That diamonds are a woman's best friend is something that Marilyn Monroe made very clear to us. But nowadays, they have also become a headache for businesses due to the fall in prices and the rise of synthetic diamonds.
For this reason, DeBeers, which has monopolized the global supply of these stones since its foundation in 1888, has announced the closure of the Venetia mine in South Africa. Considered the country's largest producer, this measure has been taken because natural diamond sales fell by over 30% between 2022-2024 due to the emergence of lab-grown synthetics.
The Oppenheimer family, with a fortune of $10.6 billion, sold DeBeers in 2011 to Anglo American, in charge of this new restructuring.
For decades, movie stars, socialites, aristocrats, and royalty have been the best showcases to display some of the most fabulous diamonds of all time.
The top spot would be held by Elizabeth Taylor, who, after Queen Elizabeth II, owned the most important private jewelry collection in the world. It was Richard Burton who bid against Onassis to buy the fabulous 69.42-carat pear-shaped Cartier diamond for $1.05 million in 1969. The diamond has gone down in history as the Taylor-Burton, and Elizabeth auctioned it off to help fund her sixth husband's campaign, Senator John Warner, in the 1970s.
It was also the Welsh actor who gifted her with her second most ostentatious ring, the Krupp diamond, a unique 33.19-carat piece that Taylor never took off her finger. It had belonged to Vera Krupp, the wife of a German industrialist who collaborated with the Nazis, so when it went up for auction, Elizabeth told the press, "Don't you think it would be perfect for me, a pretty Jewish girl?" (she had converted to Judaism after her fourth marriage to singer Eddie Fisher). Burton acquired it in 1968 for $307,000.
The social buzz was so intense that when the actress attended an event where Princess Margaret was present, the princess told the star of Cleopatra (1963): "Oh, how vulgar!". Taylor offered to let her try it on, and the sister of Queen Elizabeth II stared at it in awe, to which the star replied, "Doesn't it look less vulgar now?".
Once again, Onassis stepped in to acquire a significant piece in 1968 for his fiancée, Jackie Kennedy. The Greek tycoon opted for the Lesotho III, a 40.42-carat marquise-cut diamond that when the former first lady passed away in 1994, was auctioned for $2.58 million.
The fact that Prince Rainier III was mesmerized by Grace Kelly when he first saw her is part of history. To propose to her in 1956, he gave her a second Cartier diamond ring of 10.47 carats that experts valued at four million dollars. As Grace was filming her last movie, High Society (1956), the producers decided to incorporate the piece as part of the character's accessories. When Celeste Holm, her co-star, saw it, she exclaimed, "Wow, it looks like an ice rink!"
In 2012, socialite and philanthropist Lily Safra, widow of billionaire Edmund Safra, auctioned off a 34.05-carat solitaire for $5.1 million. The total sum of her pieces amounted to $37 million, which were distributed among 20 charitable organizations.
Mariah Carey is one of the singers who proudly owned one of the largest rings in music. In January 2016, billionaire James Packer proposed to her with a 35-carat emerald-cut diamond ring valued between $7.5 and $10 million. The artist kept the ring after they separated later that year and, as reported, sold it in 2018 to a jeweler in Los Angeles for $2.1 million.
Someone who can boast of a good jewelry collection, even after the major robbery in Paris, is Kim Kardashian, to whom Kanye West, from whom she is now divorced, gifted a 20-carat ring of emerald cut by Lorraine Schwartz valued at $20 million.