Jan 14, 2026
3 min read
New York heiress Belle Burden discovered her husband's affair via a shocking voicemail during the pandemic quarantine at her Martha's Vineyard home.
When New York heiress Belle Burden and her then-husband Henry Davis decided to canteen their family on Martha's Vineyard, little did she know it would spell the end of her marriage when disaster struck.
The granddaughter of the legendary magazine editor and heir Babe Pailey wrote in an extract from her new memoir, Strangers: Memories of a Marriage, published by The Sunday Times, that six days after their family arrived at their holiday home, after the usual dinner in their kitchen, she received a phone call from a number she did not recognize, so she did not answer.
When he hit the left voicemail, it was a man's voice.
"He said, 'I'm trying to reach Belle.'" He paused,'' she wrote. "I'm sorry to break it to you, but your husband is having an affair with my wife."
She didn't even have to confront her husband, who seemed to know she knew.
At first he declared that the affair had only lasted for weeks, that it meant nothing, and that he was only in love.
The woman, who continued to hide from her children that the world had turned upside down, called her husband back at their request that night, while she was getting her money back from her children, and her husband said that he could not talk because his wife had attempted suicide.
He spent several hours in a daze, and after sleeping very well and staying up all night trying to decide whether or not to forgive him, he shocked her again.
The his heder has been his husbands went to their bedroom, and was dressed, and told him that he wants to drive, and let him leave that time.
He later told her that she could have custody of their children.
“In the days that followed, I tried to hide the truth from the girls,” she continued.“A therapist I spoke to told me to wait until the pandemic was less scary to tell me.
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"But instead of relief, the epidemic was more terrifying. I showed up at dinner with puffy eyes and unwashed hair. I cried while doing laundry and flushing the toilet. I spent hours with my bedroom door closed. I knew it would make it harder to eat, but I decided not to drink, but it was hard for me."
She said her husband never told her what had gone wrong, and after initially being supportive, her husband's family eventually cut her off.
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If life were normal, if we were in New York, if I could find him on the street and look him in the eye, I would understand a little bit what was going on, she thought, but I was on one island and he was on another, and I knew nothing but the shock of his disappearance.
Five years later, he says he's none the wiser about what went wrong.
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Bearden wrote that her husband is single and works at a hedge fund and travels.He sees their children from time to time, but he has not changed his mind about not wanting to be a parent.
"I don't know why he left," she added."I don't think I ever will."
"Alien" was released on Tuesday.
