Aileen Getty: Billionaire proud to finance environmental activists' dramatic actions (2024)

The climate activist

The climate emergency is Aileen Getty's new battleground. In an op-ed published by the Guardian, the 60-year-old granddaughter of American oil tycoon J. Paul Getty "applauded" the activists like those of the Just Stop Oil collective whose dramatic actions targeting famous works (Van Gogh's Sunflowers and the wax statue of Charles III in London, or Vermeer's The Girl with a Pearl Earring in The Hague, Netherlands) are on the rise. This type of "action was meant to disrupt the status quo," said the woman who said she was "proud" to fund the Climate Emergency Fund. This organization, which she co-founded in 2019, has distributed over $4 million to a variety of movements including Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. Aware that her ties to the oil industry may be questionable, she said in 2019, "I'm trying to figure it all out myself (...) I want to do what's right and what's fair."

The wealthy heiress

Her grandfather, the founder of the Getty Oil Company, was described as the richest man in the world in the 1960s. Married five times and the father of five children, the industrialist was the founder of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, to which he bequeathed much of his estate upon his death in 1976. His children also inherited a large amount of money. Eight years after the death of the patriarch, they turned a page in the family history by selling Getty Oil. According to Forbes magazine, their wealth stood at $5.4 billion in 2015. At the time, this made them the 56^th wealthiest American family.

The unknown sister

Aileen Getty has long lived in the shadow of the men in her family. While her younger brother, Mark, is known for having co-founded the Getty Images photography agency, her elder brother, John Paul Getty III, is the one who made headlines in 1973, when he was kidnapped at the age of 16 by the Calabrian mafia. Their grandfather, who was known to be tight-fisted, refused to pay the €17 million ransom. The ransom was finally paid after the kidnappers scaled back their ambitions and an Italian newspaper received one of the teenager's ears. In 2017, Ridley Scott drew the material for a film, All the Money in the World, from this news story.

The committed survivor

In Growing Up Getty, which focuses on this dynasty, James Reginato described Aileen's childhood in Italy, the posh boarding school she attended in Britain and the rebellious adolescence that led her to alcohol and drugs. In 1981, she married Christopher Wilding, son of Elizabeth Taylor, with whom she had two children and from whom she eventually divorced. At that time, she was diagnosed HIV positive. "If it hadn't been for HIV, I would still be a victim," she explained in 1996. "Victim of my parents, of my heritage, of life." Remaining close to her former mother-in-law, she became involved with AIDS patients and the homeless while struggling to overcome her addictions, before launching herself into the fight to save the planet.