In June, Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet, 60, walked the purple carpet on the Tribeca Competition in New York Metropolis. She seemed stylish as she smiled for photographers in a glossy black midi costume and Valentino kitten heels, however privately, her life was in disarray.
Weeks earlier, Massenet had found that her romantic companion of practically 15 years, Erik Torstensson, 47, had been residing a “secret life” of drug abuse, affairs, and prostitutes, based on a bombshell lawsuit she filed in Los Angeles on August twentieth.
The go well with alleges Torstensson “seduced Massenet and schemed to pursue a romantic relationship along with their skilled one,” utilizing her to “bolster his skilled profession.” It claims she poured over $95 million into funding Torstensson’s extravagant life-style and supporting his enterprise ventures through the years whereas he was hiring prostitutes, abusing medication like cocaine and ecstasy, and dishonest with youthful ladies — one among whom was allegedly a buddy of her daughter’s. Now, Massenet says, Torstensson is reneging on his guarantees to repay her, and he or she is suing for quite a few claims together with fraud, breach of contract and inflicting her “extreme emotional misery.”
“Individuals have been identified to have double lives,” a stylist, who has labored with each Massenet and Torstensson and was “very shocked” by the lawsuit, informed The Put up.
It’s an unsightly ending for one of the vital influential {couples} in trend. Massenet is extensively credited with revolutionizing on-line luxurious procuring. Torstensson is understood for his branding savvy; he co-founded Body, the “model-off-duty” denim model popularized by the likes of Emily Ratajkowski and Karlie Kloss. The couple have been fixtures at elite trend occasions and threw unique events at their properties in London, New York Metropolis and the Hamptons.
“If Erik Torstensson and Dame Natalie Massenet host a home get together, it’s essential to do something you may to nab an invite,” Tatler magazine as soon as declared. Now, the facility couple is unraveling.
Massenet, a former journalist, launched Internet-a-Porter in 2000. She rapidly grew the designer trend portal into an e-commerce powerhouse.
“The time period visionary is relevant relating to Natalie Massenet,” tradition and trend journalist Mosha Lundström Halbert informed the Put up. “She had the thought and the intuition to execute the idea of bringing the multi-brand division retailer luxurious trend expertise to the web, which hadn’t actually been completed.”
Round 2009, Massenet, who was then married to French financier Arnaud Massenet, met Torstensson, a strapping Swedish man 13 years her junior. On the time, he was working a advertising and marketing company with fellow Swede Jens Grede.
He initially pitched Massenet the idea of an extension of Internet-a-Porter geared toward males, however by late 2010 their relationship had turned romantic, per the grievance.
That very same 12 months, Massenet offered her majority stake in Internet-a-Porter for an estimated $76 million and remained on as government chairman. In 2011, she introduced that she’d cut up from her first husband.
Massenet and Torstensson quickly grew to become trend’s glamorous, wildly profitable first couple, lighting up purple carpets and paling round with supermodels and designers.
When Torstensson and Grede launched Body denim in 2012, Internet-a-Porter carried its first assortment. Massenet launched her beau to her highly effective community, together with Anna Wintour, designer Diane Von Furstenberg and Glossier founder Emily Weiss, the grievance states.
“That’s the foreign money on this trade,” Lundström Halbert mentioned. “It’s relationships, direct introductions, it’s favors, it’s that type of entry. You possibly can’t put a value on that.”
Massenet left Internet-a-Porter in 2015 with $153 million, and went on to launch a enterprise capital agency, Imaginary Ventures, that’s invested in numerous buzzy manufacturers together with Everlane, Reformation and Day by day Harvest.
In the meantime, Torstensson’s enterprise companion, Jens Grede, and his spouse, Emma Grede, grew to become key gamers within the Kardashian enterprise empire. In 2016, Emma launched the denim line Good American with Khloe Kardashian. Three years later, the couple cofounded Skims with Kim Kardashian.
Torstensson invested in each ventures, and Massenet claims she supported him by changing into an early investor as nicely. At this time, Torstensson’s stake in Skims alone is value “in extra of $300 million,” based on Massenet’s lawsuit.
She believed in Torstensson, at one level calling him her “greatest funding,” the go well with says.
“My God, she was so in love with that man,” a trend trade insider who labored with each Massenet and Torstensson mentioned.
They’d a baby collectively through surrogate in 2017, and loved the fruits of her their success. (Massenet has two daughters, ages 25 and 19, from her earlier marriage.)
In line with the lawsuit, Torstensson was a giant spender, chartering personal jets and shopping for artwork as a substitute of fulfilling his guarantees to repay Massenet. In a 2023 interview with the Monetary Instances, he mentioned a part of his “uniform” was a Patek Philippe Nautilus, a watch that may retail for over $100,000. After the renovation of Massenet’s English countryside mansion, Torstensson orchestrated a number of articles about it, the go well with says, together with an eight-page unfold in The Wall Road Journal in 2022.
However in 2024, Torstensson grew erratic, consuming closely, disappearing for nights and struggling frequent panic assaults and unexplained sicknesses, based on the lawsuit. In Might, when Torstensson returned to New York after a piece journey to Los Angeles, he informed Massenet that he was not in love along with her and didn’t imagine their romantic relationship may proceed.
The dialog was “surprising and traumatic for Massenet,” per the authorized grievance, who thought they have been simply going by means of a tough patch.
“She was blinded by it,” the insider mentioned.
On the suggestion of their relationship counselor, Torstensson checked right into a therapy middle. Whereas he was away, Massenet discovered one among his outdated cellphones that contained “indeniable proof, together with specific texts and pictures, that Torstensson had maintained a number of affairs with a number of youthful ladies for years,” per the grievance. Considered one of these ladies was somebody in Massenet’s daughter’s social circle “who had as soon as requested Massenet to be her mentor,” the go well with claims.
After Massenet discovered the cellphone, Torstensson admitted to her that he was a “liar, an alcoholic, a drug addict, a intercourse addict and that it had gone on for seven years,” based on the lawsuit.
Massenet started to listen to of extra alleged misdeeds. A girl who labored for Torstensson at Body informed Massenet’s buddy that in 2018, he had chartered a non-public aircraft to Cabo San Lucas with an unidentified girl. Massenet knew then that “the complete basis of their relationship had been an entire lie,” the grievance mentioned.
The style trade insider claimed that whereas many have been conscious of Torstensson’s alleged infidelities, she believes Massenet was “blindsided” by them. “Everyone, they’d’ve simply stayed quiet,” she mentioned. “Don’t get entangled. Don’t be the one that claims something.”
Massenet is “not a silly girl,” the style insider added. “However she was a girl in love that thought they’d be collectively without end.”
The Put up has reached out to Torstensson and Massenet for remark.
