A father of three wholeheartedly loved and cared for his children from the moment they entered his life. He had never doubted that he wasn’t related to them until the day his doctor revealed something deeply shocking and heartbreaking.
The news hit him like a sledgehammer. But that couldn’t be, right? He was a devoted father to his three sons and really wasn’t given any reason to believe that they weren’t actually his. Unfortunately, though, this businessman would come to realize that his whole life was basically one big lie. But now that he knew, what was he going to do about it?
He was going to make her pay.
55-year-old Richard Mason is a businessman and millionaire from the United Kingdom. He was also co-founder of a successful British price comparison website called MoneySupermarket.com. During that time, Richard was married to then-wife, Kate.
They met while working at a branch of a bank in the ’80s. Together, they share three sons (or so Richard thought).
Richard divorced his first wife Kate in 2008 after having three sons, a now 23-year-old and a pair of 19-year-old twins, according to the Daily Mail.
During the legal proceedings of their divorce, Kate demanded that Richard provide her with a large lump sum of money. He ultimately agreed to pay her $5 million, which would include whatever money she needed to help their sons out with school and other expenses. But for years, she continued to bug him for more money and he wasn’t sure why.
Despite divorcing in 2008, Richard didn’t learn about Kate’s deep, dark secret until 2016. Apparently, she had kept something from him throughout their marriage, and he didn’t even realize she had any secrets until he went to the doctor to get a routine check-up.
Richard, who is now remarried, only recently discovered that he was infertile while trying to start a family with his new wife. His entire life came crashing down in 2016 when the UK businessman was trying to expand his family with his second wife, Emma, and had no luck.
During that time, Richard went to the doctor for what he thought was chest pain due to pleurisy he’d been suffering from for a year. Richard’s sister died from cystic fibrosis in 1989, but he when he was tested for the disease in the ’80s, he was given the all-clear. During this appointment, however, he received a different diagnosis that both altered his quality of life and drastically changed his family.
“The consultant sat us down in his office and broke it to me as Emma sat by my side,” Richard explained. “He said, ‘I’m really sorry to tell you, Richard, that you’ve got cystic fibrosis.'”
“I was stunned — my initial reaction was ‘F*ck no!’ because my sister had died of this and my younger sister’s also very ill,” Richard said.
Now, according to AWM, the 55-year-old businessman sued his ex-wife, Kate Mason, demanding the $5.8 million she was awarded in their 2008 divorce settlement.
He also wanted the paternity fraud investigated, although it’s unclear how.
She agreed to settle on the condition that she did not have to name the children’s biological father.
Roger Terrell, Richard Mason’s counsel, told the Telegraph: “I think it was the major reason for her settling. I was shocked and surprised that she settled, I thought we were going to have a very acrimonious court battle. We were confident that we would get a court order whereby the ex-wife, the mother of the children, would have to name the father. She didn’t want to name the father – why, we don’t know – that is why she came to a financial settlement and in the settlement, she did not have to name the father.”
Mason stated that he wanted the biological father to come forward, but a source “close to the family” maintained that the kids are not interested in knowing their biological father.
Friends of the couple were shocked by Mason’s public statements about his ex-wife, with one stating: “I assume the natural father, whoever he is, has not made any contact and no doubt doesn’t even know they exist.”
Watch the video below for more details:
Sources: OpposingViews, Fox News, Daily Mail
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