Meet Ivy Getty, the 28-year-old model and heiress to the Getty oil billions (2024)

In case you’ve been living under a rock, celebrity hounds have recently been scrutinising whether actors, models and other high-profile A-listers have only gotten where they are today thanks to their famous parents. Some celebrity kids don’t have mum and dad to thank for their showbiz careers though – instead, they can look forward to impressive inheritances.

In the case of Ivy Getty, the world may not know what her exact net worth is, as she’s a member of one of the richest – and most private – families in America. However, the Gettys’ fortune is estimated at US$5.4 million, per Forbes in 2015.

Ivy is the great-granddaughter of American oil tycoon and industrialist Jean Paul Getty, who made his fortune during the 1900s. She is also an heiress to the family’s vast fortune.

In 2021, she married photographer Tobias Engel in a ceremony officiated by Nancy Pelosi.

Here’s what we know about her life and the fortune she is set to inherit.

Ivy Getty’s great-grandfather made his first million by age 24

Jean Paul Getty, the son of oil millionaire George F. Getty, made his first million in the oil trading business by 24. By the time of his death in 1976, Jean Paul was worth around US$2 billion, or the equivalent of US$3.5 billion in 2023.

Jean Paul was also infamously known for refusing to pay his grandson’s ransom of US$17 million after he was kidnapped by individuals linked to the Italian mafia. After a newspaper received John Paul Getty III’s severed ear in the mail, Jean Paul negotiated a ransom of US$2.2 million that led to his grandson’s release five months after being captured.

Ivy is the only child of Jean Paul Getty’s grandson, John Gilbert Getty

Ivy Getty was born on December 20, 1994, in San Francisco. Her mother is jewellery designer Alyssa Boothby.

Her father, John Gilbert Getty, died at the age of just 52 on November 20, 2020, from complications of an accidental drug overdose.

“I will forever be the proudest daughter,” she wrote in a tribute to her father on Instagram after his death.

Her grandfather’s secret family

She was raised by her grandparents Ann Getty and Gordon Getty, whose net worth is currently US$2.1 billion, at the family’s famed San Francisco mansion.

Gordon, a classical-music composer and winemaker, has a net worth of US$2.1 billion, according to Forbes. He was once the sole trustee of the family trust, but the fortune was broken up into six separate trusts in 1985, with Gordon receiving US$750 million, according to The New York Times.

Ann and Gordon were married for 56 years before she died in 2020. They had four sons together, including Ivy’s father. Gordon also has three daughters from what The Guardian called “a secret second family”.

Ann and Gordon’s home in the luxe neighbourhood of Pacific Heights featured views of the San Francisco Bay and was filled with a vast collection of priceless antiques, wallpapers and furnishings.

In 2022, an enormous collection of the house’s treasures, including artworks by Henri Matisse, was slated for auction. This sale garnered US$150 million, according to Christie’s.

Ivy grew up travelling the world

Thanks to her grandmother, Ivy got to travel the globe growing up.

“Education was very important to Ann, so each year she planned educational trips for Ivy and her school friends,” Jo Schuman, Ivy’s godmother and Ann’s best friend, told Magazine C.

“They would take the Getty jet to study art in Paris, learn about animal welfare on safari in Africa, exposing Ivy to the world and learning she loved. Ivy had a very cosmopolitan upbringing.”

Ivy is a model

After attending Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, she moved to New York City to pursue a career in modelling. She is now signed with Ford Models and has had photo spreads in Town & Country magazine and Elle, according to her Instagram page, which has almost 85,000 followers.

She frequently attends high-profile events such as Paris Fashion Week and the Met Gala.

Photos from Ivy’s social-media accounts show the heiress attending Paris and Milan Fashion Week events, as well as taking extravagant holidays to Positano, Italy, and St. Moritz, a luxury alpine resort town in Switzerland.

Her star-studded wedding to Tobias Engel

In November 2021, Ivy married photographer Tobias Engel in a lavish star-studded ceremony. Ivy and Engel first met through a family member and started dating after reuniting at a Paris Fashion Week event.

“I saw this cute guy who was taking photos of the event and of me,” she told Vogue in November 2021. “I naturally went over and we started talking. Quickly we realised that we had met before, the year before.”

Engel later proposed with a sapphire engagement ring with diamonds added from a necklace once owned by Ivy’s grandmother.

For her opulent San Francisco wedding, Ivy wore a custom couture gown completely covered in broken mirror shards designed by John Galliano for Maison Margiela. Gordon, her grandfather, walked her down the aisle, and The Queen’s Gambit actress Anya Taylor-Joy served as maid of honour.

Nancy Pelosi, a Getty family friend, officiated the ceremony at San Francisco City Hall, while the reception was held at the Getty mansion. Just the cost of having the ceremony at City Hall came up to US$102,500, according to public records reviewed by The San Francisco Chronicle.

Getty and Engel live in a Manhattan penthouse, but also have a place in London

Ivy now owns multiple properties with her husband: a penthouse in Lower Manhattan, which was partially designed by her grandmother, and a flat in London. The Manhattan penthouse is their primary residence.

“Toby and I have lived so many places, and our friends are a very eclectic group,” Ivy told C Magazine, though she said that the Getty mansion in San Francisco still holds a special place in the couple’s heart.

“My grandmother interior designed each room of the house, which allows me to feel as if she is there with me,” she told Vogue in November 2021. “Her presence is everywhere in that home.”

This article originally appeared on Insider.