A ladies’ man, a horse lover, a famous perfumer… There is no shortage of words to describe Jean-Paul Guerlain, the man capable of distinguishing more than 3,000 olfactory nuances. Its top-of-the-range nose has helped perpetuate the Guerlain lineage, whose house was founded on rue de Rivoli in Paris in 1828, by the chemist and explorer Pierre François Pascal Guerlain. Only here it is: for fifteen years now, chaos and dissension punctuate the daily life of the family, so much so that it is now torn apart in a series of merciless legal battles.
It all started in 2005, when Jean-Paul Guerlain met Christina Kragh Michelsen at a horse racing event, a center of interest shared by the two protagonists. Very quickly, they fell in love with each other… And moved together two years later, in 2007, to the Domaine de Mesnuls (Yvelines), the family property of the Guerlains. While Christina expresses her desire to marry Jean-Paul, a member of the family strongly opposes it: Stéphane Guerlain, the perfumer’s only son born from a previous union with Monique de Barral de Montauvrard. Tensions are created within the family, so that Stéphane suspects his mother-in-law of having the motivation to get their hands on the Guerlain heritage.
Suspicions reinforced in 2012, when Christina went to an art dealer to sell him a painting by Eugène Delacroix. The gallery owner, acquaintance of the Guerlain family, recognizes the property of Jean-Paul, then suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and warns Stéphane that a woman has come to meet him to sell it to him. A year later, Jean-Paul’s only son applied for reinforced curatorship for his father, while his state of health worsened. Five years later, in 2018, he becomes his legal guardian and thus has control of all the family’s assets.
While Jean-Paul Guerlain’s companion still lives at the estate, Stéphane accuses him of isolating his father by manhandling the domestic workers who end up resigning, one by one. Christina, in return, criticizes Stéphane for abandoning the family property and neglecting the needs of the couple, giving them only 120 euros a month to live on…
In the columns of BFMTV, Christina Kragh Michelsen’s lawyer, Maître Bélot, recounts the living conditions that would be imposed on the couple by Stéphane Guerlain.
“In winter, there is no heating, Mr. Guerlain spent the whole period with a blanket on his knees and an oil bath heater next to him (…) There is mold in all the rooms, the gutters are not maintained, there are even trees growing in some rooms… The rooms are condemned, the boxes are closed (…) Jean-Paul Guerlain lives in a situation of destitution” , summarizes the lawyer.
In addition, the refrigerator would be constantly empty, while Stéphane would only give the couple 120 euros per month to live on, medical expenses included. Among the handrails filed against Stéphane, a complaint for attempted murder…
Jean-Paul Guerlain’s companion has multiplied the handrails against Stéphane, denouncing “mockery”, “death threats”, “insults” and “harassment”. The woman also filed a complaint for “attempted murder”, claiming that Stéphane tried to run him over with his car. These facts were reclassified as “aggravated violence” by justice. On eight occasions, Christina tried to obtain the guardianship of the perfumer, in The filing of a marriage file adds fuel to the fire within the Guerlain family…
In addition to the eight requests for a change of guardianship for her companion, all refused, Christina Kragh Michelsen has filed a marriage file with the court of Versailles. Case that was quashed once, then appealed again. During the hearing, Jean-Paul Guerlain repeats, regardless of the question asked, the same phrase in a loop, symptomatic of his declining health: “I want to get married”.