'Tragedy follows them around, it’s as if they’re cursed': Trump's billionaire ambassador to Britain is haunted by his drug addict daughter's tragic death in a rat-infested Hollywood mansion

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The billionaire owner of an American football team, Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson IV promises to be one of the most colourful of all political appointments by Donald Trump.

Heir to the Johnson & Johnson baby powder and shampoo fortune, he is due to take up his post as America’s new ambassador to Britain within weeks.

But behind the dazzling corporate success is a crippling personal tragedy from which, his family claim, Woody has never fully recovered. His eldest daughter Casey, a beautiful but troubled young woman, died in 2010 aged just 30 in a rat-infested Hollywood mansion following years of drug abuse.

Melania Trump, Donald Trump, Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson IV and Suzanne Ircha attend Woody's 60th birthday party in 2007

In an act of ‘tough love’, and exasperated by her refusal to seek help, Woody, 69, had reportedly cut his daughter off from the family fortune – and was estranged from her when she died alone. Her body lay undiscovered for days.

Casey’s mother – Woody’s first wife Nancy Sale Johnson, who divorced him in 2001, has publicly admonished him for not being a better father. The 67-year-old said in an interview: ‘All Casey wanted was her father’s approval. She lived for that and she was broken down because she didn’t get it.’

But last night, Casey’s grandmother Dolores ‘Dodie’ Frey said: ‘His is a family with too much money and tragedy seems to follow them around. It’s as if they’re cursed.

‘Woody has his own demons. He didn’t really know how to play with his children or relate to them. His own mother wasn’t there for him and his father died young.’ Casey’s tale caused morbid fascination in America, which regards the Johnson family as aristocracy. Woody’s fortune is a rumoured £2.6 billion and the sports-mad Republican owns the New York Jets team.

Woody is pictured with his eldest daughter Casey, who died in 2010 aged just 30 in a rat-infested Hollywood mansion following years of drug abuse

But socialite Casey horrified her parents by enjoying an affair with reality TV star Tila Tequila, and falling out of nightclubs with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

Wearing couture outfits and dripping with diamonds, by her 20s she was living in a Bel Air mansion.

‘Her parents had pampered her to the point where she hardly knew the real world,’ Dodie said.

The socialite died at the age of 30, and Woody has not recovered

‘She had never visited a grocery store before. She always had servants and maids and butlers to do things for her.

‘Her mother spent much of her time with her horses in Florida and New York. And her father was tied up with his business.’

It left Casey and her two younger sisters to be raised by nannies. Aged eight, she was diagnosed with diabetes and ‘became a whole different person’.

‘Woody made sure that Casey knew he was there if needed. He even kept a plane ready to take off from Los Angeles to go back to New York any time she needed it.’

At 21, when her parents divorced, she was battling alleged addictions to cocaine, marijuana and prescription drugs. At the centre of this tumultuous lifestyle she adopted a baby girl from Kazakhstan, despite concerns from her family that she could barely look after herself.

Her mother won custody of the girl, now ten. But Casey felt this loss acutely, falling into a downward spiral and failing to take her insulin. She was found dead at her squalid home on January 4, 2010, after spending New Year’s Eve alone. Woody has since set up a juvenile diabetes memorial fund in her honour which has raised millions.

It is not the family’s only tragedy. Woody’s younger brother Keith was 25 when he was found dead amid drugs paraphernalia in his Florida apartment in 1975. A month later, his brother Billy, 22, died after being thrown from his motorbike.

Woody’s new role in London – formally known as the Ambassador of the US to the Court of St James’s – is a generous reward indeed for the man who helped bankroll Trump’s presidential campaign.

He and second wife Suzanne will move into their official London residence, the palatial Winfield House in Regent’s Park, within weeks. The 12-acre gardens are second only in size to those at Buckingham Palace.

Woody will help enact Trump’s new policies in dealings with the UK in the wake of Brexit.

‘He’s a good man,’ Dodie says. ‘But whether he has the qualities that would make a good ambassador, I really can’t say.’

The Trump ascendancy: Mexican media declares 'the nightmare begins' following inauguration

Popular front: How Mexico's San Luis Hoy reported the news - the headline means The Nightmare Begins

Donald Trump’s inauguration sparked a media frenzy around the world – with most countries’ newspapers dedicating their front pages to the new President .

Mexican paper San Luis Hoy led with a picture of a ranting President Trump and the words Inicia La Pesadilla – which translates as The Nightmare Begins.

Mexico will have special reason to pay close attention to its neighbour, with President Trump threatening to build a wall along its vast border with the US to keep out illegal immigrants.

And the new Commander-in-Chief also attracted fierce criticism when he implied on the campaign trail that Mexicans were rapists.

Other Mexican papers were more subtle in their criticism. El Mexicano’s front-page headline read: ‘Trump enciende ira’ (Trump turns on anger), while El Occidentale had the word ‘Showtime’ over a montage of the new President and the protests against his inauguration that erupted in Washington on Friday.

Meanwhile, in Trump’s ancestral homeland of Germany, newspapers also struck a cautious tone.

Die Spiegel portrayed a pool table with the cue ball carrying the American flag and the remaining balls as the flags of other countries. Vladimir Putin’s face was on the key ‘eight ball’. However, the Hamburger Morgen Post, which once called Mr Trump a ‘horror clown’, took a different tactic. Its front-page headline – Jetzt gnade uns Gott! – is a pun, meaning either ‘now grace us’ or ‘God forgive us’. And tabloid Bild, which had previously asked whether the new President was a ‘sex monster’, simply put ‘Die Trump Show’.

But in Russia, a country to which Trump has indicated he will take a conciliatory approach, coverage of the inauguration was oddly muted.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda only ran a small picture of the President, and instead dedicated most of its front page to a story about cars.

SO WHAT'S NEXT, KID? 

With grandson Tristan by his side – who stuck out his tongue and gave a Trump-esque hand gesture – the new President signed his first order on Friday, aiming to end the ‘Obamacare’ health policy. And if he wants to keep his promises, Mr Trump has plenty to get through…

1 FOREIGN POLICY

The White House website insists that Trump will ‘embrace diplomacy’ in his dealings with the wider world. But he promises to rebuild the US military and to wipe IS ‘from the face of the Earth’.

2 THE WALL

His most striking campaign pledge was to build a wall along the 1,900-mile border with Mexico. And yesterday the White House website insisted: ‘President Trump is committed to building a border wall to stop illegal immigration.’ Experts say it would cost billions.

3 TRADE

Trump’s new slogan is buy American and hire American, and he will start by pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal with Australia and Singapore. He also wants to renegotiate deals with Mexico and Canada. No mention is yet made of Brexit or the EU on the White House website.

4 ENVIRONMENT

The ‘America First’ energy plan will be mean more fracking for shale gas, reviving the coal industry, and the end of laws designed by Barack Obama to reduce carbon emissions. But no mention is made of climate change.

5 JOBS

Trump plans 25 million new jobs and to achieve 4 per cent annual economic growth by lowering tax and repealing ‘job-killing’ red tape.