Avril Lavigne buys Bel-Air mansion
Singer and husband select Tuscan-style 12,000-square-foot behemoth
Couple married in July 2006 in a traditional ceremony rather than a goth, rock 'n' roll wedding
Singer Avril Lavigne and her husband, Sum 41 frontman, Deryck Whibley, have plunked down $9.5-million (USD), for a 12,184-square-foot, Tuscan-style mansion in the Bel-Air community of Los Angeles. Travis Barker of Blink-182 owned the home from 2004 until late 2006 and filmed his now-concluded MTV reality series Meet the Barkers there, according the Los Angeles Times.
Lavigne, 22, reportedly wanted to build a home but settled on buying one that was fairly new with substantial upgrades. The three-story house behind gates has eight bedrooms and 10½ bathrooms in 12,000 square feet. The residence occupies an acre, and also has an elevator, an office, a state-of-the-art kitchen, a steam shower, a sauna, a pool, a spa and garage space for 10 cars.
A Napanee, Ontario native, Lavigne, who released her debut album, Let's Go, in 2002, is scheduled to appear as the musical guest next weekend on Saturday Night Live. Her third album, The Best Damn Thing, is due out April 17.
Lavigne still needs to sell her five-bedroom, 6,864-square-foot mansion in the Mulholland Estates neighborhood above Beverly Hills, which she purchased in 2004 for $4,550,000 (USD).
In other Lavigne news, the singer is quoted in the April issue of Jane magazine that marriage has changed her husband.
“I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him,” Lavigne said, adding that she doesn’t worry about him cheating on her. “We have a really good, strong relationship. There's a lot of trust.”
The couple married in July 2006 in a traditional ceremony.
“I wanted to be like, ‘Oh, let’s totally have a rock ‘n’roll, goth wedding,’” Lavigne told Jane. “But at the same time I was like, ‘I've been dreaming about my wedding day since I was a little girl. I have to wear the white dress.’ I wanted to be a princess, okay?
“People thought I would have done, like, some black wedding dress, and yeah, I would have. But at the same time I was thinking about our pictures… I didn’t want to be, like, 20 years later, ‘Oh, why did I wear my hair like that? It’s not cool now.’”
Lavigne also turns her nose down on drugs. “I’ve never done coke in my life, and I’m proud of that. Oh my God! I could never. I am 100 percent against drugs,” she said.
Whibley is also on board even if it wasn’t always the case. Lavigne said, “"He doesn't do drugs. Clearly, he used to, because he talked about it, but I wouldn’t be with someone who did, and I made that very clear to him when we first started dating."
