Paulina Porizkova has reached a settlement with her late husband Ric Ocasek’s estate.
While the grieving supermodel, 56, declined to reveal how much money she’ll receive after being cut out of the Cars frontman’s will, she slammed reports that he was only worth $5 million when he died in September 2019.
“You know, that’s bulls–t. Just like that,” Porizkova told Andrew Goldman in Sunday’s episode of his Los Angeles Magazine podcast, “The Originals,” which was recorded last month at her home.
When Goldman asked whether the seemingly low number was “for tax purposes,” Porizkova claimed, “Yes, it was. … In the very early days, they just had to put down a number. So they just put down a low sum, so that it wouldn’t seem like he was maybe holding away a lot of money from me? I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
She added, “I know exactly how much I’m owed under New York law, how much is due to me. And I am getting it. The estate is settling with me.”
Goldman then flat-out asked, “How much is it?” to which Porizkova responded, “That I cannot tell you, [but] I am gonna be fine. I am gonna be fine. … I settled last week. There you go. … I settled last week with the estate. They were very fair. They gave me what is mine under New York state law, and we’re done.”
She reiterated of the $5 million number, “Just know that it’s just a sum that somebody put in for some reason.”
The actress was the one who found Ocasek dead at age 75 in their $10 million Gramercy Park townhouse. The next day, she learned he’d rewritten his will weeks before and that she was cut out and had to give up her home.
“It completely sideswiped me, I had no idea. … I didn’t know how to make heads or tails out of anything,” she said on the podcast. “The shock of finding him and the grief of him being dead and then ‘Oh, guess what? You get no money. He didn’t want you to have [any] money, and he disinherited his two oldest sons.’ So, I was really messed up, and I won’t ever have the answers.”
Porizkova said Ocasek’s previous will “was the one in which I inherited everything,” which she acknowledged “wouldn’t have been fair at all” given they were going through a divorce before his death.
“I’m totally fine with inheriting a half, which I thought was mine,” she said. “Turns out it’s not a half under New York law, it’s a third.”
But she hypothesized of the musician’s last-minute alteration, “My husband had some lawyers, and he was supposed to go through surgery. … They just cobbled together a really fast, kind of stupid thing. I don’t think my husband had the brain capacity at the time to figure out what he was really doing. … He was a bit of a hypochondriac anyway. … I think he signed a piece of paper without spending a lot of time thinking about it.”
Ocasek was recovering from surgery when he died, and according to Porizkova, “Nobody expected him to die — nobody, absolutely nobody.”
The couple had been living separately in the same home when the singer died, and he’d written: “I have made no provision for my wife Paulina Porizkova … as we are in the process of divorcing. Even if I should die before our divorce is final … Paulina is not entitled to any elective share … because she has abandoned me.”
But Porizkova told Goldman that despite their living apart under the same roof, she’d remained a presence in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member’s life.
She said on the podcast of their Gramercy Park home, “It was a nice big house. … We had separate bedrooms for, like, five years at the time of his death. I felt really bad about leaving him in this big, old, empty house. … I knew he needed help. I loved him. I didn’t want him to have a hard time.”
After Ocasek’s death, Porizkova moved on with Aaron Sorkin, as Page Six exclusively revealed in April, but their relationship only lasted until July.
She clarified in Sunday’s podcast episode that an August social media post about being “blindsided” by “betrayal” was actually about another man.
“Oh, poor Aaron. No. Gosh, poor Aaron,” she told Goldman of the speculation that the playwright, 60, was the subject of her teary post. “It’s so unfair because he just happened to be my public boyfriend, and he got himself into this hole — and it’s really really not fair because he truly is, like, one of the greatest and nicest guys I’ve ever met.
“There was a different man, and I couldn’t talk about it. … Don’t ask me the details because I cannot divulge them. Was I in love before I met Aaron? Yes.”
The model also addressed her regular, highly emotional social media posts. (She’s even called herself “the crying lady of Instagram,” picking up on a fan’s moniker for her.)
“I will offer you this explanation: I am basically a writer,” she said. “And when you are a writer, you mine your own brain in order to bring it to people, and you need to find the words to explain your experience to other people. … That’s what I do. In the last two years, I’ve been overwhelmed with f–king grief and pain and just everything horrible.”
That said, Porizkova admitted there is an “element of narcissism” to her posts.
“Hell yeah! I mean, c’mon … that you are self-involved … what is happening to you seems to be the most pressing thing on your mind.”
She added of Ocasek’s death, “Two years later, everybody wants me to be over it, but I’m not.”
These days, Porizkova said she wants “to find a nice guy,” adding, “I’m not angry anymore. I’m just hurt.”
Goldman — who also covered the former Sports Illustrated cover girl’s early modeling career and allegedly stormy relationship with Tyra Banks on “America’s Next Top Model” in Sunday’s episode — has previously interviewed guests including David Chase, Connie Chung, Michael J. Fox and Paul Schrader.
