A billionaire heiress is embroiled in a dispute with her former close friend due to an $80 million cryptocurrency venture and an unreciprocated romantic gesture that soured their relationship.
Taylor Thomson, 66, a member of Canada’s wealthiest family, instantly bonded with Ashley Richardson, 47, a former prominent social campaign designer, at a glamorous Malibu pool party in 2009.
After spending over ten years as inseparable companions, enjoying luxurious European holidays and forming a close-knit “pod” during the pandemic, their friendship took a drastic turn.
The bold move to mix money with friendship led to the wealthy duo suing each other and Richardson losing the luxurious life she once had.
She now drives an Uber for a living.
They had met through a mutual friend – a film producer called Beau St. Clair in 2009.
On seeing Richardson, Thomson raced up to her and said: ‘Oh my God! You have those fabulous heroin-chic arms,’ The Wall Street Journal reported.
St. Clair died of cancer in 2016 aged just 64 – but implored the women to stay friends during their final goodbye at her gorgeous Malibu home.
Thomson and Richardson, along with Richardson’s then-partner, were involved in an elite Los Angeles social circle that frequently shared Nobu takeout at Thomson’s seaside home.
Richardson was privately educated and came from a wealthy family – although their fortune was nowhere near the size of Thomson’s.
Richardson she often visited Thomson’s Bel Air mansion, which she sold for $27 million in 2023, to cook Sunday dinners with the heiress’ daughter.
The beginning of the end was in 2019, when Richardson says her relationship with her girlfriend ended and Thomson suggested they become lovers.
Richardson was facing challenges in her relationship, and Thomson reportedly suggested she end things with her partner and consider a relationship with her.
‘Think how much better your life would be,’ Richardson told the Wall Street Journal what Thompson allegedly said to her during a trip to British Columbia.
While Richardson said she did not accept the romantic invitation, Thomson claimed this awkward exchange never happened.
‘This is all false,’ a spokesperson for Thomson bluntly told the Wall Street Journal.
Regardless, Richardson and Thomson decided to form a COVID pod – a small group to socialize with safely during the pandemic – the following year.
But with the pandemic came financial troubles for Richardson, who was working as a development executive at Insurgent Media.
While she had previously been well-off, she suddenly found herself strapped for cash and needing a new source of income.
She sought out guidance from celebrity psychic Michelle Whitedove and subscribed to her $25 per month newsletter.
Whitedove, who passed away in 2022 at 54 years old, was a well-known psychic and medium who was a self-proclaimed ‘expert futurist,’ according to her Instagram bio.
In 2021, she made a prediction that caught Richardson’s attention – the rise of a cryptocurrency called Persistence.
‘Persistence, this is another dark horse that’s going to come up on everybody and be a big dog. Get it and sit on it, which is what I would tell myself,’ Whitedove wrote at the time.
From April to May of 2021, the Persistence coin, called XPRT, went from being valued at $3 each to $13 each.
Richardson thought this was a promising trend and alerted her wealthy then-best friend, who had allegedly been cruel to her about her dwindling finances.
‘Taylor has been borderline cruel to me consistently, throwing barbs my way if I speak and making sure I know that my lack of wealth and status makes me uninteresting (literally),’ Richardson wrote to a healer in 2020, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Thomson then took Richardson’s proposition to her own spiritual advisor, astrologer Robert Sabella.
Sabella wrote to Thomson in August 2021 that Bitcoin would plunge in October, but other crypto coins were looking up.
‘”Theta” has a very high reading on it (a ’10’). “Persistence” does as well (even higher),’ Sabella wrote in an email to Thomson, who forwarded it to Richardson.
‘Taylor trusts her own instincts and would use Robert as a sounding board,’ Thomson’s spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
‘By no means would she make substantial life decisions based on his suggestions.’
With Richardson’s assistance and eagerness to tackle the world of cryptocurrency, Thomson dumped more than $40 million into the coins.
At first, messages between the pair, reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, depict Richardson praising Persistence’s early success.
Richardson also invested tens of thousands of dollars into the psychic-approved XPRT coin, spending her days slumped over at her computer, watching Thomson’s money and trading for her.
Richardson, who had no financial background, said it was stressful moving her friend’s assets around. She was not paid for doing so, she said.
At its peak, Thomson’s crypto investments – all of which Richardson was single-handedly managing – were worth about $140 million.
In one written correspondence between the women, Thomson wanted to buy $60 million of the XPRT token.
‘Are you sure you want 60?!! I will try. Still think you should deversify [sic],’ Richardson responded.
The same day, Thomson allegedly wrote to her brothers in pursuit of what she believed to be her chunk of her family’s wealth.
In the note, she acknowledged she had ‘always been one for riskier investments than the rest of the family,’ and had been intrigued by crypto, according to the Wall Street Journal.
But Thomson’s representative told the outlet she never sent this email to her brothers.
As she continued investing most of her time – up to 20 hours a day – monitoring Thomson’s finances, Richardson’s mental health started declining from the stressful situation. She turned to alcohol to cope.
By the end of 2021, Richardson said she was confident Thomson’s investment would skyrocket into the millions despite Persistence’s fluctuating value.
But the crypto market soon crashed and the coin essentially became worthless by the middle of 2022.
Richardson moved to her childhood home in Monterey County, California and became an Uber driver.
Thompson has hired a private investigator to probe Richardson’s crypto management, claiming the former executive recklessly lost $80 million of her money.
The investigative firm, Guidepost, told the Wall Street Journal they are working to ‘to recoup the tens of millions of dollars of Ms. Thomson’s money lost under Ms. Richardson’s control.’
In 2023, Thomson sued Richardson and Persistence, demanding at least $25 million of the funds she lost.
Richardson then countersued the heiress for $10 million, claiming that Thompson was trying to defame her.
She could not afford to keep a lawyer, so she started using ChatGPT to represent herself in court.
In the midst of the chaos, Richardson relapsed after being nearly two years sober, allegedly texting Thomson: ‘Because of you I have lost everything, and you decided to sue the person who had nothing left to lose.
‘I loved you more than anything.’
Thomson has denied all of the accusations, with a spokesperson telling the Daily Mail that Richardson allegedly took their story to the media for personal gain.
‘After spending years living a lavish lifestyle on Ms. Thomson’s dime, Ms. Richardson has taken her bogus story to the media in an attempt to extract more money from Ms. Thomson — which we know because Ms. Richardson has threatened multiple times she will do just that,’ the spokesperson said.
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