Skorpios is mainly known as the private island of the late Greek shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis. It was the site of his wedding to former United States First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy on October 20, 1968. Upon his death it passed to his daughter Christina, and then in turn to her daughter Athina Onassis Roussel. Onassis, his son Alexander, and his daughter Christina are all buried on the island.
Athina visited the island twice after her mother died, once when she was eight and then on November 18–19, 1998 with her father Thierry Roussel and their media adviser and spokesman Alexis Mantheakis in order to hold a memorial service on the tenth anniversary of the death of Athina’s mother, Christina Onassis. The three were accompanied by her ex-SAS bodyguards and Greek bodyguards. A flotilla of boats carrying international and local TV crews and journalists anchored off the island, attempting to cover the event and to get footage with telescopic lenses, as only one photographer was allowed onto the island. The arrival of Athina, her father and Mantheakis was reported by all the major wire services. Photographs of the heiress being met by the mayor of the village of Nydri, opposite Skorpios, and a large committee of welcoming villagers made the covers of various international magazines, including Paris Match.
The memorial service on Skorpios was presided over by Father Apostolis, the local Greek Orthodox priest who had baptised Athina and presided over the funerals of Aristotle Onassis, his son Alexander and Athina’s mother, Christina, all buried in the Panagitsa Chapel on Skorpios. Apart from these two visits and a couple more when Athina was a toddler, she has spent no time there
