The young heiress to the Onassis shipping fortune can have almost anything she desires - except, it seems, a respite from an ugly clash over her money.
The granddaughter of Aristotle Onassis turns 13 on Thursday with her teenage destiny apparently fixed: stuck in the eye of an international tempest over who should control her inheritance until she takes over on her 18th birthday."I want to forget the name Onassis," Athina Roussel told the Italian magazine Oggi at her Swiss home, where she lives with her French father, his Swedish wife and the couple's three children. "It's the cause of all the problems."
As skinny and shy Athina grows more aware of her rarefied position, the rancor grows between her father, Thierry Roussel, and the four Greek trustees overseeing the estimated $600 million estate - about half of the entire Onassis empire. The rest is held by the Onassis Foundation, which directs the shipping business and a vast charitable trust.
Roussel, who seeks to replace the Greek trustees and take control of the estate, has described them as a corrupt clique squandering the patrimony and meddling in Athina's life.
"We are seen as the villains when we are the victims," said Roussel, a former modeling agency manager whose three-year marriage to Christina Onassis produced one child: Athina.
The Greek trustees have vowed to carry out the wishes of Athina's mother, Christina Onassis, who died in 1988 and placed them in charge of the girl's estate. Roussel holds the fifth trustee seat.
They have denounced Roussel as an irresponsible play-boy who burns through money and ignores his written promises to educate Athina about her Greek heritage.
Since his marriage to Christina, Roussel has received about $100 million from the Onassis estate and currently gets more than $12 million a year: about half for family living expenses and the rest for his personal use.
Roussel "has an endless appetite for money," charged Stelios Papadimitriou, one of the trustees.
The feud took an intriguing turn late last year when Swiss prosecutors began investigating Roussel's charges that the trustees plotted to kidnap Athina using operatives from an Israeli security firm.
The trustees deny any abduction plan was afoot. They claim the five-month surveillance of Athina's security was required under a British insurance policy that would pay ransom if she was held captive.
"Even more than money, pride is at stake," said Dimitri Liberopoulos, author of a book on Aristotle Onassis. "That's why it's so bitter."
Some Greek commentators have derided Roussel's cool demeanor as a kind of character flaw. Generations of Greeks have identified intimately with the torrid love affairs, cunning deals and the wrenching tragedies of the Onassis family. On a grand scale, the Onassis clan represented the idealized self-image many Greeks possess: a mix of passion, shrewdness and melancholy.
Athina - only half Greek - is often depicted by Greek media as held hostage from her culture and being brainwashed against Greeks in general.
Since her mother's death, Athina has visited Greece for only 17 days total, including a visit to the private Onassis island of Skorpios where some rooms still carry the decorating touch of Jacqueline Onassis, the magnate's last wife.