All About Jackie Siegel, the Real ‘Queen of Versailles’ Behind the New Broadway Musical Starring Kristin Chenoweth

Heads up: The new musical The Queen of Versailles is not about Marie Antoinette living it up in her opulent palace amid the French Revolution. It’s actually a royally fascinating true tale—inspired by the 2012 documentary of the same name—that chronicles an office-drone-turned-socialite named Jackie Siegel (played by Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth in her first Broadway role in a decade). Even as her world crumbles around her (including the death of her daughter), Jackie and her billionaire CEO husband, David (played by Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham), remain determined to build the largest family home in America. Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz provides the songs with a book by playwright Lindsey Ferrentino.

Of course, a few sentences hardly do justice to such an extreme riches-to-rags story. Here’s a primer on the real-life beauty queen whose caviar dreams inspired the stage adaptation.

A Real Estate Vision
Let’s start with The House. During their overseas honeymoon in 2000, the Siegels visited the Palace of Versailles in France. On the flight home, timeshare magnate David sketched a layout of his wife’s dream home on the back of a cocktail napkin based on the ornate dwellings of Louis XIV and his wife, Marie Antoinette. “He said, ‘When we get home, I want to buy the land and build this house for our family,’” she recalled to Orlando Family. Construction on the 90,000-square-foot mansion—that’s even bigger than the White House—began in 2004 in Orange County’s exclusive Lake Butler Sound community in Orlando. Why so big? As David explained simply in The Queen of Versailles documentary, “Because I could.”

All About the Interior
Though the pair lived in a 26,000-square-foot mansion for years with their seven kids, pets and live-in staff, Siegel always had her eyes on something bigger: a dream home called Versailles. When construction began, she described plans for a palatial estate with 13 bedrooms, 10 kitchens, 30 bathrooms and a children’s wing, plus a bowling alley, skating rink, grand ballroom and Benihana hibachi grill, a $250,000 chandelier in the foyer and antique furniture from the estate of Louis XIV. Fast forward to 2022: on the Discovery+ docuseries Queen of Versailles Reigns Again, Siegel detailed the challenges of finishing the mega-mansion, which by then included a British-style pub, a 150-person dining hall and a 35-car garage. “The house was dormant for many years and wasn’t maintained,” she told Fox Business. “The marble was falling off the exterior, and the other areas were exposed and rusty. So it’s almost like it was under renovation at the same time we’re constructing it.”

The Recession Factor
The 2008 financial crisis forced David—the founder of Westgate, the largest privately owned timeshare company in the world—to fight for his business empire. As a result, the family’s fortune started to plummet... all as The Queen of Versailles cameras continued to roll. Siegel laid off almost all her nannies; she gave up the private planes and rented cars in lieu of a private driver; she cut down her annual $1 million clothing budget (but still got Botox injections). Meanwhile, the extravagant unfinished estate went on the market for $100 million and headed toward foreclosure. Though a bank did put it up in an online auction, the family ultimately retained control. The film ended with Siegel admitting she knew little about her husband’s finances.

Modest Roots
The rich irony? Siegel didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury. Born Jacqueline Mallery in 1966 in upstate New York, young Jackie was raised in the non-descript community of Endwell in a three-bedroom house that had just a single bathroom. “I always had to wait to use it,” she said in the documentary. After graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology, she took a job at IBM. “I figured I could either be a secretary and work for an engineer, or I could be an engineer.” But drab days in a cubicle didn’t suit her, and she moved to New York City to fulfill loftier aspirations.

Star Potential
Wanting to be a part of it, she tried to land a chorus girl gig on Broadway in the late 1980s and danced for casting directors of Cats and The Will Rogers Follies. She also did some modeling work. After marrying her first husband, investment banker Ron Solomon, when she was in her 20s, the two uprooted to the Everglades in Florida. The next stiletto-ed step on her path to stardom? Becoming a beauty queen. “One day I saw an ad in the newspaper for the Mrs. Florida America Pageant, which I entered,” she told Orlando Family. She was crowned Mrs. Florida America in 1993. She later produced the pageant and now owns and directs it. She’s since pivoted to reality TV by appearing on the likes of Celebrity Wife Swap and the Below Deck franchise, where she tried to lure Chef Rachel to be her personal cook.

What a Match
In the late '90s the now-divorced Siegel was feeling adrift. She attended a birthday party at the Orlando home of a fellow pageant winner—and met another recent divorcé who happened to be nearly 30 years her senior. “He says for him it was love at first sight but for me it took a little longer because I wasn’t quite ready for a relationship,” she told Orlando Family of her husband. She added in the film, “It felt wonderful to be so adored.” And though their marriage became strained in the aftermath of the recession, the Siegels persevered and stayed together until David’s death in April 2025 at age 89. “To say we are devastated is an understatement,” she posted on Instagram along with a wedding photo.

A Mom’s Heartbreak
On June 6, 2015, the Siegels were shattered to learn that their oldest daughter, Victoria, had died of an accidental overdose of methadone and antidepressants. She was just 18. “All the money in the world can’t bring my daughter back,” Siegel told ABC News. “It felt like a dark cloud came over our family.” Siegel later published her daughter’s diary that detailed her emotional and physical struggles—which was Victoria’s last wish—to raise awareness about addiction. The Siegels also helped create the Victoria’s Voice foundation to address teenage drug abuse. The bedroom planned for Victoria in Versailles has now been converted to a prayer altar. “Her spirit can stay with me in the master bedroom,” Siegel told The New York Times.

The Never-Ending Dream House
Two decades have passed since Versailles broke ground. And while Siegel now faces the mammoth estate’s impending completion without her husband of 25 years, she is steadfast in overseeing its finishing touches. She also told The New York Times in August that she wants to use the mansion to welcome guests for fundraising events around issues like health care and drug addiction. Still, Siegel made one poignant admission: For all the decades of hassle over her dream house, “I don’t have any immediate desire to move in.”

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