Almost two years after Cars front man Ric Ocasek died at the age of 75, his former wife, supermodel Paulina Porizkova, is detailing the ongoing, emotionally painful legal battle she’s waging against his robust estate. In a New York Times profile published over the weekend, Porizkova confirmed that she’s currently in litigation with Ocasek’s lawyers over his will, as he wrote Porizkova out of it for “abandoning me†when they initiated divorce proceedings in 2017. “He left things in a mess with the will thing,†she told the Times. “That was such a mean thing to do to us as a family because we’re a fairly close-knit family and that’s not his doing, nobody came away happy from this. Not the ones who were slighted and not the ones that supposedly won the lottery either. It just puts everybody into really awkward situations we’re still trying to figure out.†The couple, who were married for over 20 years and share two children, announced their divorce in 2017; however, they remained close friends and continued to live together. Porizkova described their divorce as “amicable,†and she was the one who discovered Ocasek’s body the morning of his death.
Elsewhere in the profile, though, Porizkova revealed that she began to feel isolated in their marriage after the birth of their two sons. “I was depressed as could be,†she explained. “I was so lonely. I felt so invisible. I didn’t feel like a woman anymore.†Ocasek, she said, “wanted something different from marriage than I did. He wanted distant companionship.†Ocasek’s estate is reportedly valued at over $5 million and includes the intellectual property of his vast music catalog. Their sons, as well as two other sons from a previous marriage, were Ocasek’s main beneficiaries. As the litigation continues, at least Porizkova is able to happily walk and talk with a new boyfriend.