Billionaire marries 5th wife at 94

You can never be too old to find love, at least not for the fifth time. And at least not if you’re a billionaire.

This week, nonagenerian Austrian mogul Karl Wlaschek will wed his fifth bride, Rikki Schenk (who declines to give her age). Wlaschek made his $4.7 billion fortune by founding supermarket chain Billa and building a real estate empire.

So far, he has sired four children – one from each of his previous marriages — and has joked that he wants more. “I would say another five or six children, at the very least,” Wlaschek told the Vienna Times. His fiancée isn’t so sure, however. “After all, I am not so young any more,” she said. Both are widowed from their previous spouses.

Immediately, everyone who has read this  is thinking “gold digger”.

We’ll never know if that’s the motivation behind the marriage. Only the two people involved will ever know the truth behind the nuptials. If it is legitimate, and two people from very different generations are in love, then they will be faced with a lifetime (however short) of cynical comments and snarky remarks.

Chances are, however, that Friederike ‘Ricki’ Schenk, the female partner in this duo, is just going to put up with a few years of cringe-worthy sex before her husband kicks the bucket and she inherits his money. You’re probably nodding your head in agreement, your eyes narrowed like we’ve just uncovered some secret plot to ruin the world.

By billionaire standards, Wlaschek is no outlier. American business magnate Ron Perelman has already racked up five wives at age 69, having recently remarried after an acrimonious divorce from his fourth spouse, actress Ellen Barkin, in 2006. Billionaires in the second-tier four-wives club include Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, and Saudi royal Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal.