When billionaires are involved in a relationship that's meeting its end, the amounts of money
changing hands can be absolutely incredible. Ending a marriage is a costly process, especially
for the richest people on Earth. Here are the most expensive divorces in history.
There are certain family names that just scream money, and "Disney" is one of them. Roy E.
Disney was Walt's nephew, and the last of the immediate family to be directly involved
with the company. In 2007, his personal wealth was estimated to be about $1.3 billion. Roy
married his first wife Patricia in 1955, and they remained married for 52 years, until
he suddenly filed for divorce, citing those pesky irreconcilable differences.
If you're thinking it's a little suspicious that a 77-year-old man would suddenly get
tired of his wife for no reason, you're right, as Roy married someone else a year after the
divorce. He and his new wife Leslie shared a love for sailing, and they even worked together
on a sailing documentary after getting married, though Roy passed away shortly afterwards
in 2009.
So how much is 52 years of marriage worth to a billionaire scion of a famous family?
About $600 million, apparently. That downgraded Roy Disney from billionaire to mere multi-millionaire,
and knocked him off of Forbes' list of the richest people in the world.
If you need a refresher about Tiger Woods' divorce from Elin Nordegren, the basics are
simple: In 2009, Woods was the number one professional golfer in the world and possibly
the wealthiest athlete as well. But then he became engulfed in a scandal when a late-night
car crash led to some unsavory revelations. He eventually confessed to having affairs
with multiple women and generally being a pretty bad husband.
That behavior cost Woods big time, as his divorce settlement paid out $750 million to
Nordegren, and came with a list of other restrictions for the golfer. For example, he was explicitly
forbidden from bringing any of his girlfriends around his children unless and until one of
them became his new wife. The enormous sum paid out to Nordegren can be explained by
her agreement to never speak publicly about her husband's behavior. In other words, it's
essentially hush money, and probably a bargain in that regard. Woods lost $35 million in
sponsorship deals in the wake of the scandal, as he needed to rebuild his image, and his
golf game. He simply couldn't afford to have his ex-wife telling eye-popping stories about
his bad behavior.
Harold Hamm owns about 75 percent of the independent oil company Continental Resources, and he's
currently worth about $9.4 billion. But back in 2015, that fortune was a bit bigger, to
the tune of $13.7 billion, to be exact. His divorce from ex-wife Sue Ann Arnall after
26 years of marriage had a little something to do with that reduction, though it could've
been much worse except for a dirty trick.
After the divorce proceedings had dragged on for years, Hamm offered Arnall a check
for the extremely specific amount of $974,790,317.77. She initially rejected the offer, believing
that she was owed a lot more than just under $1 billion.
"You see, that billion dollars is a mere fraction of her ex-husband's wealth."
But then she cashed the check, which was a strategic error, as Hamm immediately filed
a motion arguing that Arnall had accepted his terms for a settlement and thus shouldn't
get anything more. The courts eventually decided in Hamm's favor, leaving Arnall to lick her
wounds. She then took the only revenge she had left, as she spent some of her money on
a successful effort to get the judge who presided over the divorce ousted from his seat.
You've probably heard the term "starter marriage." Steve and Elaine Wynn had what you might call
a "starter divorce." They met in college and then got married in 1963. In 1986, they divorced,
and then in 1991, they got married again. The second go-round lasted until 2010, and
the divorce that time was a doozy.
The settlement gave Elaine 11 million shares in Wynn Resorts, which she'd co-founded with
Steve. That left the exes with about equal shares in their company. Steve also sold off
some of his shares to add cash to the settlement, bringing the total value of Elaine's divorce
settlement to about $850 million.
Then in 2012, Elaine wanted to sell some of her shares, but the board wasn't happy about
it. She sued, and then she was removed from the board as a result. But the saga didn't
end there. In 2018, Steve was accused of sexual harassment, and as a result he stepped down
as CEO and chairman, and he sold all of his shares in the company. Elaine, today worth
about $2 billion, is now the largest shareholder in the company.
Bernie Ecclestone is the former chief executive of the Formula One Group, and his net worth
is estimated at about $3.5 billion. In 1984, he married former model Slavica Radic, and
they seemed pretty happy for 24 years. That is, until she filed for divorce in 2008 when
she was 50 and he was 78. Slavica initially walked away from the divorce with $4 billion,
but that was later downgraded to an estimated $1.2 billion — still not too shabby.
But things were a lot more complicated than that. Bernie had set up a trust for his wife
and daughters years ago, and he moved most of his assets to a business based on the island
of Jersey in order to evade Great Britain's taxes. As a result, he isn't officially in
charge of any of his money. Instead, Slavica is. When a criminal investigation into bribery
charges looked into Ecclestone's divorce settlement, investigators discovered something odd: Slavica
has been paying him about $100 million a year. No one's entirely certain what's going on
here, although it is apparently clear that the Ecclestone divorce was more amicable than
it seemed.
