Zac Goldsmith to divorce from wife Alice Rothschild after 10 years of marriage

The Tory MP’s marriage to the banking heiress began in 2013

Kate Ng
Thursday 23 March 2023 09:08 GMT
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Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith and his wife Alice Rothschild, of the famous Rothschild banking dynasty, are set to separate after 10 years of marriage, it has been reported.

Goldsmith, who is a minister in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, married Rothschild in March 2013 in a short, 30-minute ceremony in the London Wetland Centre. They share three children.

A spokesperson for the couple told the Daily Mail that they “have made the difficult decision to separate”.

“[Alice and Zac] do so amicably and are committed to jointly raising their three children in a happy and healthy environment,” the spokesperson continued.

“They ask, in the interests of all the family, that the media respects their privacy.”

The Independent has contacted representatives for Goldsmith and Rothschild for comment.

The MP, 48, was previously married to Sheherazade Bentley, from 1999 to 2010. He admitted to adultery while he was still wed to Bentley shortly after becoming a Tory MP, but no mention of who he had the affair with was made in court documents.

Goldsmith, the son of Sir James Goldsmith and his third wife, Anglo-Irish aristocrat Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, is largely considered the wealthiest MP in the House of Commons. He inherited a fortune estimated to be worth £300m when his father died in 1997.

Meanwhile, Rothschild, 39, is a descendant of the Rothschild banking family of England, the most famous of all European banking dynasties. She is the daughter of Amschel Mayor James Rothschild and Anita Patience Guinness.

The former couple share nine-year-old daughter Dolly, seven-year-old son Max, and five-year-old daughter Edie.

Goldsmith was the Conservative MP for Richmond Park from 2010 to 2016 and 2017 to 2019. Although he was defeated at the 2019 general election, former prime minister Boris Johnson awarded him a life peerage, making him a member of the House of Lords and allowing him to keep his ministerial position.

He was appointed Minister of State for Asia, Energy, Climate and Environment by former prime minister Liz Truss in 2022, and later reappointed with new responsibilities for overseas territories and the Commonwealth by current prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

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