Who is Nicole Buffett and why is everybody suddenly interested in her? Is it because of what she does, who she is or, maybe, it's because of her name? Well, it's all of the above. Nicole Buffett is no ordinary mortal. Let me rephrase that. Nicole Buffet was no ordinary mortal a few years ago. Though not born into the privileged Buffett clan, her mother married one of Warren Buffett's sons, his youngest, Peter. We all know who Warren Buffet is, don't we? He's the world's richest man who recently surpassed longtime number 1 Bill Gates with an estimated wealth of about $58 billion (how many zeroes are ther in 58 billion? He he). Anyway, Peter Buffett legally adopted Nicole and her identical twin sister when their married into theBuffett family and life hasn't been the same since.
But now Nicole Buffett is an ordinary mortal, living in Berkeley by selling her artwork and working part-time in a boutique. She has no health insurance and can't even afford cable television! This is far from the comforts of life as a Buffett. Though life then was simple, in keeping with Warren Buffett's motto of simplicity and low profile, it was comfortable. What happened? Why is a Buffett grand daughter suddenly 'poor'? Well, Nicole was disowned, disowned by Warren Buffett himself and labeled as the family black sheep.
In an interview with Marie Claire magazine, Nicole Buffet reveals that she was disowned by her grandfather Warren Buffett after making the mistake of talking publicly about her low-profile family in a documentary two years ago. Warren Buffet keeps a low profile, and he wants everybody in the family to adhere to this as well. Thus, when Nicole dished out family "secrets' in 'The One Percent' two years ago, she was kicked out!
Here is an excerpt from that Marie Claire magazine interview, which details how and why Nicole Buffett was kicked out from the family, including details of the cold letter she received from 'grandpa' when she was disowned.
As a child, Nicole made regular visits to "Grandpa's" modest home in Omaha, where he still lives, purchased in 1958 for $31,500. Despite the humble digs, Nicole remembers the occasional spoils of Buffett's wealth. At Christmas, when she was 5, he gave her a crisp $100 bill from his wallet. Once, she was invited on a private tour of the See's Candies factory he owned. And twice yearly, Peter Buffett packed up his brood for a vacation at his father's compound in Laguna Beach. Nicole also remembers once tiptoeing into her grandfather's study to fetch something, careful not to disturb him while he read the Wall Street Journal. Just as she turned to slip out, Buffett cleared his throat and said, "Nicole, I just want you to know that your grandmother and I are very proud of all that you've accomplished as an artist." "It's a really big deal for him to communicate on such an emotional level," says Nicole, her eyes welling. "So it was a big deal for me."
Nicole was clueless about the scope of the Buffett fortune until she was 17, when her grandfather appeared on the cover of Forbes for having topped the magazine's annual list of the richest Americans. Her classmates nearly stampeded her at school with the news. "I called my dad, and he said, 'Yeah, Grandpa is going to be getting a lot more press, and we're going to have to get used to that. But we'll be living our lives the same way and doing what we always do,'" Nicole says.
Two years later, Nicole agreed to appear in The One Percent, a documentary by Johnson & Johnson heir Jamie Johnson about the gap between rich and poor in America. "I've been very blessed to have my education taken care of, and I have had my living expenses taken care of while I'm in school," she states on camera. None of the Buffetts, a famously press-averse bunch, had ever before appeared in so public a forum to dish about their upbringing. Though Nicole informed her father of her role in the film and he had no objections, she failed to give her grandfather a heads-up. Asked in the film how he'd react to her interview, Nicole responds, "I definitely fear judgment. Money is the spoke in my grandfather's wheel of life."
Nicole concedes that the remarks may have sounded brusque. "I meant that my grandfather is like a Formula One driver who only wants to race — he just loves the game and wants to be the best," she says. But Buffett was galled. He had for some time felt ambivalent about Nicole and her sister's claim to his fortune — though Peter had legally adopted them, he divorced their mother in 1993 and remarried three years later. To make matters worse, while plugging the film on Oprah, Nicole confessed, "It would be nice to be involved with creating things for others with that money and to be involved in it. I feel completely excluded from it."
The perceived sense of entitlement and Nicole's self-appointed role as family spokesperson prompted Buffett to tell Peter that he'd renounce her. A month later, the mega-billionaire mailed Nicole a letter in which he cautioned her about the pitfalls of the Buffett name: "People will react to you based on that 'fact' rather than who you are or what you have accomplished." He punctuated the letter by declaring, "I have not emotionally or legally adopted you as a grandchild, nor have the rest of my family adopted you as a niece or a cousin." Nicole was devastated. "He signed the letter 'Warren,'" she says. "I have a card from him just a year earlier that's signed 'Grandpa.'"
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