Rupert Murdoch is a serial monogamist. He married his first wife, Patricia Booker, in
1956. They divorced in 1967, and a year later he married Anna Maria Torv. This was long
before he became the astronomically wealthy businessman we know today. After more than
three decades together, Murdoch and Torv divorced in 1999, and the settlement was reportedly
worth about $1.7 billion. Much of that money was actually put into a trust for the couple's
children.
You might think that such a costly breakup would put Murdoch off of marriage forever,
but not so much. Just 17 days after his divorce from Torv was finalized, he married Wendi
Deng, 38 years his junior. They remained married for 14 years, announcing their divorce in
2013. Murdoch had learned one lesson from his history, as it turned out that he and
Deng had signed a prenuptial agreement along with two postnuptial amendments that dictated
how their assets would be split. There were still plenty of details to work out concerning
custody of their children, living arrangements, and voting rights on the shares of the family
trust. But overall, it was a much less expensive divorce for Murdoch this time around. Three
years later, he got married again, to model Jerry Hall.
If the name Jocelyn Wildenstein rings a bell, that might be because of her love affair with
plastic surgery, which earned her the mean-spirited nickname "Catwoman." She's the living definition
of the word "socialite." Born in Switzerland in 1945, she was jetting around the world
dating wealthy men by the age of 17. In 1978, she married art dealer Alec Wildenstein, and
they were married for more than 20 years before their insanely expensive divorce. It reportedly
paid out a whopping $3.8 billion to Jocelyn: $2.5 billion directly, and payments of $100
million for 13 years.
The divorce was filled with wild details. Alec reportedly threatened Jocelyn with a
gun, and both parties accused the other of infidelity.
"She found her husband in bed with a 21-year-old."
"Exactly."
Alec claimed that all of their homes and cars were actually owned by his father. He ordered
the combinations on all the safes changed, and ordered the servants to ignore Jocelyn
if she insisted on showing up. You might think that taking home nearly $4 billion would be
enough to set you up for life, but somehow Jocelyn Wildenstein managed to squander it
all. In 2018, she filed for bankruptcy, claiming to have exactly zero dollars and to be living
off of a $900 monthly social security payment.
The current record-holders for most expensive divorce have quite a bit of runway between
them and the runners-up. In 2019, Jeff Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie received about $35 billion
in their divorce settlement. And Jeff didn't even have to go out of pocket to pay her,
as Mackenzie received her settlement in the form of four percent of Amazon stock.
This settlement made MacKenzie Bezos the third-richest woman in the world overnight. Despite clear
evidence that the root cause of their split was infidelity on the part of Jeff, their
divorce has been remarkably friendly and smooth. One reason for that is probably because they
have very complicated and intertwined financial lives. MacKenzie was a big part of the early
days of Amazon, and trying to deny her that credit would probably not be worth the effort,
even if Jeff had been feeling vindictive. In this case, maintaining a friendly public
relationship is simply good business for both of them.
"Even though Mackenzie Bezos appears to be giving up much of her share of the couple's
vast fortune, she said she was quote, 'grateful and excited to put the divorce behind her.'"
Craig and Wendy McCaw may not be household names anymore, but for a brief shining moment
they were famous for going through one of the most expensive divorces ever. The couple
met in college and married shortly after graduating. At the time, they weren't poor by any means,
but they weren't quite billionaires yet. Craig made his money by buying cellular communication
businesses, which he turned around and sold to AT&T for $11.5 billion in 1994. Probably
not coincidentally, the couple separated not long after, filing for divorce in 1995.
Then they began arguing vigorously about how to divide up the empire. They lived in Washington,
a community property state, but Craig argued that his investments stemmed from money passed
to him by his father and thus should be considered prior wealth not subject to divorce decree.
The battle was brutal. The McCaws were known for their love of privacy, but now they suddenly
had almost every aspect of their lives exposed to public scrutiny. In the end, Wendy walked
away with $460 million. Since then, there's been good news and bad news, as they remain
friends and even work together. But the value of their companies declined precipitously
and neither is as filthy rich as they once were.
Divorce is a messy and emotional experience for most people. It almost never goes entirely
well. When it comes to a high-value split, there's usually a familiar pattern that consists
of legal maneuvering and dirty tricks, followed by a settlement and a cheerful joint statement.
And then everyone goes their separate ways. Bill and Sue Gross followed that pattern,
except for the last part.
In 2016, Sue filed for divorce and walked away with $1.3 billion for her troubles after
a divorce that got as petty as you can imagine. The couple even battled over their pet cats,
with poor Bill losing his bid to keep one that he was especially fond of. When the dust
settled, Bill was no longer on the Forbes 400 list and Sue was a newly-minted billionaire.
But then they just kept on battling. The marriage officially ended in 2017, but the couple squabbled
over who got to remain in their California mansion. There were reports of the sort of
mean-spirited antics that you imagine only happen in movies. This included such bizarre
details as the use of "fart spray" and the placement of a dead fish inside a ventilation
system. Bill then purchased a house in the same tony enclave and hired a security team
to spy on his ex-wife and her family. Billionaires: they're just as petty as us! Or perhaps even
more so.
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