More than two years after her husband, Ric Ocasek, died at the age of 75, setting off a postmortem chain of petty and vindictive estate changes, Paulina Porizkova has finally received a monetary settlement. Porizkova confirmed she settled with Ocasek’s estate while appearing on Los Angeles Magazine’s The Originals podcast on Sunday, although she wasn’t at liberty to reveal the given amount. “I know exactly how much I’m owed under New York law, how much is due to me, and I am getting it,†she explained. “The estate is settling with me. 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.†However, Porizkova disputed the widely reported claim that Ocasek’s estate was valued at only $5 million — it’s more. “I’m totally fine with inheriting a half, which I thought was mine,†she continued. “Turns out it’s not a half under New York law; it’s a third.â€
Porizkova has shared in several interviews over the past year how Ocasek, the Cars’ front man and a prolific music producer, wrote her out of his will without informing her, a decision that she called a “betrayal.†Despite the couple announcing their separation in 2017, they continued to live and attend public events together prior to his death, as well as maintain what Porizkova described as a close friendship. She was the one who discovered Ocasek’s body at their shared Gramercy Park townhouse in September 2019.
“I didn’t know how to make heads or tails out of anything,†she explained of Ocasek’s altered will on The Originals podcast. “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.†Court documents obtained by “Page Six†stated that Ocasek wrote Porizkova out of his will “because she has abandoned me†amid their divorce proceedings. The bulk of his estate will be going to his two sons shared with Porizkova, Oliver and Jonathan.