Fernanda Bentley is a British national, whose real name is Fanny Bentley. Fernanda grew up in Kuwait, which is where her father was from. She did not really have a choice in the matter, as her mother and father were both British subjects. She then spent the next five years in Britain studying at the University of Birmingham where she earned a degree in engineering. Later in life, she worked for several different companies in the construction industry before becoming a consultant.
At the age of fifty-one, Fernanda Bentley had already been married twice, the first time to Paul Gidding, a member of the cricket team, and then to Richard Hamilton, who was also from the Bahamas. Her marriage to Hamilton ended in divorce, but they remain close friends today. She began a relationship with Richard Branson, which lasted until the end of 2021, but their partnership soured when Branson began to focus more on his business than his love life. He later married Jessica Simpson, a British national who was thirty years his age.
According to one of Branson’s former partners, Fernanda Bentley “was not particularly close” to Branson. Branson, however, has said that he and Bentley were great friends, even though they were not necessarily exclusive at the time of their relationship. On the other hand, Branson did have Bentley as a mistress, something which he has strenuously denied. If these allegations are true, it would seem that the infidelity which almost cost him the heart of Jessica Simpson may have been something that Bentley was willing to do to keep their relationship going.