‘Dating a billionaire is no fun at all’: Model Jill Dodd’s story

Jill became a model at the age of 17: she simply saw an ad in a newspaper, came for a visit and got into the fashion industry. At 19, she had already settled in France, played for Vogue and Marie Claire, was on the cover of magazines, her name resonated more and more often. But Jill was not satisfied: she lacked relationships and romance.

In the summer of 1980, the agent suggests that Jill go and spend the weekend in Monte-Carlo. “Knowing that there is always a trap in the modeling profession, I asked how much the tickets and the hotel cost. She assured me that everything was free. It sounded suspicious, but I agreed. I needed a vacation,” Jill later said.

The first day the girls spent at the hotel, drinking cocktails by the pool, admiring the view and chatting with new acquaintances. And in the evening, a friend says, “We’re going to a party!” The event turned out to be luxurious: the music thundered, the night sky was lit up with a flame of five-meter bonfires, everyone around was dressed as pirates and gypsies.

Soon, Jill noticed that a strange man was watching her. He was clearly older than her, almost 20 centimeters shorter, bald and with a belly, but the girl even liked it: “I was happy that it was not someone younger with an obvious desire: to have sex with me.”

Realizing he was being seen, the man invited Jill to dance. They returned to the table together. The horseman, looking the girl in the eye, lifted his shirt sleeve and wrote in his blood on Dodd’s forearm: “I love you.” “Apparently he cut himself breaking his glasses. I didn’t know who it was, but I really loved it,” Jill recalled.

The next day, she is told that she spent the evening with Adnan Khashoggi, a 44-year-old Saudi tycoon who made his fortune in the arms trade. Adnan was then considered one of the richest people in the world.

Jill also made a strong impression on the billionaire: he invited the girl to meet on his yacht Nabila, an expensive toy that cost 80 million dollars. The ship didn’t just have a helipad: there was room for a cinema, a dance hall, a hospital and even… a morgue. In 1983, Khashoggi borrowed the Nabila for the filming of the James Bond film Never Say Never, a few years later it was bought by the Sultan of Brunei, then by Donald Trump.

Jill and Adnan talked all night. Khashoggi has told how he started selling Chevrolet trucks and Caterpillar tractors and made his first million at 17-year-old Jill – how she accidentally got into the modeling business and became successful. Khashoggi didn’t even try to kiss the girl, even though he clearly liked her. This finally won Jill over.

For several weeks, an equally chaste courtship continued: the billionaire took the girl to a restaurant and gave her flowers, not demanding anything in return. And then came the proposal: Khashoggi asked Jill to become his wife. Or rather “one of”: according to the law, a man can have three legal wives and 11 temporary wives. Jill offered him the role of the latter. “We won’t kiss until you agree,” Khashoggi explained, and Dodd said yes.

Within a year and a half of dating, Jill became Adnan’s first temporary wife. The model and the billionaire were sincerely attached to each other, and rumors swirled that Dodd would soon become Khashoggi’s official second wife. But Jill again suffered from dissatisfaction: the fairy tale was not at all as beautiful as she had hoped.

“At first, wealth seemed new, strange and intriguing. But over time, I got used to it,” says Jill. Once in Kenya, Adnan tried to offer her a ring with a 20-carat diamond, but the girl refused – she considered jewelry too expensive and provocative. But over time, Dodd noticed that Khashoggi’s other wives wore such jewelry and followed suit.

“I ate meals prepared by the chef. I was transported in limos and private jets. Gradually, I started craving this lifestyle, even when I was away from Adnan,” the woman recalls. Jill did not give up her career: she continued to work as a model in order to remain independent of her husband. In addition, she dreamed of becoming a fashion designer and returned to California to enroll in design school. But Jill could no longer live as before: she was attracted to luxury.

“I was looking for excuses to dine in a gastronomy. None of my friends could afford it, so a friend who works as a doctor kept me company. I wore haute couture and ate by candlelight in dimly lit dining rooms where tables were covered with white linen tablecloths and waiters in tailcoats waited on customers. I got carried away and didn’t understand what was happening to me,” says Jill.

A year later, the girl felt anxious: she began to catch herself thinking that she was becoming like Adnan, who was always on the lookout for new expensive toys. Jill has always wanted to achieve her goals through hard work, but now that everything has fallen into her hands, that principle has faded and lost its importance. It seemed to Jill that there was a void in her soul that couldn’t be filled: “When you have endless options, it starts to seem like none are right for you. »

During her marriage to Khashoggi, Jill was interested in five different religions at the same time, studied martial arts, learned French, worked as a model, attended college and partied, and spent her evenings in the harem of the one of the most powerful people in the world. the world. She took drugs, sought out psychics and hypnotherapists, and suffered from an eating disorder. Jill literally went crazy for the opportunities that came her way.

Adnana Jill had no doubts about love: they spent all their free time together. But when the model returned to Los Angeles, the situation changed. Other women flashed around the billionaire. Dodd didn’t see them as rivals: the girls seemed uneducated and desperate to him, some of them sitting heavily on cocaine. I’m not like them, Dodd thought.

And then, during a concert in Las Vegas, one of Hoshaggi’s mistresses showed him Adnan’s recent gift. “Exactly the same ring as mine!” It was like a punch in the stomach, after which I started to see things for what they really were. For us, it was the beginning of the end,” says Jill.

Dodd and Khashoggi separated in the summer of 1982, shortly after that night in Las Vegas. No paperwork was needed – they didn’t make a deal and there was nothing to terminate. The breakup was amicable: the model and the tycoon remained friends and called back for several more years. In 1989, Jill founded the popular sportswear brand Roxy and became a successful business owner. She got married – this time to an ordinary man without a harem – and gave birth to a son.

Jill is now 61 years old. “Trying to achieve happiness through wealth is like chasing after your own shadow. I realized that there is no amount that would make a person feel whole and satisfied. Peace cannot be found in things, status or money. Peace can only be found within yourself, and getting there is a very personal journey,” she says.

Photo: Getty images, social networks