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Annabelle Prices Secret Love and Funeral Delayed
Welcome to The Group Chat with Lucy Manly, where Australia's most trusted society insider shares the hottest gossip before it makes the news.Funeral for a frien...
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Funeral for a friend
In the weeks since the sudden and tragic death of Annabelle Price, questions continue to swirl around the final days of glamorous socialite.
The 34-year-old mother of two was found dead inside her Maroubra rental on March 29, after police were called to the Wride Street property for a welfare check.
What they discovered there, and how Price spent her reclusive last months, has been a subject of intense speculation among her former Double Bay social circle.
Friends say she was dating a wealthy mystery man at the time of her death, having previously been linked to some of the Harbour City’s richest financiers.
Model-turned-socialite Annabelle Price (pictured near her Sydney CBD workplace in March 2025) was dating a wealthy mystery man at the time of her death, according to friends
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A source claims Price had been partying and taking diet pills in the lead-up to her death
Price is pictured centre-left with socialites Hollie Nasser (left) and Ellie Aitken (centre-right)
And despite her polished façade, one source claims Price had been partying and taking unspecified diet pills in the lead-up to her death.
The details remain sparse - but that's not the only mystery. The coroner’s investigation is apparently still ongoing, meaning a funeral date hasn't been set yet.
When it does happen, it is 'likely to be private,' a source said.
Neighbours, meanwhile, have begun piecing together their own impressions.
One local, who believes Price's death may have been an accident, noted a recent change in her appearance, after she swapped her signature platinum-blonde hair for a darker look.
Others believe her two daughters were not at home at the time and may have been staying with her parents or ex-husband, private wealth adviser Freddie Blencke.
The pair split in 2020 after a turbulent relationship that made its way through the courts. He was later cleared in 2022 of assault allegations and of breaching an AVO, after maintaining his innocence throughout.
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Price and Blencke had once been at the apex of Sydney high society, marrying in a lavish 2018 ceremony at Paris’s Maison des Polytechniciens.
Price (right) shared two daughters with her financier ex-husband Freddie Blencke (left)
Price's Maroubra rental has been relisted by Belle Property. The listing makes no mention of the fact a person recently died there, and instead highlights its 'resort-style facilities'
Defence lawyer Nick Hanna made a point of saying The Sydney Morning Herald got the wrong angle with its story teasing the identity of the 'rich-lister' linked to Comanchero bikies
High-profile defence lawyer Nick Hanna later posted on social media that police had searched his client’s vehicle and seized a mobile phone and cash on suspicion of a drug offence, despite no charges being laid and no evidence of drug activity, according to his account.
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He wrote that an urgent application was made to the Supreme Court seeking an injunction to stop police from downloading the contents of the phone using Cellebrite technology, and for the return of both the phone and cash.
Hanna added that the defence argued the seizure was unlawful and that police should therefore not be permitted to access the device. Police maintained the seizure was lawful and that, even if it was not, they should still be able to examine the phone for potential evidence.
Hanna also made a point of saying the SMH got the wrong angle with its story, which focused on 'spice over substance' by teasing the identity of the 'rich-lister' involved.
The real story, he insisted, was that 'this was an important win for civil liberties'.
Tell that to the Sydney gossips...
Simone on the move
It's a tough life being a model-slash-socialite. One day you're living at a glamorous address, the next you're living at a glamorous address.
I'm referring, of course, to Simone Holtznagel, who recently moved from her (almost) brother-in-law Justin Hemmes' pad to a plush property in Vaucluse with boyfriend Joshua Clapp, who runs design firm Steel and Stitch.
The couple, who began dating late last year, were introduced by the Merivale CEO, who happens to be the partner of Simone’s younger sister, Madeleine.
Clapp also has close ties to the Merivale empire, having designed several of its venues, including the recent refurbishment of Club Rose Bay.
While Simone settles into her next chapter, her former digs have earned a reputation as a sanctuary for glamorous Sydney ladies who find themselves in a pinch. A gilded halfway house, you might say.
Simone Holtznagel has recently moved in with her interior designer boyfriend Joshua Clapp (pictured together at the wedding of Matt Saville and Samantha Appel in November last year)
She previously enjoyed the hospitality of her (almost) brother-in-law Justin Hemmes, who bought the top-floor unit of the Faimer Gardens complex in Coogee for $2.1million in 2014
Simone's younger sister Madeleine (right) is in a relationship with Merivale CEO Hemmes (left)
