“Mary-Kate was very clear about hating the paparazzi and the public nature of what her career as a child star had brought her,” says a Hamptons insider who spent time with her during her marriage to 55-year-old Olivier Sarkozy. (Mary-Kate filed for divorce from the French businessman in 2020 after nearly five years of marriage.) “She felt hounded. It was too much to handle.”

Few who know Mary-Kate and Ashley were surprised about them shunning showbiz — the former nightlife promoter says they were never much for schmoozing. “They were always a bit different. Mary-Kate had a little bit more spunk. Paris, Lindsay and Nicole [Richie] were dancing on tables, but Mary-Kate and Ashley [would] sit by themselves at a table in the corner. Even when they were on the scene, they were very private.”

Their current scene is vastly different. “Ashley and Mary-Kate run in some very high-end circles,” reveals a source who recently sold Ashley some art pieces at the Park Avenue Armory show for the pair’s London office. “Everyone they interacted with at the Armory show was a wealthy European,” the source says, adding that Mary-Kate and Ashley are both “very well-versed in art, both historical and modern-day.”

While Ashley is still based in NYC, Mary-Kate splits her time in L.A., and they both travel frequently to Europe for work and spend a good deal of time in the Hamptons. Mary-Kate was spotted with longtime friend (and ex-boyfriend) Sean Avery outside The Row’s Amagansett location over Memorial Day weekend. “She loves the Hamptons, riding horses and just being in nature,” says the first friend.

Ashley and her husband, artist Louis Eisner, are also regularly spotted around town. “They spend a lot of their time out here,” a Hamptons resident says of the couple, who wed in December 2022 and welcomed son Otto last August.

In April, the local saw the duo at the gourmet shop Loaves and Fishes, where they spent $600 on groceries, including a $100 lobster salad. The pair were in Martha’s Vineyard on July 9, where Ashley supported Eisner, 34, at his Persona Non Grata exhibition at Winter Street Gallery.

“They looked really happy,” an eyewitness tells Us. “Ashley was walking around the art show admiring his work. She appeared to be in a great mood, saying hello to people in the gallery and even had a smile.”

A second friend tells Us Mary-Kate and Ashley are “very low-key and kinda boring nowadays. They’ve given up smoking and stopped going out for a while. Ashley also had a baby, so her priorities are different; nobody sees them as much as they used to.”

The twins work full-time on the business, though neither designs the clothes. (A former employee and fashion veteran says this is normal: “No one at that level takes a pencil and does a sketch.”) Mary-Kate is more involved with the creative, while Ashley spends more time on operations and finance.

The twins work full-time on the business, though neither designs the clothes. (A former employee and fashion veteran says this is normal: “No one at that level takes a pencil and does a sketch.”) Mary-Kate is more involved with the creative, while Ashley spends more time on operations and finance.

A New York fashion designer tells Us anyone entering their office building has to sign an NDA, and the former employee says Ashley never announced her pregnancy to her employees. She’s also known to avoid confrontation — which explains why she, with her sister’s support, led the initiative to lay off the majority of The Row’s staff in 2020, around the beginning of the pandemic, over email.