A marriage isn't just an expression of love — It's a legal arrangement, and every now
and then, a celebrity's will makes headlines because of who isn't included.
Here are several stars who left their spouses with nothing.
In 1989, a celebrity power couple for the ages was formed when Ric Ocasek, frontman
of the Cars, married supermodel Paulina Porizkova.
But in a May 2018 Instagram post, Porizokva announced that she and Ocasek had, quote,
"peacefully separated" about a year earlier.
Porizkova also tried to make it clear that she felt no animosity toward Ocasek, and that
their relationship had evolved over the decades, writing,
"The love we have for one another is so wide and deep it's practically tangible, and that
sort of love can never disappear."
According to USA Today, the couple had started the formal process of legally divorcing before
Ocasek died in September 2019 from a combination of heart problems and emphysema.
At the time of his death, Porizkova and Ocasek still lived together, and in an interview
with Rolling Stone, the model revealed that she was the one who found the singer's body.
She was in for another shock when Ocasek's will was read, which according to Page Six,
included a late-breaking addendum from the rock star, which read,
"I have made no provision for my wife Paulina Porizkova [...] as we are in the process of
divorcing.
Even if I should die before our divorce is final, [...] Paulina is not entitled to any
elective share [...] because she had abandoned me."
Titan of broadcasting Larry King, who survived multiple heart attacks, quintuple bypass surgery,
lung cancer, angina, and COVID-19, died in January 2021 at the age of 87.
A prolific host, journalist, and interviewer who worked in radio and television for more
than 60 years, he's probably best known for his one-on-one CNN talk show Larry King Live,
which he hosted for 25 years.
The one thing King did almost as often as go to work was get married.
The suspendered-and-bespectacled broadcaster pledged his undying and official love to seven
women in his lifetime, the last being Shawn Southwick, getting hitched to her in 1997
at UCLA Medical Center right before he went under the knife for heart surgery.
Like so many of his other marriages, that one ended — in 2019, King filed for divorce,
blaming, quote, "irreconcilable differences."
Just after beginning divorce proceedings, King amended his will — albeit with a handwritten
note expressly denying Southwick any claims to the estate he'd leave behind, according
to TMZ.
In the document, King requested that his money be divided among his children.
Between editing his will and dying, the divorce was never finalized.
That means King and Southwick were still technically married, and he purposely left her nothing,
inviting a legal battle between the man's estranged wife and representatives of his
estate.
A gifted, versatile, and funny performer, Brittany Murphy appeared in a number of well-received
films in the late '90s, first emerging as makeover recipient Tai in the teen classic
Clueless and going on to co-star in 8 Mile, Just Married, Uptown Girls, and Little Black
Book, among others.
In 2007, Murphy married English screenwriter Simon Monjack, whom she'd actually met more
than a decade earlier.
In December 2009, the 32-year-old Murphy died.
"The actress, just 32, was found in full cardiac arrest and transported to Cedar-Sinai Medical
Center."
According to official reports, the actor died of pneumonia, with anemia and drug intoxication
contributing to her demise.
Monjack shared with TMZ that years earlier, Murphy had filed a will and set up a trust
that bequeathed her estate — including her Hollywood Hills home — to her mother, Sharon,
and that he was well aware of this document before his wife's death.
Monjack told TMZ that the legally binding agreement reads in part,
"I am married to Simon Monjack who I have intentionally left out of this will."
Five months later, Monjack died, too, also from a combination of pneumonia and anemia.
Anna Nicole Smith was one of the most celebrated women in the world in the early 1990s.
A model for Guess and a Playboy centerfold, Smith also appeared in movies like The Naked
Gun 33 1/3.
In August 1994, the 26-year-old Smith married J. Howard Marshall, an 89-year-old oil tycoon
with a net worth that People estimated at $500 million.
"What did a 23-year-old girl see in an 86-year-old man?"
Scarcely more than a year after Smith married Marshall, he died of pneumonia at age 90.
Any suggestions or rumors that Smith had married the much-older man for his money were complicated
by the fact that Marshall had not rewritten his will to leave anything to his third and
latest wife.
The American Bar Association reported that Marshall's fortune went to a trust that named
his son Pierce as the sole beneficiary.
Smith went to court to claim a piece of her deceased husband's estate, claiming that her
late husband, quote, "promised to give her one-half of his income earned during their
marriage."
The battle stretched on for years.
According to Reuters, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Smith receiving
any of Marshall's money in 2010, or rather it decided that her heirs would get nothing,
as she died in 2007.
Before World War II, Mickey Rooney was one of the biggest draws in Hollywood, starring
as plucky teenager Andy Hardy in a string of amiable comedies and a bunch of musicals
alongside Judy Garland.
In his adult years, he remained a working actor who built up a modest fortune over the
years, starring in a wide variety of popular films like Breakfast at Tiffany's,The Black
Stallion, and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
He also remained in the public consciousness for his serial marriage habit.
He married eight women between the 1940s and 1970s, among them screen stars Ava Garner
and Martha Vickers, and Jan Chamberlin, his final wife.
Rooney and Chamberlin tied the knot in 1978, but separated in 2012.
They didn't divorce, and they were still legally married when the actor died at age 93 in 2014.
As for what happened to his once vast fortune?
According to the Los Angeles Times, he had disinherited everyone except a stepson, and
court documents showed that he left assets of just $18,000."
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