Jeff Bezos The Richest Person In The World With A Net Worth Of 136 Billion Is Getting Divorced From His Wife Of 25 Years

Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet with a net worth of $136 billion. This morning Jeff and his wife of 25 years MacKenzie announced that they are getting divorced. In a shared statement, the couple explained: “We want to make people aware of a development in our lives. As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends…” It’s not totally clear how much this is going to cost Mr. Bezos, but it certainly will not be cheap and it almost certainly will obliterate all divorce records. Update  Later in the afternoon on January 9, it was revealed that Jeff allegedly revealed the divorce after learning that the National Enquirer was about to release a story detailing his ongoing relationship with another woman. That woman is former LA news anchor Lauren Sanchez. Lauren married super agent Patrick Whitesell of William Morris Endeavor back in 2005. Lauren and Patrick apparently broke up in late 2018 after she informed him of her relationship with Bezos. The National Enquirer reportedly has photos of the secret couple that were taken over a four month investigation. When TV super-producer Dick Wolf divorced his second wife Christine, he had to pay her half the value of Law & Order because the show was created during their marriage. Fast forward two decades and Dick is now divorcing his third wife Noelle. Dick and Noelle married after his TV career was launched so she is definitely not be entitled to half the value of the TV empire. She’ll still get tons and tons of money. Just not insane mega money. An interesting similar divorce case is that of casino mogul Steve Wynn. Steve and Elaine Wynn were married from 1991 to 2010. When they divorced, Elaine agreed to take a 10% stake in the company as opposed to forcing Steve to sell shares and pay her a cash settlement. She also agreed not to sell her shares and would instead live off the company’s annual 3% dividend. A 3% dividend on a $2 billion stake typically equated to around $60 million in income per year for Elaine. This arrangement was golden for many years. It allowed Steve to continue running the business without losing his majority stake and without the threat that some major rival investor would gather up a 10% stake and start bossing him around. Elaine lived off the clip and would go about her life. According to legend, the Wynn’s arrangement turned sour in 2014 after Elaine reportedly went to Steve and asked permission to sell around half her stake. Why was she looking to sell? Again, according to legend, she was looking to make a bid to buy the LA Clippers which was for sale, after owner-at-the-time Donald Sterling’s racist tapes were made public. Elaine was supposedly putting together an all-female team of investors that included Oprah Winfrey to buy the NBA franchise. When Elaine approached Steve, he reportedly denied her request. Elaine was not happy. She sued the company and Steve. She accused both of reckless spending and covering up years of sexual harassment allegations against Steve. She was ultimately successful in ousting Steve from the company when the harassment allegations hit the front page of every newspaper in America. Steve was forced to liquidate his entire stake in Wynn which left Elaine as the company’s largest individual shareholder . She hasn’t sold her stake, though she could if she wanted to now. But who knows! Maybe MacKenzie wants full voting power and input. I personally can’t wait to see how they figure this all out!