If you own a pair of sunglasses, you have probably helped grow the Del Vecchio family fortune without knowing it.
Ray-Ban, Oakley, Persol and Oliver Peoples all come from the same company. So do the retail chains Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters, Pearle Vision and Target Optical. Luxottica has also made eyewear for Prada, Chanel, Giorgio Armani, Versace and Dolce & Gabbana.
That reach has drawn criticism for decades. Critics say Luxottica came close to a monopoly because it made the frames, owned the brands and controlled the stores where people bought them.
Now one of the family’s billionaire heirs is in the headlines for a very different reason. This article covers how the empire began, who inherited it, and what has been alleged about Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio and his ex-fiancée, actress Jessica Serfaty.
From an Orphanage to a $30 Billion Fortune
The empire’s founder, Leonardo Del Vecchio, started with almost nothing. He was born in Milan in 1935, and his father died before he was born. His mother had several children and no money. When he was seven, she placed him in an orphanage because she could not afford to raise him.
He left as a teenager and became an apprentice metalworker. He learned engraving and toolmaking, took design classes at night, and found work making parts for eyeglass frames.
In 1961, at age 26, he moved to the small town of Agordo, Italy, and started his own company, Luxottica.
How Luxottica Took Over the Industry
At first, Luxottica only made parts for other eyewear companies. Del Vecchio soon saw that the real money was in controlling the whole process. The company grew in steps:
- Complete frames: It stopped making only components.
- Distribution: It took control of how products reached stores.
- Brands and retailers: It started buying the names and shops customers knew.
He also understood something that was not obvious back then. Glasses did not have to be dull medical devices. They could be fashion accessories.
The key deals came quickly:
- 1988: A licensing deal with Giorgio Armani became the model for later fashion partnerships. Designers could put their names on eyewear without learning how to make it.
- 1995: Luxottica bought LensCrafters.
- 1999: It bought Ray-Ban.
- 2001: It bought Sunglass Hut.
- 2007: It bought Oakley for $2.1 billion.
- 2018: It merged with French lens maker Essilor to form EssilorLuxottica.
That last move gave the company frames, brands, stores and a large share of the global lens business. According to the source reporting, EssilorLuxottica earned €28.5 billion in 2025 and runs a retail network of nearly 20,000 locations worldwide.
Who Inherited the Del Vecchio Fortune?
Leonardo Del Vecchio died in June 2022 at age 87, worth about $30 billion. At one point he was the richest person in Italy.
Much of his wealth sits in Delfin, a Luxembourg-based holding company. Delfin owns a large stake in EssilorLuxottica, along with investments in banks, insurers and real estate.
After his death, Delfin was split into eight equal stakes of 12.5% each. The heirs are:
- His six children: Claudio, Marisa, Paola, Leonardo Maria, Luca and Clemente
- His widow, Nicoletta Zampillo
- Nicoletta’s son, Rocco Basilico
Clemente was only 18 at the time, which made him one of the youngest billionaires in the world. As the family’s holdings have grown, each stake is now reported to be worth around $5.5 billion.
Who Is Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio?
Leonardo Maria, now 31, is the son of Leonardo Del Vecchio and Nicoletta Zampillo. Unlike some of his siblings, he took an active role in the family business. He served as president of Ray-Ban and chief strategy officer of EssilorLuxottica. According to the source article, he resigned from both roles in August 2026 after a public dispute over the company’s direction and governance.
That boardroom conflict is separate from the story that has drawn the most attention this week.
The Soap Star and the Yellow Diamond
In July 2023, Leonardo Maria got engaged to actress and model Jessica Serfaty. She was then playing Sloan Petersen on Days of Our Lives. He proposed at a restaurant on Italy’s Amalfi Coast with a large yellow diamond.
Serfaty told People the two first met at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017. They kept running into each other over the years while both were dating other people. In 2023 he reached out and asked if she was single, and things moved fast. She said they both wanted a family and shared similar values.
In May 2024 they attended the Met Gala together. Leonardo was still Ray-Ban’s president, so both wore Ray-Bans.
On the surface it looked like a fairy tale, but the relationship soon fell apart.
How the Relationship Fell Apart
In July 2024, Serfaty publicly accused Leonardo Maria of abuse. She quickly retracted the claim and said her first words were “driven by anger and not in truth.”
About a month later, TMZ reported that Serfaty’s phone had warned her that an Apple AirTag was traveling with her Range Rover. Sheriff’s deputies searched the vehicle and did not find the device. Detectives opened an investigation into who was responsible. TMZ did not name Leonardo Maria as the person behind the alleged tracking.
The Leaked Audio: What The Hollywood Reporter Says
Two years later, The Hollywood Reporter (THR) published an investigation based on leaked audio recordings. They are voice memos from Jed Wallace, a digital crisis operative whose name has come up in reporting and litigation involving Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively.
According to THR, Wallace made the memos and shared them with colleagues at the communications firm TAG PR and with Leonardo Maria. The recordings date to August 2024, soon after Serfaty’s accusation and retraction.
THR reports that Wallace describes a plan to damage Serfaty’s reputation online:
- Build an anonymous website filled with negative claims about her.
- Use search engine optimization (SEO) and paid ads to push it up Google’s results.
- Shape the online story so future news about her would make readers see her as dishonest.
In one memo, Wallace reportedly predicts that things are about to get very ugly for her. THR says the website went live on August 15, 2024, and has since been taken offline.
What the Recordings Do Not Show
This part matters. According to THR’s own account, the published excerpts show Wallace speaking to Del Vecchio about the operation. They do not show Del Vecchio ordering the site or telling Wallace to publish specific false claims. Neither man responded to THR’s requests for comment.
The Separate Investigation in Italy
The audio also lands alongside a separate legal matter in Milan. In July 2026, prosecutors asked that Leonardo Maria and 73 other people stand trial in the wide-ranging Equalize private-intelligence investigation.
Prosecutors allege he was involved in ordering unauthorized searches on Serfaty and on members of his own family during the inheritance dispute. Del Vecchio has denied knowingly asking for anything illegal and says he did not know about any unlawful methods. Equalize has disputed parts of the allegations and says it did not work directly for him.
None of these allegations has been proven in court.
Why This Story Matters
Set the legal questions aside and the contrast is striking. A boy whose mother could not feed him built one of the biggest consumer empires in the world. Eight heirs now each hold a stake worth roughly $5 to $6 billion. One of them is at the center of a story about leaked audio, alleged private investigators, anonymous websites and a breakup that went public.
The story also shows how online reputation campaigns are said to work. If the allegations are accurate, they show how SEO and paid ads can be used to shape what people find when they search someone’s name. That is why this case is drawing attention well beyond celebrity gossip.
Conclusion
The Del Vecchio story is about far more than sunglasses. It runs from an orphanage in Milan to a global empire, and from a Met Gala appearance to leaked recordings and a Milan courtroom. Many key facts remain allegations, and both sides have their own account. Whatever the courts decide, the headlines will not easily fade for a family that built its fortune on how the world sees things.
