The model who married a son of the world’s richest black woman in a £5million bash was raised on a Manchester council estate by a mother who was declared bankrupt, MailOnline can reveal.
Iranian beauty Naza Jafarian tied the knot with eligible Folarin Alakija in a jaw-dropping ceremony at Blenheim Palace with a 12ft cake, one million white roses and a surprise performance from Robin Thicke.
But MailOnline has discovered that while her beau, an entrepreneur, investor and cinematographer, is the heir to a $2.1 billion fortune – his 66-year-old oil billionaire mother Folorunsho is ranked by Forbes as the 14th richest person in Africa – his bride’s family is rather more impecunious.
Naza’s divorced mother Nooshin, 51, was declared bankrupt in 2014 and now lives in a run-of-the-mill three-bedroomed semi-detached house in Knutsford, Cheshire, owned by the local housing association.
Lavish: Model Nazanin Jafarian Ghaissarifa married Folarin Alakija, the son of the world's richest black woman, in a £5 million ceremony at Blenheim Palace at the weekend, pictured
However, while her mother’s financial difficulties might be awkward when talking to the in-laws, it is her younger brother Sam’s criminal record, which is the more embarrassing.
The 24-year-old was given a six-week suspended sentenced at Stockport magistrates’ court earlier this year, after being caught by police driving through Macclesfield having consumed vast amounts of cocaine – he was nine times the legal limit.
It is an extraordinary background for 28-year-old model, who featured in an advertising campaign for Monkee Jeans, an organic denim brand and once dated reality TV star Rob Kardashian.
She was born in Iran but has spent at least the past decade living in Britain – she was registered on the electoral roll – with her mother and brother as recently as 2015, at the house where her mother went bankrupt.
After studying bioengineering and biomedical engineering at Manchester University – she also has a graduate diploma in law – she began modelling and mixing with celebrities such as the Kardashians.
She is believed to have met her new husband, a widowed father, whose first wife Chena died of cancer, in London. They got engaged in Greece and had an equally-lavish traditional Nigerian wedding at the Oriental Hotel in Lagos last November.
The family’s downfall appears to have begun after the breakdown of her mother’s second marriage to restaurateur Reza Mortaz Jalili, ten years her senior. The couple married in 2003 and moved into a £260,000 house in Wilmslow, Cheshire.
But the relationship disintegrated and Nooshin, Naza and Sam moved a mile down the road. It was while they were living there, on March 12, 2014, that Nooshin, who was unemployed, received a bankruptcy order at Macclesfield County Court.
Within a year, the family had split up and Nooshin was living in the housing association property in Knutsford. Then last year, Sam was charged with two counts of drug driving after speeding through Macclesfield town centre.
Magistrates said only custody could be justified due to the nature and gravity of the offence, the erratic driving at a ‘very excessive limit’ and with drugs in system.
However, they sentenced him to six weeks in jail, suspended for 12 months, banned him from driving for a year, gave him a supervision order with a curfew for four months – it expired last month - and 20 days’ rehabilitation.
Naza’s background is in sharp contrast to that of her husband, who is the youngest of four sons of billionaires Modupe and Folorunsho Alakija, and studied geography at Imperial College London.
His mother, who is number 80 on Forbes magazine’s global Power Women list, overtook Oprah Winfrey as the richest woman of African descent at the time Naza’s mother went bankrupt.
She started her career as a secretary, studied fashion in London, before returning to Nigeria to launch her label Supreme Stitches. But her biggest break came in oil, when she founded her company Famfa Oil.
His mother, who is number 80 on Forbes magazine’s global Power Women list, overtook Oprah Winfrey as the richest woman of African descent at the time Naza’s mother went bankrupt.
She started her career as a secretary, studied fashion in London, before returning to Nigeria to launch her label Supreme Stitches. But her biggest break came in oil, when she founded her company Famfa Oil.
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