Billionaire oil tycoon accused of brutally dumping girlfriend bought a $30m NYC penthouse…while claiming he couldn’t support her because of ‘cash flow,’ lawsuit claims – now he’s calling out her ‘greed’

DAILYMAIL.COM • 3h ago

By MARY O’CONNOR and EMILY CRANE 17:02 09 Oct 2026, updated 19:07 09 Oct 2026

A billionaire oil tycoon accused of brutally dumping his girlfriend for a society maven quietly snapped up a $30 million New York City penthouse just months after the break-up – despite insisting he couldn’t support his ex due to ‘cash flow issues,’ a lawsuit claims.

Sid Bass, 84, had allegedly promised his scorned partner, Oona Sperr, a $50 million lump sum payment when he abruptly called it quits on their decade-long relationship back in September 2024, according to court papers filed last month.

But Sperr, 64, alleges in her bombshell suit that Bass, who has an estimated net worth of $4.6 billion, quickly reneged on his promise due to apparent money woes.

When Sperr questioned Bass about his decision to walk back the initial alleged offer, her suit states, the Texas native told her ‘he could not afford a $50 million lump-sum payment because of “cash flow issues.”‘

Now Bass and his new wife have asked a judge to dismiss Sperr’s lawsuit with prejudice, with Sid accusing his ex of spinning a ‘tabloid-ready narrative’ that was ‘driven by her own vindictiveness and greed.’

‘Within days of learning that Mr. Bass had married Mrs. Bass, Plaintiff apparently decided she wanted more – more specifically, at least $400 million – and that she was willing to file a complaint full of baseless allegations to get it,’ he raged in papers filed late Thursday night with his motion to dismiss.

Sperr alleged in her filing that Bass, who had then already moved on with socialite Althea Irene Viafora Kress, now his wife, proposed a ‘maintenance agreement’ in which he would give Sperr annual $5 million payments over a ten-year term.

Her lawsuit claims Sperr found the explanation that Bass could not afford their alleged agreement ‘impossible to credit.’

Despite the alleged cash-strapped excuse, Sperr’s suit claimed Bass quickly went on to snap up a two-story penthouse in one of Manhattan’s most exclusive buildings.

Property records reviewed by the Daily Mail show Bass purchased the 5,200sq ft penthouse on the Upper East Side – complete with views of Central Park and Manhattan’s skyline – for a cool $30 million.

Bass, who tied the knot with Kress on his private Texas island last August, purchased the swanky digs through a trust in March of last year before transferring it into his and his new wife’s names a year later, the records show.

Sperr tried to poke further holes in her ex’s ‘cash flow’ claims, arguing in her suit that Bass and Kress continue to indulge in a lavish lifestyle.

‘Multiple persons have reported that Viafora Kress took him on a big trip to Europe, including Paris, where he was seen and is rumored to have spent millions of dollars and, on information and belief, has spent more since Viafora Kress entered his life than he spent during his entire decade-plus relationship with Oona,’ the court filing states.

‘The contrast is extraordinary: the same man who claimed to lack the “cash flow” to honor his obligations to Oona suddenly had millions available to finance Viafora Kress’s extravagance.’

Bass is currently ranked 380th on Forbes’ 2026 list of America’s wealthiest people. His fortune has grown to $4.3 billion this year – up from $3.6 billion in 2025, according to Forbes.

In addition to the money complaints, Sperr’s lawsuit alleged that her relationship with Bass only started to crumble after Kress, 68, spent two years grooming him.

Bass was a heavy drinker who had suffered three mini-strokes and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease by the time he dumped Sperr, according to her lawsuit.

A blindsided Sperr accused Kress of manipulating Bass and taking advantage of his alleged cognitive decline to embark on a relationship with him.

Hitting back at Sperr’s ‘offensive’ and ‘unsubstantiated’ allegations of his diminished mental capacity, Bass claimed in his filing that Sperr allegedly still had him as her power of attorney and healthcare proxy.

His motion accuses his ex of filling her complaint with ‘distracting details clearly intended to damage the reputations of Mr. and Mrs. Bass in the hope of leveraging a settlement.’

