A prominent Getty is back in the news for unflattering reasons, as a new lawsuit blames Vanessa Getty’s distracted driving for a March 2024 car wreck that allegedly left another driver with a “traumatic brain injury.”
If you have not been keeping up with the Gettys lately, we will do our best to channel SFist’s late 2000’s-era obsession with the Getty family, often breathlessly detailed in Miss Bigelow’s “Social City By the Numbers” posts. In the high society party image below (from ahem, Getty Images), Vanessa Getty is on the far left, standing next to Dede Wilsey’s son Todd Traina.
Vanessa, or “Nessie” as we once called her, is not to be confused with her niece, the now 30-year-old Ivy Getty who got married in an opulent City Hall ceremony and divorced the dude not long after. (Here are the two of them pictured together in 2023 at Gordon Getty's 90th birthday). Vanessa Getty is 53 and married into the Getty family in 1999, she does some philanthropic work with the arts and animal rescue, and Kamala Harris is godmother to one of her kids.
But all is not charmed at the moment in Vanessa Getty’s world. The SF Standard reports that Vanessa Getty has been sued over a car accident she allegedly caused in March 2024, with the plaintiff claiming Getty’s distracted driving left her with a “traumatic brain injury” and lasting orthopedic issues.
The crash happened March 28, 2024, somewhere on Divisadero Street. Getty’s Porsche Taycan allegedly crashed into the parked Mercedes-Benz CLK 550 as that car’s owner Mary Riley was getting into the car, and Riley’s attorney claims Getty was at fault.
“Suddenly and without warning a vehicle driven by Defendant Vanessa Louise Getty violently crashed into Plaintiff’s parked vehicle,” the lawsuit says, per the Standard.
The Standard also got a statement from Riley’s attorney. “According to the police report, Ms. Getty told the officer that she had been distracted because she was looking for her glasses,” that lawyer Quinton Cutlip told the Standard. “Ms. Getty was negligent and was apologetic at the scene.”
The SF Fire Department confirms that a crash did happen at this location and date, with one person being hospitalized, and both vehicles being towed. Riley’s attorney says she “continues to receive treatment and care for injuries she suffered in the collision.”
The lawsuit was filed this past Wednesday, June 18, and asks for unspecified monetary damages. This is just a civil suit from the injured other driver, and it seems no charges were ever filed over the incident.
Related: Vanessa Getty Models The Shorts We'll All Be Wearing This Year [SFist]
Top image: Vanessa Getty attends the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 02, 2025 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
