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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Billionaire Wants Ring Back From Pop Star

LOS ANGELES (CN) - The billionaire co-founder of Skype sued his former fiancee, Danish pop star Aura Dione, demanding she return the $471,000 engagement ring he gave her.

Janus Friis sued Maria Louise Joenson pka Aura Dione in Superior Court on Aug. 27. He wants the ring back, plus a Copenhagen apartment and other gifts he says were "conditioned upon their marriage."

With his partner Niklas Zennstrom, Friis, 39, a U.S. citizen born in Denmark, sold Skype to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion. He also co-founded the file-sharing service Kazaa with Zennstrom and another partner.

Friis says he met Dione in 2011 and they became engaged after a whirlwind romance. But he says in the lawsuit that she "disavowed and abandoned her engagement" by "among other things, engaging in multiple affairs and sexual encounters with other men."

Friis says the platinum engagement ring, for which he paid $471,942 in July 2013, contains "a number of diamonds," including a 1.76 carat round brilliant cut centerpiece, two blue pear-shaped stones totaling .91 carats, and blue and pink diamonds weighing 1.75 carats.

He wants it back, along with other gifts he gave her worth more than $1 million.

He is represented by Jaime Marquart with Baker Marquart in Los Angeles, who was not immediately available for comment.

In 2012, Dione sued her former manager, Khalid Schroeder and KS+P Kool Management, claiming Schroeder tried to steal the rights to her hit album "Before the Dinosaurs."

Dione's representative did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

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