The skeletal appearance of Athina Onassis adds yet another layer to the enigma surrounding her life. Almost all information about her remains tightly sealed from the public eye. Aside from a few scattered reports about her equestrian or business activities, Athina lives a life of near-total seclusion, wrapped in a private, almost agoraphobic world.

This is why any new photo or public appearance is open to interpretation. Every theory about her condition is both plausible and unfounded—no one close to her seems willing to confirm or deny the growing rumors.

Is she suffering from a pathological eating disorder, or is her visible weight loss the result of a strict fitness and dietary regime, perhaps in preparation for a return to competitive equestrian sport? After all, peak maturity for elite show jumpers often comes between the ages of 35 and 40. And Athina turned 40 just this past January.

A Rare Public Appearance

If she were facing any health issue—physical, mental, or psychosomatic—how could her public appearance on March 11, 2025, be explained? That evening she attended a high-society event in Paris: a gala dinner for the Friends of the Centre Pompidou, a major international cultural institution. The event, predictably covered by the global press, sparked another wave of speculation about Athina—especially as she typically avoids such occasions.

And yet, there she was, smiling, posing with three VIP friends. A striking contradiction to her longstanding habit of appearing solemn or neutral in photographs—unless she was caught mid-action in a competition, where she competed professionally for years.

Though she bears one of the world’s most famous surnames, it’s exceedingly rare to find photos where her expression goes beyond a faint, formal smile.

A Late Resemblance to Christina

Athina’s appearance at the Pompidou wasn’t the first time her physical transformation drew attention. Back in October 2024, she was captured in a rather unflattering portrait—pale, with long brown hair and pronounced cheekbones—in a photo that resembled a passport or, worse, a mugshot.

That image surfaced around the time she joined the board of directors of the French supermarket chain Groupe Casino as a shareholder and executive, tasked with some loosely defined role in corporate social responsibility.

Still, her transformation appears to have begun even earlier. A 2021 photo shows her standing beside Greek-Americans Yianna Darilis and her husband George Psipsikas during a lavish wedding reception in Monte Carlo. It was the celebration of Lebanese shipping heir Sami Zayn’s marriage to Lauren van Berkel, a fellow equestrian and friend of Athina.

Even back in 2018, Athina seemed disengaged, photographed at a wedding in Spain with a vacant expression. But now, the changes are even more visible in her face—its shape appears altered, her eyes especially reminiscent of her mother’s.

Not quite—at least not yet—do they convey the desperation and sorrow that marked Christina Onassis’s later years, before her untimely death at just 39. Athina was only three years old when she lost her mother in 1988.

The Shadow of the Past

It’s hard not to draw parallels between mother and daughter—especially as whispers about Athina’s health intensify. The so-called “Onassis curse,” the unhappiness that seems to follow immense wealth, the tragic string of deaths that wiped out the once-mighty dynasty—these form a compelling narrative. But this isn’t fiction. These are real people.

Of course, no amount of myth-making determines the future. Whatever happened to her grandfather Aristotle, her mother Christina, or her uncle Alexander—who died at 24 in a plane crash in 1973—doesn’t seal Athina’s fate. Coincidentally, she was born exactly 12 years and 6 days after Alexander’s death.

Divorce and Decline

According to the International Federation for Equestrian Sports, Athina Onassis is still listed as an active competitor, although her last official competition was on January 27, 2023, in Spain. She is also reportedly the owner of a stud farm in Valkenswaard, Netherlands, near Eindhoven. Over the years, she has lived in Belgium, the U.S., and Brazil.

Her greatest passion remains horses and equestrian sport. Besides riding and owning purebred show horses, she’s a major sponsor of events like the Global Champions Tour and the Athina Onassis International Horse Show—an event that even brought her to Athens in 2007, despite her aversion to visiting Greece.

Indeed, she has long viewed Greece as a place shadowed by family tragedy, which is why she sold the legendary island of Skorpios to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for €110 million. Even so, Athina continues to compete under the Greek flag and represented Greece at the 2013 European Show Jumping Championships and later at the World Championships.

Betrayal and Loss

Any narrative about fate and misfortune inevitably includes the only man she has ever been publicly involved with: Brazilian show jumper Álvaro de Miranda Neto. The two were married from 2005 to 2017, when their contentious divorce finally came through.

It was later revealed that Álvaro had been unfaithful for most of their marriage—maintaining at least one long-term affair for 8 of their 11 years together. He reportedly demanded an outrageous financial settlement in exchange for granting the divorce. Eventually, a Belgian court ruled against him, stating that he was not entitled to a share of Athina’s fortune—estimated at around $270 million—nor the €11 million in alimony or a trust fund of €350,000 per month.

What was actually agreed upon in their out-of-court settlement remains known only to them and their legal teams. But from 2016 onwards, Athina seemed deeply wounded—by Álvaro’s betrayal, her father’s estrangement, and the death of her beloved mare, Ad Camille Z-Zang, following a fall during a competition in December 2014.

A timeline of her photos over the last decade would serve as visual evidence of Athina Onassis’s gradual decline.

And today, with every rare public sighting, the questions only multiply.