Furious fans demand REAL story from heiress Belle Burden as she's accused of lying about her finances in divorce memoir

By JOE HUTCHISON, US SENIOR NEWS REPORTER Published: 16:23, 26 May 2026 | Updated: 16:29, 26 May 2026 Followers of a society heiress who published a memoir detailing how her financier husband sought to leave her penniless in a divorce have called on her to tell the real story. Flobelle 'Belle' Burden, 57, shot to fame after exposing details of her divorce from ex-husband Henry Davis, 60, in her New York Times bestseller 'Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage'. In it, Burden sought to portray herself as being at the mercy of Davis who taunted her with financial ruin throughout their split after uncovering his infidelity in 2020.  The New Yorker uncovered legal papers however that revealed that Burden was quietly sitting on a multi-million dollar fortune, which was largely tied up in a trust, and had a reported income of $800,000 in the years leading up to their split. She has stood by her writing, saying in a statement to the New Yorker that she respected the 'privacy of sealed court records'.  Since the article detailing her finances was published over the weekend, questions were raised over Burden's seeming overuse of creative license with some calling her out over it.  One person took to social media saying: 'My god it's all lies. She is probably worth $100 million. This is a stunning act of narcissism.' Author Meg Keene made a lengthy post on X in which she said: 'Burden depicts her husband’s behavior as being terrible (though not abusive). But it turns out the parts of the book that can be fact checked are riddled with lies, so for me, Burden’s credibility is shot.  'I always felt that putting your ex-husband in a bestselling memoir where you make him the villain was an ethically dubious choice. (At least make it an auto fictional novel, FFS.) But to do that and LIE? That’s an unhinged, nearly sociopathic, level of revenge.' Flobelle 'Belle' Burden, 57, shot to fame after exposing details of her divorce from ex-husband Henry Davis The couple attended many high-profile events together, including a gala in New York City in 2008 Another added: 'Burden’s story has always seemed off to me (now we see a lot of it is BS) and she strikes me as a nutjob who crafted a narrative out of rage that her husband cheated on her... is obsessed w making him miserable.'  One other said: 'I never read Belle Burden's book because it generally takes 2 to make a bad marriage & I hate "women-good, men-bad" memoirs.  'But count me as stunned that the in-house publishing lawyers didn't at least look at her divorce docs.' Meghan Cox Gurdon, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal's opinion section, shared her thoughts on The New Yorker article in a piece for the outlet on Tuesday. Gurdon examined the writing process of a memoir, saying that Burden appeared to have decided to make her book interesting, rather than accurate.  A memoirist herself, Gurdon said that in writing her own book she 'didn't make anything up', but had to 'smoosh things together to create a narrative'.  She added: 'I don’t know what Ms Burden’s process was, and I’m not here to defend her. But I do feel a pang at her being exposed as a purveyor of half-truths.    'If you use narrative art to shape your story, as any memoirist must, you expose yourself to accusations of telling what Cockneys used to call “porky pies".' Burden with her daughter, Georgia Davis. She split from husband Henry in 2020 Burden and Davis split in March of 2020 while sheltering from Covid inside their $7.7 million home when she received a voicemail from a man telling her that his wife had been having an affair with her husband. Davis admitted it and insisted the fling meant nothing - but the next morning, he ended the marriage. He told Burden she could have custody of their three children and headed back to the couple's $12 million 25th-floor apartment in New York's Tribeca district. Burden said in her book that Davis insisted on adding a clause to their prenup that all income and investments during their marriage remained separate unless stipulated. They married in 1999 and agreed to share household expenses with neither able to make a claim on the other's income should they divorce. Burden, who has previously referred to herself as both 'lucky' and 'privileged', said in her book that her 'primary assets' were held in two trusts and that she used funds from one of them to buy the family's Tribeca apartment. According to records seen by The New Yorker, Burden paid just under $4 million with a million-dollar mortgage tied to it back in 2002. The couple were living at their $7.7 million Martha's Vineyard compound called Meadowpath in March 2020 when the husband of Davis's mistress called Burden to tell her about the affair The other trust was then used to buy her Martha's Vineyard home, and Burden said in her book that the assets of the trust 'matched the purchase price exactly'. Yet the financial records seen by the outlet revealed that she spent $5.4 million for the home, with the 'small mortgage' amounting to $3 million.  After purchasing the home, she put Davis's name on the deeds alongside hers, so when they split, he was entitled to 50 percent in both properties.  A central point of her story was that she was financially incapable of buying her ex out of either home, saying instead that she would need to sell both.  Despite her claims, The New Yorker uncovered documents filed in their divorce that highlight how, in 2019, two years before the split, she reported an income of $800,000. That included $190,000 from the sale of her mother's home in the Catskills, the outlet reported. The 56-year-old is seen here at her Martha's Vineyard holiday home with her son Finn Burden detailed the breakdown of her marriage and its aftermath in her memoir Strangers A Memoir of Marriage According to the outlet, their prenup also highlighted Burden's financial disclosure in 1999, which had her total financial assets sitting at $63 million.  This included the two trusts that she eventually tapped into to pay for the two family homes. The vast majority of her wealth, around $45 million, is not accessible to her due to the way the trust is structured.  She also had an $8 million share in a charitable trust and $4 million in WAMBCO, her family's partnership. In 2020, when the divorce was finalized, it was revealed she had an investment account and a 6 percent stake in WAMBCO, collectively valued at $10 million.  The divorce settlement saw Davis drop his claim to half of the properties and give Burden $3 million out of an investment he held in WAMBCO.  Burden also kept Black Point Beach on Martha's Vineyard, which Davis bought for her birthday in 2016, valued at $400,000.  He also agreed to pay Burden $50,000 per month in child support until their youngest, 18, turns 22. That $600,000 a year does not include money for expenses like private-school tuition, extracurricular activities, transport, medical and dental insurance.  Burden's paternal grandmother is iconic socialite Babe Paley (pictured in 1948). She is also a descendant of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt Last year, Burden placed the Tribeca apartment they shared on the market for just under $12 million. Her Martha's Vineyard home was recently valued at $7.7 million.   In a statement to the outlet, Burden said: 'When I wrote Strangers, I shared my heartache, my mistakes, and my shame. 'I owned my privilege as plainly as I could, and I respected the privacy of sealed court records.  'I stand by everything I wrote, including the fear I felt from my ex-husband’s threats, the contributions I made and could make to my family, and what happened to me financially and emotionally in my marriage and divorce.  'While I didn’t intend it, I am glad that women have taken my story as motivation for insisting on financial transparency in their marriages.' Burden is the daughter of Amanda Burden, the former director of the New York City Department of Planning, and her late father, Shirley Carter Burden Jr, the great-great-great-grandson of Gilded Age railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt.  She is also exceptionally close to her stepmother, Susan, who was Shirley's second wife.  The Daily Mail contacted representatives of Burden for comment.  No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. 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