Multi-million dollar lawsuits and irreconcilable differences: The most expensive celebrity divorces

Celebrity divorces are frequently the subject of mass media scrutiny, as former couples attempt to fairly divy up their millions, or even billions, worth of assets. Honey Wyatt takes a look at some of the most high-profile cases in recent years

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Divorces can be fraught and stressful enough as it is, without throwing billions of dollars and assets into the mix. Not to mention the scrutiny of both the public and the press.

Over the past year, a number of prominent celebrity couples have split, including Ariana Grande and her husband of two years, Dalton Gomez. and Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner and pop singer Joe Jonas. In August, personal trainer Sam Asghari filed for divorce from pop star Britney Spears after just 14 months of marriage.

Whether they go their separate ways because of “irreconcilable differences” (apparently the favoured neutral term among celebrity divorce lawyers), cheating scandals, or allegations of abuse, celebrities spend millions on ensuring that their countless assets are divided fairly between both parties.

And all of this in the public eye.

As we form increasingly parasocial relationships with the celebrities whose lives we keep track of, obsessing over their relationships from beginning to end, it’s no wonder their divorces are an endless source of fascination. That they involve dividing millions, if not billions, of dollars, as well as divying up mansions, ranches and beach resorts, makes them ever more intriguing.

With that in mind, here are the nine most expensive celebrity divorces in recent years:

Scooter Braun and Yael Cohen, $20 million

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Record executive Scooter Braun, known for managing pop star clients including Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, divorced Yael Cohen in 2022 after seven years of marriage. The couple’s divorce settlement called for Braun to pay $20 million in assets to his ex-wife, CEO and founder of the organisation F*ck Cancer.

The couple had a prenuptial agreement in place, so the 42-year-old will keep more than 100 pieces of art, as well as his $65 million mansion in LA. Cohen kept their $30 million family home in Brentwood, California. They now co-parent their three children, with Braun agreeing to pay Cohen spousal support.

Braun was represented by Laura Wasser, the top divorce lawyer who also represented Kim Kardashian in her split from Kanye West.

MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett, $20.6 million

Philanthropy MacKenzie Scott Grants (2018 Invision)

MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon CEO Bezos, finalised her divorce from science teacher Dan Jewett in September 2022. Scott divorced Bezos in 2019 and was subsequently named one of the richest women in the world.

In January 2023 the Bloomberg Billionaire Index estimated Scott’s worth at $30.1bn. At the time of their marriage, she was ranked the 22nd richest person in the world.

The couple met at Scott’s children’s school, and married in 2021. They were committed to offloading their wealth, and announced that as of June 2021 they had given $2.4bn away to 286 organizations “that have been historically underfunded and overlooked”.

The divorce was finalised in January 2023, after they signed a separation contract.

Dr Dre and Nicole Young, $100 million

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NWA founder Dr Dre and Nicole Young were divorced in June 2021 after 24 years of marriage. Dre was infamously served with divorce papers at the funeral of his grandmother.

In 2019, Forbes estimated Dre’s net worth at $800m, but it took 18 months of legal disputes for the rapper to agree to pay Young $100m. The couple signed a prenuptial agreement when they were married in 1996, but Young contested it, saying it was signed under duress. She cited Dre’s abuse of her as reason for the marriage, which he denied in court.

Court documents show that in July 2021, Dre was ordered to pay $293,306 in child support for their two children by a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge. He was allowed to keep his master recordings and trademarks, as well as his Apple stocks. He also kept six vehicles and seven of the couple’s properties, while Young was allowed to keep all her jewellery and four vehicles.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, $400m

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After 10 years of estrangement, Arnold Schwarzenegger and journalist Maria Shriver confirmed their divorce in 2021. The couple were married in 1985 and separated in 2011 after claims that The Terminator star had an affair with the family’s former housekeeper, Mildred Baena, and fathered a child.

In the Netflix documentary, Arnold, the actor and ex-governor described the affair as his biggest failure. On an episode of Soda Kotb’s Making Space podcast, Shriver said she went to a convent for advice when her marriage ended.

“She says: ‘You can’t come live here, but you do have permission to go out and become Maria.’ I was like, sobbing,” Shriver recalled the advice given to her by the Reverend Mother. ““I had never given myself permission to feel, to be vulnerable, to be weak, to be brought to my knees, and the world did it to me.”

Schwarzenegger and Shriver have four adult children, so there were no child support or custody arrangements to be agreed on. The divorce reportedly took so long to complete because of their joint net worth, which was estimated to be $400m.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, $2.1 billion

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Kim Kardashian and Kanye West divorced after six years of marriage in 2022. In 2020, Kardashian publicly spoke out about West’s bipolar diagnosis and has since revealed the strain it his mental health had on their marriage in her family’s reality programme, The Kardashians.

Kardashian cited choosing to make herself happy as the reason for her divorce. “I think it’s important to be honest with yourself about what really makes you happy,” the reality star said in an interview with Vogue in February 2022. “I’ve chosen myself. I think it’s okay to choose you.”

The couple had a prenuptial agreement in place that means they will share joint legal and physical custody of their four children – North, 10, Saint, 7, Chicago, 5 and Psalm, 4. West will also pay Kardashian $200,000 (£167,000) each month in child support payments.

Forbes estimated that at the time of divorce West was worth $1.3bn, which primarily comes from his shoe brand Yeezy, while Kardashian’s $780m came from her KKW Beauty Brand, investments and her role in Keeping Up With the Kardashians. The couple had $2.1bn in assets, including $5m in art and nearly $4m in vehicles. Kardashian received four houses in the divorce.

Bill and Melinda French Gates, $130 billion

Philanthropy Gates Foundation (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Bill and Melinda Gates announced their divorce in May 2021, after being married for 27 years. The co-founders of the world’s largest philanthropic organisation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, released a joint statement in May 2021.

“Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead, healthy, productive lives,” the statement read.

The divorce was finalised in August of that year, and it was anticipated to be one of the most expensive divorces in history. Like Bezos, they lived in Washington, meaning as they had no prenup their shared assets would likely have been split equally. Gates’ net worth was estimated at $130 billion. The couple had a separation contract, the details of which were kept private.

The settlement of the divorce would have divided their $124 million art collection, which included pieces by Leonardo da Vinci, Winslow Homer, and George Bellows, as well as their real estate, Microsoft stock and other investments.

A 2022 Forbes review found that French Gates was worth $6.3 billion in September 2021.

Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott, $137 billion

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his former wife MacKenzie (AP)

Jeff Bezos ended his marriage with wife of 25 years, MacKenzie Scott, in 2019. The now 59-year-old Amazon CEO and founder took to Twitter to announce their separation in January 2019, a year after being named the richest person in the world (as of 2023 he is the third richest).

“We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other,” Bezos wrote.

“If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again,” he continued.

Washington, where the couple lived, is a community state, meaning that unless a prenuptial agreement stated otherwise before the marriage, half of Bezos’ assets accrued during the marriage would go to Scott. While the couple, who share four children, have not confirmed whether they had a prenup, Scott could have been awarded up to half of Bezos’ $157 billion in the divorce.

In January 2023 it was estimated the she was one of the wealthiest women in the world, with a net worth of $20.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Since her divorce from Bezos, Scott has expressed wanting to give away “vast amount of her wealth”, according to People, including her $55 million Beverley Hills estate, to the nonprofit California Community Foundation.

Scott married science teacher Dan Jewett in 2021, later filing for divorce in September 2022. The divorce was finalised in January 2023.