The 9 Most Expensive Celebrity Divorces Of All Time

Weddings often begin as fairy tales: romantic gestures, heavenly ceremonies teeming with white dresses, and a sea of guests clicking cups to wish the couple the best. And don't forget the ceremonial bite of cake and the toast with crossed arms for the photo frame — pure love. Celebrities follow the same script but with more lavish nuptial shows, princess-worthy bridal gowns, and champagne expensive enough to dazzle onlookers and inspire envy. But like cold November rain, nothing lasts forever. When passion fades and romance sours, whether from daily life routines or from financial crimes committed by one of the celebrities, these glittering unions crumble — as they frequently do — and turn into a scorching inferno. For mere mortals, a divorce involves splitting two cars, a house, some cash in the bank, and deciding who gets the dog or cat, and of course, custody of the kids.

For the rich and famous, the stakes are tenfold — sometimes hundredfold — with bitter disputes and sweat-inducing financial settlements. And unlike civilian splits, celebrity divorces don't happen under the radar, oh no. They play out before the eyes of everyone, fueled by a media frenzy of scandalous allegations and finger-pointing. Furthermore, with the recurring theme of infidelity stealing the show, the result is a whirlwind of legal proceedings where one partner is cast into the harsh spotlight of public judgment and financial accountability. For some, a contentious separation marks a mere monetary inconvenience; for others, it represents a seismic shift, draining fortunes and tarnishing reputations alike. These are the costs of love gone wrong. So, before you file for divorce, make sure you take crucial financial steps to protect your fortune.

Tiger Woods's infidelity saga shattered not just his pristine reputation; it also, in one fell swoop, cost him a big chunk of his fortune, major sponsorships, and his marriage to Swedish former model Elin Nordegren. The golf superstar's fall from grace began on November 25, 2009, when The National Enquirer reported his affair with nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel, an article that sparked a media firestorm. Two days after that, on Thanksgiving, Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade outside the couple's Florida home — an incident that, perhaps as a result of the report, unlocked the doors for an avalanche of adultery articles. In December 2009, Us Weekly published a 31-month romance with waitress Jaimee Grubbs and opened its cover with the headline "Yes, he cheated." In the same vein, the UK's Mirror and Daily Mail mentioned other extramarital flings with Mindy Lawton, another waitress, and Holly Sampson, a porn star.

Bottom line, at least eight women surfaced as Woods' affairs. To deal with the wave of revelations, Woods held a televised press conference in February 2010, where he acknowledged his amours and apologized for his infidelity. Fed up with the constant exposésof her husband's unfaithfulness, Elin Nordegren filed for divorce in July of the same year. It was finalized in August. As reported by TMZ, the marital dissolution resulted in $100 million in payouts and assets to Nordegren. For Raoul Felder, a celebrity divorce attorney, Tiger Woods probably overpaid, CBS News reported, adding that he was "in Desperateville" and only wanted to settle to stop the hemorrhage of negative PR. Tiger Woods's nine-figure payout is on the list of athletes with the most expensive divorces.

This divorce was low-drama by tabloid standards –– no sordid scandals or public mudslinging, just the mountain of money changing hands. Michael Jordan and Juanita Vanoy got married on September 2, 1989, and continued together for 17 years, spanning the full extent of Jordan's six championship wins with the Chicago Bulls. Their marriage weathered storms, like any other, including one instance in 2002 when Vanoy filed for divorce but then reconciled. But by late 2006, the couple decided to call it quits for good, citing irreconcilable differences. The spouses' lawyers released a statement emphasizing the split was a mutual, amicable decision — uncommon in high-stakes breakups. The byproduct of this separation amounted to a $168 million payout for Vanoy (plus $2 million in legal fees), which even dwarfed Jordan's career NBA earnings.

But for the Chicago Bulls legend, it represented a mere slice of his wealth cake. His net worth (estimated at around $450 million at the time), combined with his lucrative endorsements and ownership stakes, allowed him to pay that settlement without tickling his bank account. Regarding the reasons for the divorce, there's not much to say. Neither Jordan nor Vanoy has given any interviews about it. Rumors whisper it happened because of Jordan's busy lifestyle and alleged infidelities, but the pair has kept details private. Years later, Vanoy said in a rare interview that by the end, she lived in essence as a single mother due to Jordan's absences. Whatever the reason, not even Air Jordan sneakers could help Michael slam dunk his way out of a hefty divorce bill.

