Divorce may come to many of us, which is just how life goes sometimes; we make the wrong choices and have to admit things are not working out as we hoped. Divorce can either be settled in an amicable way, or it can get messy. Here are some of the more high profile relationship breakdowns in recent times that could motivate us to be better partners.
Paul McCartney and Heather Mills
This divorce was probably one of the biggest in recent times, between the former Beatle and his then wife. Mills demanded a massive £125 million from her husband as part of the divorce settlement but was in fact eventually only awarded around a fifth of that at £24.3 million. Immediately after learning of the decision she made a very public and embarrassing rant outside the courts about how the British judicial system had let her down.
Phil Collins and Orianne Cevey
Back in August of the year 2007 another famous British singer Phil Collins also had to a pay a similar sum of £24.3 million to his former wife Orianne Cevey after their six year marriage hit the rocks. This was in fact his third divorce, with the grand total in settlements across the three costing him around £40 million which is in fact around one third of his entire career earnings.
Steven Spielberg and Amy Irving
Though Spielberg and his then wife had agreed to a pre-nuptial agreement before they married back in 1985, he still had to fork out a large sum of £50 million in settlements. The world famous director of smash hit movies like E.T and Jaws saw his marriage only last for four years.
Michael and Diandra Douglas
After a twenty year long marriage, Michael Douglas’s wife filed for a divorce in 1997 claiming that she had now had enough with his cheating. The divorce took a long three years to be completed with her receiving around £30 million of his career earnings. Once the divorce was settled he quickly re-married again, this time to British actress Catherine Zeta Jones.
Madonna and Guy Ritchie
You cannot get much higher profile than Madonna, with her marriage and then divorce to British film director Guy Ritchie making huge headlines. The latter received around £45 million from the world famous singer in the settlement.
Neil Diamond and Marcia Murphy
This divorce held the record for the highest divorce settlement paid out for quite some time. Murphy actually received around £75.5 million from her former singer husband Neil Diamond. This record was soon to be beaten by the next couple on my list though.
Michael Jordan and Former Wife Juanita
The greatest basketball player of all time Michael Jordan did in fact take over the record for the largest divorce settlement payment of all time when he was ordered to pay his former wife Juanita a staggering £80 million. Also, part of the settlement included a massive seven acre estate and the custody of his three children going to his ex-wife.
John and Beverley Chapman
John Chapman was one of the most successful London stockbrokers around and in fact owns the massive insurance company Axis. He and his wife divorced in 2006, it was quite a messy divorce in which he didn’t want to pay his wife anything. He made a claim that he should keep every penny of his money because he earned it and not her, though the courts simply called him old fashioned and awarded her £48 million.
Rupert and Anna Murdoch
The pay-out settlement in this divorce makes the Jordan one seem tiny, Rupert having to pay-out a staggering £1 billion to his former wife. The divorce on this case was actually pretty amicable, he is one of the richest men in the world and it still didn’t take him long after the settlement to get remarried, just 17 days in fact, to an employee of his.
If you are going down the road of divorce, you are unlikely to be looking at settlements of this size. However you will still need a Divorce Lawyer London based to help you through the whole process.