Kirsty Bertarelli is a British singer, composer, and philanthropist best known for being the wife of Swiss businessman Ernesto Bertarelli. Her husband’s family ranks sixth on the list of the UK’s wealthiest people, making her the richest lady in the country. The Bertarelli family is also ranked fourth among Switzerland’s wealthiest families. She was named Miss UK in 1988 and placed second runner-up in the Miss World pageant that same year. She is also a philanthropist who supports the Smiling Children Foundation and other causes in Switzerland. She is a trustee of the Bertarelli Foundation, which funds research projects in the biological sciences, particularly neurology, and is dedicated to conserving the Chagos Archipelago’s marine reserve. She has six studio albums and a Christmas EP to her credit as a performer, including her breakthrough album ‘Elusive.’ She wrote the smash track “Black Coffee” by All Saints.
The Ascension to Stardom
After a near-death incident in high school, Kirsty Bertarelli began focusing on her interest in creating songs. While her major ambition was to break into the music industry, she also signed up with a modeling agency, which entered her in the Miss UK pageant. She went on to win the title in 1988, qualifying for the Miss World pageant, where she was second runner-up and received a prize of £1,000. She continued to model for advertising and used a trust fund to purchase a flat in South Kensington.
She spent two years in Belgravia with casino heir Damian Aspinall during this time. She moved to London in the mid-1990s and began creating music professionally, securing a deal with Warner Records. Ernesto Bertarelli, her future husband, she met in 1997 during a dinner party on his yacht off the coast of Sardinia. ‘I Wouldn’t Want To Be’ is a song she penned to commemorate her developing passion with Ernesto. In 2000, the girl group All Saints reworked the song and released it as ‘Black Coffee’ for their second studio album, ‘Saints & Sinners.’ It was an instant hit, topping the charts in the United Kingdom and hitting the Top 10 in seven other countries.
A Career in Music
In the late 2000s, Kirsty Bertarelli, who had always wanted to be a pop singer, decided to pursue her ambition. She was signed by Universal Music after recording several of her songs for the UK-Swiss charity Smiling Children Foundation, and was lauded for her “golden voice” in the Swiss newspaper ‘Le Matin’. Her debut single, ‘Don’t Say,’ was released as a digital download on December 9, 2009. It was followed by her debut album, ‘Elusive,’ which debuted at No. 20 on the Swiss chart on January 15, 2010. ‘Elusive’ and ‘More Than Anything,’ her following two singles, were released in 2010. She later performed live at the Montreux Jazz Festival and opened for Simply Red in Edinburgh and Zürich.
Loverush UK!, Jason van Wyk, Full Intention, and Nova remixed her 2011 track “Set Your Body Free.” After the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) chose a remix of her conservation song “Green” as the anthem for their 50th year of conservation at their annual Panda Ball in 2011, she donated all proceeds from the single to the Fund’s causes. In January 2012, she acquired an exclusive music deal with Sony/ATV Music and collaborated on her tracks ‘Twilight’ and ‘Free of War’ with world-renowned trance DJ Armin van Buuren. She launched the acoustic album ‘Green’ in February 2012, and it was followed by ‘Love Is’ in 2013 and ‘Indigo Shores’ in 2014.
Personal Experiences Kirsty
Kirsty Bertarelli was born on June 30, 1971, in Stone, Staffordshire, England, as Kirsty Roper. Churchill China, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of ceramic items, was controlled by her father and his siblings. Julia is her younger sister and she is the youngest child of her parents. She grew raised in a country estate, where she learnt to ride horses and played tennis with her siblings. During the holidays, she worked in her father’s factory, which helped her keep grounded.
She was a sensitive and emotional youngster who wrote poems when she was younger. She was accepted into Howell’s School, a now-defunct independent girls residential school in north Wales. She was a good student at school, but she had to drop out after contracting bacterial meningitis, which nearly killed her. After three years of dating, she married Ernesto Bertarelli, an Italian-born Swiss businessman and philanthropist, in 2000. Chiara, Falco, and Alceo are the couple’s three children. She divides her time between their Gstaad mansion and their home on Lake Geneva’s shoreline. On her 40th birthday, her husband surprised her with the 314-foot, £100 million yacht Vava II.
Estimated Net Worth
Kirsty Bertarelli is in the finest shape of her life. With a multi-billion dollar fortune, she is England’s richest woman. She is wealthier than both J.K. Rowling and the Queen of England. Ernesto Bertarelli, her spouse, is worth a total of $12.1 billion.