Yahoo Finance Revealed: Most expensive celebrity divorces in history
From the outside, it might seem like the super-famous and wealthy have it all: money, fame and status.
But though they’re living large, when an unhappy couple calls it quits on their marriage, their divorces are bigger, too.
With Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s divorce imminent, the road ahead involves divvying up assets of more than US $2 billion, which includes a massive property portfolio worth $118 million, a $4.9 million fleet of luxury cars and the profits of their two business empires after six years of marriage.
But the celebrity break-up still might not measure up to some of the world’s most expensive divorces in history, according to analysis from OLBG.
After 26 years of marriage, Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and – until days ago, the richest man in the world – split from MacKenzie Scott in late 2019, with their divorce settlement costing US $38 billion.
And if you’ve never heard of Alec Wildenstein, he was an art dealer who parted with US $3.8 billion of his fortune to his former wife and socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein.
She walked away with the money, with one caveat: she wasn’t allowed to spend any of it on cosmetic surgery.
Meanwhile, Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been married four times – but it was his divorce from Scottish journalist and novelist Anna Maria Mann (nee Torv) that was the most expensive.
The pair married in 1967 but split up in 1999, costing US $1.7 billion. Anna Maria is the mother to three of Murdoch’s children, Elizabeth, Lachlan and James.
If those figures look too big, this might put it into perspective.
Per month of marriage, the wealthy businessmen’s spouses received:
MacKenzie Scott: US $114.2 million
Jocelyn Wildenstein: US $23.56 million
Anna Maria Torv: US $6.9 million
Fourth and fifth on the list of world’s most expensive divorces include oil magnate Harold Hamm and Sue Ann Arnall (US $974.8 million) and the founder of McCaw Cellular, now called AT&T, Craig McCaw and his split from Wendy McCaw (US $460 million).
Here are the top 10 most expensive divorces in the world:
Want 2021 to be your best (financial) year yet? Follow Yahoo Finance on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter, and subscribe to the free Fully Briefed daily newsletter here.
