The late owner of Scholastic, publisher of the Harry Potter series, left the family company not to his sons or siblings but to his former lover.
Richard Robinson Jr handed control of the $1.2 billion publisher to Iole Lucchese, the chief strategy officer of Scholastic, with whom he had a long romantic relationship. Lucchese also inherited all his personal possessions.
The revelation shocked his two sons and his former wife, with whom he had rekindled a friendship during the pandemic.
In the 2018 will, seen by The Wall Street Journal, Robinson, who died suddenly in June aged 84 while walking in Martha’s Vineyard, described Lucchese, 54, as “my partner and closest friend”. Family members and former colleagues said their affair was an open secret, but that it ended years ago.
Scholastic Corporation, set up by Robinson’s father a century ago as a magazine for teachers and pupils, publishes some of the world’s most popular children’s titles, including Captain Underpants, The Hunger Games, Clifford and The Magic School Bus. It is the US publisher of Harry Potter, the most successful book series of all time with more than 500 million sold globally.
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Robinson valued privacy in his estate planning and personal life. The family told the newspaper they are reviewing their legal options and hope, to keep Scholastic independent, despite past interest from larger publishing rivals.
His 25-year-old son, Maurice, a film-maker known as Reece, told the paper that the contents of his father’s will were “unexpected and shocking”. “What I want most is an amicable outcome,” he said.
“You might think from the will that he didn’t see his sons. That’s not true. For the last two years I saw him multiple times a week.”
His elder son, John Benham “Ben” Robinson, 34, who operates a sawmill and workshop in Martha’s Vineyard, said he met Lucchese for the first time last week when they spoke about his father’s estate.
“We’re expecting to have a collaborative approach with the estate,” he said.
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Robinson had reconnected with his ex-wife and the mother of his children, Helen Benham, during the pandemic, when he worked long days alone in the company’s New York headquarters.
Robinson and Helen met after she joined the art department at Scholastic in 1974. They began dating in the 1980s and married in 1986, before splitting up in 2003, when she left the company. Benham said that she had “lived and breathed Scholastic while also raising our two children”.
“Dick told me on more than one occasion, ‘you care more about Scholastic than I do’,” she told the newspaper. Of his will, she said: “I was shocked and we were not expecting this.”
Robinson, a fitness buff, had appeared to be in good health. Benham and Reece were with him when he died.
“While he had no plans to leave Scholastic, he expressed a strong desire to work less and spend more time with his family on the Vineyard, where he was most at ease and happiest,” his obituary reads. It does not state a cause of death.
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Lucchese, who is Canadian, joined the company’s Canadian arm in 1991, when she became an associate editor. She rose through the ranks in the US and in 2014 became chief strategy officer.
Former employees told the Journal that she and Robinson had “sweet” and “contentious” moments during their relationship and would fight about the company’s direction in meetings.
Lucchese and Scholastic declined to comment.
William Robinson, the owner’s younger brother, said the family was committed to keeping Scholastic independent.
“Our family value was we’d rather not have the financial benefit that we might get from a sale if it means the company won’t be in the future what it was,” he said. “It’s more than just a business for us.”
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Mary Sue Robinson Morrill, one of his sisters, said the four siblings are confident the new management of the company is committed to continuing Scholastic’s mission and legacy.
