Ginger Spice’s ex-fiancé owes $40K for rent on Manhattan pad: suit
Editor’s note: The case was dropped against Politi in April. Politi says he’s settled up on the rent — adamantly arguing that a bank mixup resulted in the lapse.
Spice Girl Geri Halliwell’s ex-fiancé has been accused in a new lawsuit of skipping out on eight months of rent at his posh Manhattan pad.
Fabrizio Politi — who was briefly engaged to Halliwell, aka Ginger Spice, in 2009 — owes nearly $40,000 on a fully furnished apartment in a historic building called the Essex House at Central Park South and West 59th Street, his landlord, Cyril Heffesse, alleged in the Manhattan Supreme Court suit.
Politi, a “jet-setting, self-proclaimed entrepreneur,” signed a one-year lease for a unit at the luxury building on Dec. 2, 2021 — but “stopped paying rent completely” after just three months of living there, according to the suit, filed Saturday.
An Italian citizen who lives in Luxembourg, Politi paid the $4,950 rent from December 2021 through March 2022. Despite promising in November 2022 “that he would make good on the unpaid rent, citing a purported mix-up with his bank,” he never paid again, the filing claims.
Meanwhile, Politi was seen in Instagram posts enjoying a “seemingly lavish lifestyle as a globe-trotting CEO and entrepreneur” of his Manhattan-based company United Free Inc. — which is also named as a defendant in the suit, the court papers show.
Politi “gallivanted in New York City, promoting himself and his local business interests, rent free,” the suit charges.
Heffesse, of California, is suing for the unpaid rent totaling $39,600, plus interest.
Politi told The Post the suit is “incorrect and exaggerated.”
He said he set up automatic payments for rent which stopped going through without him realizing until the landlord let him know he was behind on payments in November – “a few days before the end of the contract.”
“I didn’t check the payments because I didn’t come to [New York] anymore and I didn’t use the apartment and I couldn’t check the bank account because during the pandemic the bank blocked online access to all non-US residents,” he claimed.
Politi also said he flew to New York to sort the issue out and kept the landlord and broker in the loop while he tried to get it resolved.
A few days before the suit was filed, Politi told his landlord and broker that “the checks were almost completed and in a few days we would have closed this story,” he said.
Politi was engaged to Halliwell, 50, for three months after meeting at a nightclub in December 2008 and announcing their plan to tie the knot just weeks later.
The Italian proposed with a $350,000 engagement ring, but Halliwell got cold feet a few months later, calling off the nuptials in March 2009.
Politi has posted three photos of himself and Halliwell on his Instagram account — two of which were from this month.
