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You may have heard the name Richard Lugner before. He’s an Austrian billionaire who owns a chain of department stores in Europe.

Of more concern to American celebrity gossip fans, however, is the fact that each year he pays an A-list female celeb to accompany him to Vienna Opera Ball

Last year, Lugner’s date was none other than Kim Kardashian. This year, it looks like he won’t have to fork over the half a million dollars he reportedly paid Kim in order to secure some arm candy for the big night. He’ll just have to give up half his fortune instead:

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Former Playboy model Cathy Smitz married Lugner in September but the couple only started speaking publicly about their relationship this week. So why is that significant (other than the fact that this Lugner’s fifth marriage)?

Well, for starters, Cathy is 25, while Richard is 82. To make things even better, she swears that money has nothing to do with the attraction.

"Of course it’s nice to live a luxury life," Smitz said in the couple’s first joint interview. "But it’s not very important to me. Before I met him, I was pursuing my own career. I had to choose between love and career."

And what a difficult decision that must have been.

For his part, Lugner says he likes "to fight with the younger ladies," and by "fight" we’re sure he means "pay for sexual intercourse."

We’d like to offer our sincerest congrats to these two. We’re sure they have many, many weeks of wedded bliss ahead of them.