Here’s proof that shoes can substitute for sex in a marriage.
Footwear fetishist and professional poker player Beth Shak was so obsessed with stilettos, she sported a tattoo of Christian Louboutin red-soled heels on her pelvic bone, just north of her private parts.
One would hope that her husband, Daniel, would notice the naked cry for pedestrian help. But then you’d be as wrong as a fugly pair of Birkenstocks paired with fuzzy woolen socks. Ick.
In what was shaping up as the Accessories Trial of the Century, Shak’s ex-husband, financially hurting hedge-funder Daniel Shak, claimed he was clueless about the existence of his wife’s 1,200 pairs of flats, wedges and ornate flip-flops. We’re talking some 700 pairs by Louboutin alone, whose fanciful, arch-crunching confections run between $600 and $4,000 a set.
There was a sparkly pair of ruby red slippers by Alexander McQueen, fit for Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz.’’ The stash also included pairs by Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Yves St. Laurent and Steve Madden.
Plus, Beth had an entire closet dedicated to random “functional’’ footwear she picked up at DSW. Aldo, too. It’s enough to make New York’s dedicated shoe freaks weak at the ankles.
The shoe lover’s dream, and husbandly agony, must have been hidden, Daniel Shak claimed, inside a “secret room’’ in the couple’s Fifth Avenue apartment. So Daniel sued his ex, whom he divorced three years ago, for hundreds of thousands of dollars in a court near a home they once shared outside Philadelphia.
He claimed Beth’s surreptitious shoe stash was worth a million bucks, and he was entitled to 35 percent in their divorce settlement.
But yesterday, he dropped the case. He said he didn’t want his stepdaughter to have to testify. Beth said Daniel knew he would lose.
But the fun didn’t stop until the closet door was ripped from its hinges on a fantasy world about which most of us can only daydream. Tucked into nooks and crannies of Beth Shak’s obscenely appointed closet were more strappy sandals and kicky bondage-wear platforms than one can wear in a lifetime.
The space contained enough kitten heels to satisfy junior shoe addict Suri Cruise who, by age 5, was said to possess footwear valued at $150,000.
Well, she’s got time to catch up.
Not that Shak was without her problems. She complained to an interviewer that Louboutin had started making 6-inch heels. But her closet was set up only for 4-inch heels. What to do? It was a bona-fide rich person’s crisis.
Shak evidently had an undiagnosed shoe problem. Now she calls it a “sickness’’ suffered by a woman starved for human love. But disease or not, the shoe disease was not exactly a secret. Shak was written up everywhere for her below-the-knees fixation, and was featured in a documentary called “God Save My Shoes,’’ which explores “the intimate relationship’’ between women and their high heels, according to a description on IMDb.com.
Daniel Shak paid for Beth’s shoes, though, it seems, he never read the bills. Then he reportedly lost millions on gold futures. More at a Las Vegas poker tournament this month, which may be what this case was all about.
It’s weird, but not surprising, Beth Shak had a kinky relationship with an article of clothing.
Daniel Shak should have noticed her lady parts. It’s cheaper.