Despite their relationship ending, Bass, still ‘lived up to his upstanding reputation’ and offered Sperr ‘cash and other valuable benefits,’ as well as continued residence in his multi-million-dollar townhouse, according to his latest motion.

He wrote how, during their ten-year relationship, Sperr received a $250,000 annual salary, lived ‘rent-free in multiple luxury residences,’ had her expenses and credit-card bills paid and received ‘valuable and sentimental’ jewelry plus paid healthcare for her and her mother.

Kress filed her own motion this week seeking to have her name changed throughout the court papers to reflect her married name: Althea Irene Viafora Bass.

In filings accompanying Thursday’s motion to dismiss, Althea Bass’s lawyers likened Sperr’s complaint to the type of ‘heart balm’ claims New York banned almost a century ago, ‘recognizing that lawsuits by purportedly heartbroken lovers “are commonly the vehicle for fraud and extortion.”

‘And that’s precisely what this lawsuit is,’ her lawyer wrote in the papers.

Dismissing Sperr’s allegations as ‘false,’ the third Mrs Bass hit back at Sperr’s apparent portrayal of her as a homewrecker who pursued the octogenarian for his oil billions.

‘Althea and Sid’s friendship—not money—formed the basis for their future romance,’ her filings added.

She claimed her 40-year friendship with Sid ‘deepened’ after he supported her following her mother’s 2019 death and her own skin cancer battle in 2024.

According to her, Bass later invited her to his Colorado ranch, where they embarked on a romantic relationship that culminated in their August 2025 wedding on his private island.

‘This is the story of a couple that married after decades of friendship forged through common interests,’ Avi Weitzman, Althea Bass’s attorney, told the Daily Mail.

‘It’s not the salacious telenovela described in the complaint, but the quiet romance described in our brief has the advantage of being supported by facts.’

Bass allegedly informed Sperr of his nuptials via a six-line email fired off two weeks after the ceremony, her lawsuit claims.

The email, which Sperr claims to have reproduced in full in her lawsuit, was the final nail in the coffin of what she described as being a ‘loving’ and ‘committed’ decade-long relationship.

Bass’s lawyers argue in his new motion that, because New York law does not recognize common-law marriage, Sperr was attempting to disguise her ‘palimony’ claim as a breach-of-contract dispute.

But Bass insists no valid contract existed because the couple never married and he signed no written agreement guaranteeing the financial support Sperr claims she was promised.

Separately, the Daily Mail has learned that Bass also quietly filed a petition in Texas seeking clarification that he and Sperr were not in a common-law marriage – just days before he was hit with legal papers from her.

In that petition, Bass, who is referred to only as B.R.S., claimed he never agreed to marry Sperr and neither of them made out that they were husband and wife during their decade together.

He then went on to allege that, as time has gone by, Sperr’s ‘demands have become more dramatic and untethered to reality.’

Bass claimed, too, that Sperr’s attorney had allegedly threatened to file a ‘disparaging lawsuit against him and his wife’ unless he met her financial demands.

Sperr’s alleged threats also involved seeking a clarification that Bass and Sperr were common-law married, which could ultimately void his new marriage, the billionaire’s earlier Texas petition stated.

Just days after Sperr filed her suit seeking $400 million, Bass voluntarily dismissed his motion in the Lone Star state.

Sperr described in her suit how she had first met Bass in the summer of 1995 in Italy while he was still married to his second wife, socialite Mercedes Tavacoli Kellogg Bass.

‘That early moment of connection in Italy would grow into a loving partnership that would come to define the next decade of their lives,’ her filing stated.

When Bass and Mercedes divorced in 2011, according to Sperr’s suit, Mercedes was handed an undisclosed lump sum, annual allowances, a Texas estate and an apartment on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.

Her lawsuit went a step further to detail how Bass was infamously caught cheating on his first wife, Anne Hendricks Bass, with Mercedes in Paris in 1988.

Anne, the mother of his two children, was given between $200 million and $500 million in the wake of the high-profile split, Sperr claimed in her suit.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Bass and Sperr for comment.

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