Mel Gibson's separation from Robyn Moore is the stuff of Hollywood legend –– not least because it cost him half of his estimated $850 million fortune according to ABC News. During the 31 years of marriage, the "Mad Max" and "Lethal Weapon" star became one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors and directors. Remember "The Passion of the Christ"? Gibson directed it. "Braveheart"? He directed and played the main role. "The Patriot"? Well, he just starred in it. By the mid-2000s, the Gibson-Moore relationship was on the rocks. In 2009, they filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. However, the backstory was tabloid gold: Gibson had been caught drunk driving in 2006, and in 2007 he began his affair with Russian pianist Oksana Grigorieva. She got pregnant with his child, Lucia, who was born in 2009 and is rarely seen in public. Clearly, Moore had ample reason to leave.

With no prenup in place, according to California's community property law, Moore was entitled to half of everything Gibson earned during their life together. She walked away flush with cash with an estimated $425 million settlement — the biggest Hollywood divorce payout ever. Despite the cause surrounding the breakup, Moore never bad-mouthed Gibson in the press. In fact, when he faced domestic violence allegations from Oksana, Moore submitted a sworn statement defending him. Gibson, on the flip side, confessed in a secretly taped conversation with Oksana, as reported by People magazine, "I left my wife because we had no spiritual common ground." As excuses for blowing up a 31-year marriage go, that one deserves an eye-roll from everyone.

Not all big-ticket divorces revolve around Hollywood or the sports realm. This dramatic breakup was settled in the British High Court and involved two members of Middle Eastern royalty. In 2021, Princess Haya of Jordan was awarded a financial settlement of over £554 million (about $728 million) from her ex-husband, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, according to CNN. Here's how the palace intrigue drama unfolded. Princess Haya, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan, married Sheikh Mohammed in 2004, becoming one of his several wives. By 2019, the marriage had imploded in spectacular fashion. Haya fled to London with their two young children, Sheikha Al Jalila and Sheikh Zayed, seeking refuge and claiming she feared for her safety. The catalyst for her departure was discovering her husband's disturbing treatment of other family members.

Indeed, UK courts later found Sheikh Mohammed had orchestrated the forced abductions of two of his daughters from another marriage. For his part, the sheikh was enraged by Haya's affair with her British bodyguard. Aha! Amidst this turmoil, Haya filed for divorce in London and sought a huge financial settlement to secure her children's future and safety. The verdict's payout was a lump sum of around $333 million upfront for Haya's expenses and security, plus ongoing annual payments and assets held in trusts. Together, they topped $728 million. The judge emphasized that most of this money was for protection costs 'to address the grave risk' to Haya and the children posed by the sheikh himself.

When Google co-founder Sergey Brin quietly filed for divorce from lawyer and entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan in January 2022, it initially seemed like a low-key split. But this being Silicon Valley, the divorce quickly morphed into a headline magnet, not only because of an expected eye-popping, astronomical settlement but also because the plot included rumors of an affair. Surrounding the juicy transaction, multiple insiders told The New York Post that Shanahan left the relationship with over $1 billion in assets. Earlier, Forbes had estimated at least $360 million in stock transfers based on SEC filings. Even though the exact amount is shrouded in secrecy due to a private arbitration agreement, the deal was quite generous.

Affair-wise, in July 2022, the Wall Street Journal ran a sensational piece claiming Shanahan had a brief fling with Elon Musk, a longtime friend of Brin, in December 2021. Musk mocked the WSJ editor over that claim and posted on X, "This is total BS ... I've only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many people around. Nothing romantic." Chances are the bombshell ruptured the Brin-Musk bromance and precipitated the divorce. In a new development, by mid-2023, Shanahan popped up in the news but for a different reason: she was named as a potential running mate for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign. Talk about moving on with her life! As for Brin, he's dating again and continues to be filthy rich, with a net worth of $152 billion as per Forbes. He follows the savvy investment rules the world's wealthiest people have in common.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has had five wives: Patricia, Anna, Wendi, Jerry, and Elena. But his separation from long-time spouse number two, Anna Torv (1967-1999), truly broke the bank. The Murdoch-Torv split, which occurred after 32 years of marriage and three children, cost a staggering $1.7 billion in assets transferred to Torv, according to The Guardian, including $110 million in cash up front. At that moment, it ranked as the most expensive divorce on record. Unlike some amicable mega-divorces, this one came with a healthy dose of betrayal and bitterness. The breakup's catalyst was Murdoch's relationship with Wendi Deng, 37 years younger than him and who had just been hired as a junior executive at one of his TV networks. Murdoch fell head over heels.

