Look who Page Six spotted together again: French writer Bernard-Henri Levy and brewery heiress Daphne Guinness—”in her black-and-white-striped mane and 7-inch heels”—dining at Da Silvano with the author Salman Rushdie and his date, the scandal sheet reported on Thursday.
For the past year, gossip columns and society spies have breathlessly reported every public sighting of Ms. Guinness and Mr. Levy in tandem.
The two have been friends for some time. (“You are no longer a person; you are a concept!” he once famously declared to her; a quote that is repeated regularly in profiles of Ms. Guinness.) But, lately, their public outings have become more frequent and their demeanor around each, more intimate.
Ms. Guinness was once married to Spyros Niarchos, son of Greek shipping billionaire Stavros Niarchos, but divorced in 1999. Mr. Levy remains married to French actress Arielle Dombaste, yet the close relationship between him and Ms. Guinness has become something of an open secret—known and acknowledged by all and confirmed by none.
Consider the recent profile of Ms. Guinness in the March 2009 issue of W magazine:
Guinness and Lévy’s public appearances here included a lunch in November at the Four Seasons, where Guinness made a spectacular entrance. Clad in a cloud of feathers and fur and sporting huge sunglasses, she walked a lap around the Grill Room before joining the waiting Lévy—also in dark glasses—at his banquette. A diner at a nearby table reported that the two just looked at each other for several minutes before speaking, and never doffed their sunglasses.
Asked about the relationship today, Guinness utters a demure “Gosh,” and sits silent. Her eyes flash a look, however, that seems to say, I can’t go there. She later describes herself and Lévy as “close friends.” Lévy declined to comment.
And this item in the New York Daily News from this past November:
Married French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and brewery heiress Daphne Guinness aren’t doing much to conceal their closeness. Guinness, looking smashing in a Marchesa number, was holding hands with BHL at the Election Night party hosted by Harvey Weinstein and Georgette Mosbacher. Guinness and Levy’s thing is said to have intensified at the end of the summer when his actress wife, Ariel, was off filming in Mexico. “Ariel must know what’s going on,” says a friend. “But she’s not moving out. She lives for him and she’s hoping Daphne will finally give up.”
Again, Page Six last October: “Daphne Guinness making out with Bernard-Henri Levy by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
London’s Daily Mail last May noted:
Frisky brewing heiress Daphne Guinness, 40, enjoyed a sojourn in New York recently with party-loving French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, 59, in the absence of his actress wife, Arielle. Now, I learn, the elfin Miss Guinness has met up with Mr Levy in Jerusalem. Indeed, far from the friendship cooling off, friends tell me she has even booked a suite at the swanky Hotel du Cap near Antibes for August, so she can be near Levy s villa there.
And, when the Daily News rang Mr. Levy at his hotel room last May, Ms. Guinness answered the phone!
“Bernard’s not here,” she said. Asked whether she and Levy had indeed become lovers, she politely sputtered, “Oh, crikey. This is a bit of a shock. I don’t know what to say. I never discuss my private life with anybody. Um, I have no comment.”
The thrice-married Levy, 59, did not respond to a detailed message left on his voice-mail.
A friend of his 55-year-old wife said, “This is going to destroy Arielle. She lives for him. Everything she does is for him. If he’s doing this, he should have the guts to tell her.”
