A Made in Chelsea star has sued his childhood father figure’s widow for £5million after he left her most of his £38million fortune.
Lonan O’Herlihy, known as the ‘Posh PT’, was left out of the will of his mother’s ex-boyfriend, Hugh Taylor.
Mr Taylor was a property dealer as well as a renowned car and plane collector, who left behind a £38million estate following his death in 2019.
His estate includes a World War II Hawker Hurricane aircraft, classic cars and high-end properties – most of which were left to his wife Jennifer Taylor in his 2015 will.
O’Herlihy’s mother Pamela was in a ‘committed romantic relationship’ with multi-millionaire Mr Taylor between 1995 and 2003.
Mr O’Herlihy, who featured on series eight of Made In Chelsea alongside Spencer Matthews and Binky Felstead, has claimed Mr Taylor was a ‘father figure’ to him as a child.
The 36-year-old grew up with the property dealer in his Tudor manor home, and Mr Taylor also paid for his private school fees and university education, the High Court heard.
And even after his mother and the millionaire split, the personal trainer maintained a close relationship with Mr Taylor, who gave him ‘extravagant birthday gifts’, including a £40,000 Audi and a £5,000 watch.
Now the reality TV star has been accused of drawing up a ‘wish list of greed’ after suing Mr Taylor’s widow Jennifer, for a £5million share of his estate.
However, the reality TV star says he was slowly ‘cut out’ of Mr Taylor’s life after he wed Jennifer in 2010, and that she did not allow him to attend his funeral nine years later.
The personal trainer says he needs the money so that he can maintain a lifestyle he had become accustomed to under the millionaire’s care, and that his current finances are ‘precarious’.
However, lawyers representing the widow have argued that his claim is ‘a wish list of greed’, and have lambasted the Knightsbridge personal trainer’s bid, who previously boasted of his celebrity clientele as ‘opportunistic’.
Mr Taylor left behind a net estate worth £38,540,357, including the proceeds of his Grade I-listed Tudor mansion in Gloucestershire, initially purchased for £3.15million in 1997, the court heard.
The property dealer had been in a ‘committed romantic relationship’ with the personal trainer’s mother for eight years, with whom Lonan and his brother Rogan lived as a ‘family unit’.
‘Hugh was a father to me, and I was a son to him,’ Mr O’Herlihy told the court, while his barrister argued that the multimillionaire assumed ‘parental responsibility’ for the personal trainer and had maintained him financially until the age of 22 or 23.
‘He gave Lonan every reason to expect continued support in a career in real estate,’ said the barrister. ‘Lonan made important life choices, including his university studies, in reliance upon those assurances.’
Should someone be entitled to millions just for being treated like family as a child?
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Mr Taylor had paid him a monthly allowance of £500 until 2012, gave him his first car in 2006, a £5,000 watch for his 18th birthday, as well as a £40,000 Audi for his 21st in 2010, the barrister said.
‘Hugh’s considerable wealth derived principally from dealings in real estate,’ he continued.
‘He discussed his business interests frequently with Lonan and promised that Lonan would assume management of various parts of the empire with a view to inheritance of the whole.’
The barrister added that there is a ‘marked contrast’ between the lifestyle Lonan was raised to expect and his present financial precarity. The reality TV star owes over £150,000 in debts and has no capital assets.
Mr O’Herlihy worked as a personal trainer in Knightsbridge, boasting celebrity clients including Ed Westwick, who played bad boy Chuck Bass in the TV show ‘Gossip Girl’.
A graduate of both Malvern College and Oxford Brookes University, where he studied real estate, Mr O’Herlihy has also appeared as cover star in Men’s Fitness magazine.
There is ‘considerable hostility’ between Jennifer and Mr O’Herlihy, his barrister added, as the parties disagree on the nature of Mr Taylor’s ‘loving and close’ relationship with the personal trainer.
Richard Wilson KC, for the widow, however, said the Made In Chelsea star’s claim was ‘opportunistic’ and should be refused, highlighting a specific list Mr O’Herlihy had sent to her.
It included a £3million property in Queen’s Gate Place, South Kensington, a 1969-70 Mercedes 280SL Pagoda worth £250,000, a Patek Philippe watch, a Melehior D’hondecoeter painting and £800,000 for the purchase of an investment property, he said.
‘This is not a claim for reasonable provision for his maintenance,’ he continued. ‘It is his wish list of greed – houses, cars, watches, this is a world away from reasonable provision.
‘His approach seems to be: this is a large estate, let’s give Mr O’Herlihy a big chunk of it.
‘The claimant’s claim is truly fanciful. It is inconceivable that he would be awarded upon a claim for reasonable financial provision for his maintenance capital assets in excess of £5m, including two properties, a classic car, a luxury watch and a painting. These have nothing to do with the claimant discharging the costs of his daily living.
‘Even if he were making more modest demands, the claim would be hopeless because, on any analysis, the claimant does not have any need for maintenance.
‘The claimant is 36 years old, university educated, in good health, independent, earns circa £70,000pa net of tax, is without any dependants and should have good future earning prospects.
‘Even if one accepts the claimant’s case that he was, for a period, a “child of the family”, this relationship ended in 2002 – some 17 years before the deceased’s death – when the deceased and Mrs O’Herlihy separated.’
He also insisted that Mr Taylor had ‘disavowed’ any obligations to financially maintain Mr O’Herlihy in a 2012 email.
‘In 2015, the deceased made his last valid will, leaving his estate to his wife, Mrs Taylor,’ he told the judge.
‘This was a deliberate and reasonable choice for the deceased to make in the circumstances.
‘The deceased’s wishes are a proper factor to take into account, and there is no proper basis to interfere with them.’
Mr O’Herlihy is seeking permission to bring his claim out of time on the basis that he didn’t have the knowledge or financial means to lodge a claim within the usual six-month deadline after Mr Taylor’s death.
Mr Wilson argued that permission ought not to be granted, describing it as ‘the flimsiest of claims’.
‘It is also brought well out of time, following a substantial delay and after the estate has been distributed,’ he added:
‘And there is no good reason for the claimant having failed to bring it sooner.’
The hearing continues.