Torv later said bluntly that Murdoch's affair with Deng was not "an original plot but the end of the marriage." She added that she'd thought they had a happy marriage, but obviously they didn't. Indeed, Murdoch filed for divorce and wasted no time –– he married Deng just 17 days after the ink dried on the marital settlement. Murdoch and Deng's new chapter brought two kids, Grace and Chloe, and lasted 14 years, ending in 2013. That divorce did not cost a great deal, with the compensation reported at only $50 million. Perhaps he'd learned the value of a solid prenup. Many years have passed, and the pair seem to remain cordial for the sake of their children. Now in his 90s, Murdoch remarried on June 1, 2024, for the fifth time, to 67-year-old molecular biologist Elena Zhukova. This story could be summarized as, "A wealthy older man leaves devoted wife for younger woman, pays a fortune, and earns a permanent spot in the Divorce Hall of Fame."

As the largest breakup arrangement in the 20th century, the divorce of Alec and Jocelyn Wildenstein in 1999 is the quintessential tale of extravagance and scandal. In terms of money, it reached a head-spinning settlement of $3.8 billion for Jocelyn –– $2.5 billion upfront plus $100 million per year for 13 years. Alec Wildenstein (born in 1940, died in 2008) was a billionaire art dealer and heir to a renowned family fortune. Jocelyn Alice Périsset (born in 1940, died in 2024) a Swiss-born socialite, became infamous for her extensive plastic surgeries that earned her the tabloid nickname "Catwoman." Their marriage crashed and burned when Jocelyn walked in on Alec with a 19-year-old Russian model at their home in 1997. Divorce proceedings started soon after. Over the two years of legal battles, the Wildensteins aired loads of dirty laundry.

Alec portrayed Jocelyn as a frivolous big spender, while she accused him of humiliation and cruelty. In the end, Jocelyn won and came to be one of the richest divorcees ever, almost overnight. Noting Jocelyn's predilection for cosmetic surgery, a bemused judge reportedly stipulated that she couldn't use the divorce money for further plastic surgeries. Imagine a court order telling you to cool it with the facelifts! Anyhow, Jocelyn walked away with that wealth, more than enough to live forever without working. But that wasn't the case for her. In time, she managed to burn through the fortune, and by 2018, she filed for bankruptcy, claiming her monthly income was just $900 in Social Security. How do you blow $3.8 billion? Apparently, by spending millions per month on mansions, fashion, and parties, and by having bad luck with investments. She should have taken money tips from Warren Buffett.

When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and novelist MacKenzie Scott announced their divorce in 2019, one of the world's richest men was about to set a record for the world's priciest divorce. That same year, former husband and wife finalized their settlement, with Scott receiving around $38 billion in Amazon stock. The couple had been in matrimony for two and a half decades –– even prior to Bezos starting Amazon in a Seattle garage. Before making the separation public, the pair posted a joint tweet announcing their decision to part ways: "We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married. If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again." They vowed to remain friends and co-parents to their four kids.

Nevertheless, only hours after that sweet announcement, bombshell news broke that Bezos had been having an affair with former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez, and multiple outlets reported that the National Enquirer possessed a trove of racy texts and photos to prove it. Suddenly, the world's calmest divorce turned into a tabloid feeding frenzy. To their credit, Bezos and Scott kept their cool in public. They wanted a fair, drama-free resolution without the venom and courtroom theatrics of other mega-splits. Once the divorce concluded, Bezos publicly thanked his ex-wife "for her support and for her kindness in this process," saying he was grateful to have her as a friend and co-parent.

This is in fact the largest divorce settlement ever, without a shadow of a doubt. The Microsoft co-founder and his philanthropist wife had an estimated $130+ billion to divide after 27 years of marriage. By most accounts, Melinda Gates walked away with around $76 billion in assets in a mix of cash, stock transfers, and real estate. Like the Bezoses, the Gateses handled their breakup with Midwestern politeness –– at least to the casual observer. But the cracks that led to it hint at why even this seemingly ideal partnership fell apart. The couple's joint announcement in May 2021 was measured: "After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have decided to end our marriage," they tweeted. With no drama bombshell, the pair continued to run their charitable behemoth, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

But soon, reports emerged that Melinda had been deeply troubled by certain aspects of Bill's behavior. This included his past infidelity and his connection with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She told CBS that Bill's meetings with this man horrified her. "I made that clear to him," she said, calling Epstein "evil personified." Both have kept details private, but it's known they reached a separation agreement rather than a litigated divorce. Melinda has been candid about the emotional toll: "I gave every single piece of myself to this marriage ... I was committed to this marriage from the day we got engaged until the day I got out of it." Bill, for his part, has to E! expressed remorse: "That was the mistake I most regret." In the end, they managed their uncoupling with dignity and continue to interact from time to time for family and philanthropic events.