There’s nothing like coming into a bit of money when you reach a certain age, but for Lynsi Snyder, celebrating her 35th birthday meant becoming a fast-food-chain heiress and one of the youngest billionaires in America.

Having gained 50% of the company’s shares when she turned 30, her birthday this year, celebrated on Friday, saw her acquire nearly all of those stocks.

Not much is known about Snyder, a recluse who hardly speaks to the media. So Business Insider went on a mission to find out what they could about her, and this is what we know:

The Snyder Family

Snyder’s grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder, opened the first In-N-Out restaurant in 1948. After her grandfather died in 1976, Snyder’s uncle, Rich Snyder, took over the company. He was at the helm until 1993, when he died in a plane crash. Snyder’s father, Guy Snyder, then replaced his brother and remained in charge until 1999, when he died of a prescription-drug overdose. Lynsi Snyder was 17 at the time.

In a video interview this year, Snyder said her father battled drug addiction and was in and out of rehab facilities from the time she was 5 years old. He later had an affair, and her parents divorced when she was 12, she said.

Despite everything, Snyder said she was very close with her father. Reflecting on his death, she said, “My world shattered. After my dad died there was no way I was going to be alone.”

Snyder’s Marriages

After her father’s death, Snyder married her first husband. She was 18 years old. “It wasn’t right,” she said. “I paid the price with a divorce and jumped right into the arms of someone else.”

Then she said she started smoking pot and abusing alcohol.

She said she worried she would “meet an early death” like her father, and she eventually married again, had two children, and later had an affair. The marriage dissolved within six years, she said. “I couldn’t feel like a bigger failure at that point,” she said.

She married a third time and had another child with a man she said married her for money and cheated on her for nearly four years before they divorced. “The first time he cheated on me I thought, ‘Well I deserve it,'” she said. “It was terrible.”

Snyder married a fourth time in 2014 to former In-N-Out employee Sean Ellingson. She says she has finally found peace through religion.

Snyder now lives with Ellingson in this Los Angeles home that she bought for $17.4 million in 2012. The home features 7 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, a tennis court, basketball court, indoor batting cage, movie theatre, infinity pool, and an eight-car garage.

Snyder As President

Since taking the position as president, Snyder has expanded In-N-Out to six states from four. She has changed almost nothing else about the brand, which prides itself on a simple menu of burgers and fries.

Snyder’s A Bit Of A Daredevil

In her free time, Snyder says she enjoys drag racing — a hobby she started when she was 18 years old. “I just love muscle cars,” she told NHRA about why she races. “I love the whole sport. I think that it was kind of an escape and a hobby that was a lot of fun and a connection to my dad.”

Snyder named her racing car the “Flying Dutch Fox” in a tribute to her father, who had a car named the “Flying Dutchman.” She said she used “fox” because when she was little, her father called her that. “He told me I was a little fox because I was always climbing on everything and getting into everything,” she told NHRA.

Snyder’s Nearly Been Kidnapped Twice

Around the time that she started racing, Snyder said she was the victim of two attempted kidnappings. The first kidnapping attempt happened when she was 17 and still in high school. The second time, she was 24 and working as a manager at In-N-Out. “I ran across the highway,” she told the Orange Coast Magazine, adding that she knew her would-be kidnappers were suspicious because “they had a van with boarded-up windows.”

Here’s the video interview from this year, which sees Snyder sit down for a tell-all interview with I Am Second. Watch below:

[source:businessinsider]