Episode notes
Dubbed the richest girl in the world, tobacco heiress Doris Duke inherited a fortune worth well over a billion in today's dollars at just 13. Her life fused immense privilege with deep loneliness and dark controversy.
This episode explores a woman who sued her own mother at 14, mastered surfing and jazz, engineered her marriages with money, and faced lingering questions over a fatal 1966 crash.
- Taking her mother to court at 14 to block the estate's sale
- Competitive surfing under Duke Kahanamoku and building Duke Gardens by hand
- Paying a French actress one million dollars to free her second husband
- The adult adoption of Chandi Heffner as her lost daughter reborn
- The disputed death of Eduardo Tirella and her Newport philanthropy