that things aren't always as they appear," the socialite explained. "People you think you can trust, you can't always trust."
When questioned about whether or not she believed the robbery was an "inside job," Ecclestone added, "I'm not really allowed to speak about that but I don't see how it's not."
She said: "It's actually quite hard to talk about because my daughter now has access to Google, and we lied to her when it happened because she was young, but she [her daughter] found out anyway. "I should have just been honest."
Luckily, Ecclestone has channeled her energy into writing her children's book, Fifi & Friends: The Super Car Race, to get her mind off of the violation on her sacred space.
She said of the writing process: "It was my idea and everything that I wanted, but I had someone, like, write it so that the structure … so I didn't … I wrote it but someone edited it."
Ecclestone's misfortune comes as she's lived a life of privilege thanks to her famous father. However, she's sick of people thinking she doesn't work hard.
She explained in a interview with Harpers Baazar in 2012: "I don't want to moan about paparazzi because I know you can't have your cake and eat it too, but we used to feel like we had to justify everything."
She continued: "I do have a nice life, but that's not all I do. I'm not defending it anymore. I raise millions of pounds for charity, I had a successful reality show that aired all over Europe, and I'm launching a hair-care brand in November. Not every woman has time to go to a salon and have her hair blow-dried every day."