Suzana Mancic: I Asked for the Prenup
The television host told Blic why she and Greek businessman Simeon Ocomokos signed a prenuptial agreement before their wedding, and how his daughters reacted to it.
Suzana Mancic has revealed that the prenuptial agreement with her husband Simeon Ocomokos was her idea, not his. The television host and singer told Blic in an interview that she was the one who pushed for the visit to the notary, and that she did it because of the two daughters her husband has from his first marriage.
She married the Greek businessman in 2018, after nearly two decades together. The papers were signed before the wedding.
Why the Prenup Was Her Idea
Mancic says the trigger was the way Greek inheritance law, and Greek attitudes toward daughters within a family, actually work.
“It was my idea. Greeks have a particular mentality, a particular concern for female children, for the women in the family, that we don’t have here. Here, under inheritance law, it’s the son first, and the sister is expected to give up her share in his favor, and so on. That doesn’t exist there at all. And I realized that he, or maybe his daughters, had some worry, or maybe he had some worry about how his daughters would react. Of course, about the property. Yes, yes, about the property.”
The contents of the agreement, by her account, are no defense against divorce. What was defined at the notary’s office is what belongs to whom out of the property each of them acquired before the marriage, so that his daughters’ inheritance rights stay untouched.
His Daughters Didn’t Accept Her at First
The relationship with Simeon’s daughters wasn’t good from day one, and she doesn’t hide that.
“Well, not really, not at the start. No, no, no, not really. I’m too pretty and cheerful and attractive. And they saw that their father was too much in love, and that probably doesn’t sit well with anyone, especially at that young age. Our relationship is very, very good now, really, but that’s after 22 years. And then it occurred to me, I thought, what do I actually need from him, I don’t need anything, I have everything, I earned it all myself, and I said, let’s sit down and agree nicely, let’s put together this prenuptial agreement. Which actually isn’t really a prenuptial agreement, it’s more that the notary defines what’s mine, what’s yours, what was acquired before the marriage, and so on. And I think that made things easier for everyone. Especially for the girls. His fortune means nothing to me on the day he’s no longer here. I like for us to enjoy his wealth together, let’s be clear about that. I love it, it’s nice that we take beautiful trips, that he surprises me with something lovely. That’s wonderful, but it’s not what decides anything.”
After the signing, she says, everything started getting better. Today she has a calm, settled relationship with her husband’s daughters.
Who Is Simeon Ocomokos?
Domestic audiences have known her name for decades, his far less so. Ocomokos is a Greek businessman with a career in corporate communications and business diplomacy:
- he studied law and economics at the University of Athens
- he served as executive director of the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce
- he worked as secretary general of Greece’s business councils with several countries
- in 1997 he founded the corporate communications company SGT in Athens
- three years later he opened a Belgrade branch, Tsomokos Group International
That is also part of the answer to why the question of property had to be settled at a notary’s office in the first place.
A Marriage on Two Addresses
Suzana and Simeon don’t live under the same roof, and for years she has described that as an advantage rather than a problem. Their shared ground is Europe’s classical music festivals.
“It’s a good thing we don’t live together, we don’t listen to the same music. He’s very busy and doesn’t have time to listen to anything, but when he wants to unwind, he likes to listen to classical music. We travel to classical music festivals around Europe, that’s where we agree.”
Asked what won her over, she gave a short answer.
“He’s a gentleman, he has charm, what won me over was an approach different from the one our men have. He still knows how to pay me a compliment, and so do I to him. Those moments when we’re together, when we’re good to each other, those are the advantages of a separate life.”
The relationship began after his divorce. Eight years after the wedding, the prenuptial agreement she asked for still stands, and the family it once unsettled now functions better than it did before the agreement existed.
