The tragic story of the Getty family, once headed by the richest man in the world, has another terrible twist after Andrew Rork Getty was found dead at his Los Angeles home on Tuesday. While the initial cause of death remains undetermined, Getty’s death is already marred in controversy after initial reports pointed to a potential homicide at the hands of an ex-girlfriend. This is but the latest brick in a wall of scandal for the Getty family, which FORBES estimated last year has a net worth of $5 billion, that includes kidnappings, mutilations, excessive drug use, and death.
Police were called to Getty’s compound in the Hollywood Hills at 2:18 p.m. by an unidentified woman, according to the LA Times, only to find his dead body. The family confirmed the death.
The mysterious woman was identified by gossip portal TMZ as Getty’s former girlfriend, who initially called 911 claiming he had suffered a heart attack. Two weeks ago Getty sought a restraining order against a woman, though it wasn’t clear whether she was the person present at the time of the police’s arrival.
Andrew Rork Getty, 47, was the son of Gordon and Ann Getty, an important member of San Francisco’s high-society and a respected philanthropist. His grandfather was J. Paul Getty, an oil baron that for many years was the richest man in the world thanks to his Getty Oil.
Details revealed by TMZ, and simply attributed to “sources,” indicated Getty had “suffered a traumatic injury to the rectal area,” adding that “paramedics found significant bleeding.”
Getty’s injuries were also reported by NBC Los Angeles.
“The family has requested that members of the media and the public respect its privacy during this extremely difficult time,” a spokesman told the LA Times.
The storied past of the Getty family is punctuated by scandal. In 1973, another grandson of J. Paul was kidnapped by Italian gangsters who asked for $17 million in ransom and threatened to send a severed finger as proof. “I have 14 other grandchildren,” Getty told his son, who was pleading for the money, “if I pay one penny now, then I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” As the negotiations dragged on, an Italian media organization received a lock of hair and J. Paul III’s ear in the mail. Getty eventually coughed up $3.4 million to buy his grandson’s freedom. Years later, J. Paul III suffered a stroke after heavy drug use in New York which left him paralyzed and practically blind for the rest of his life. Andrew Getty's father, Gordon, also made headlines for all the wrong reasons when it was revealed that the opera enthusiast and San Francisco socialite had kept a second family secret for a decade. For a complete profile of the trials and tribulations of the Gettys, see my 2014 story on the family.
