A Billionaire’s Marriage
In this Web-friendly age, billionaires, politicians, and others who live in the public eye have a hard time keeping information about their lives private. Yes, the rich really are different from you and me. For most people, a wedding is a simple, joyous occasion. Family and friends gather to celebrate the ceremonial joining of you and your true love. For billionaires it’s more complicated, with stresses and strains that others don’t bear. They don’t just have to choose a florist and a band; they usually need a good lawyer, too. Attorneys familiar with billionaire marriages urge their clients to proceed with care and caution. A billionaire has to treat an upcoming marriage as a merger. But it’s a merger with a potential enemy. Prenuptial agreements are important, but they’re no guarantee of a satisfactory split if things go south.
Another issue that comes with prenups is privacy. Agreements can include confidentiality clauses to prevent one of the parties involved from giving out information about a marriage in case of divorce. That can mean barring anything from TV interviews about the ex to writing a book.
Consider the divorce of Steven Spielberg, now at DreamWorks Animation, and his first wife Amy Irving. She claimed their prenup was invalid because it had been written on a napkin and she hadn’t had legal representation. A judge tossed it out; Irving got $100 million. The prenup of Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, held up, but it still cost him plenty. He agreed to a deal with his wife, Sheila Johnson, in which she would receive half of their assets if they split up. By the time they did get divorced in 2002, his media empire was worth billions — and she got her half.
