Sure, you’ve got your gold-diggers. You’ve got your lime-light stealing opportunists who marry a man because of the paparazzi that follows him and the fact that they want to be stars. But then, you’ve got those who were just looking for a normal, loving marriage, with not so normal, loving men. We think these women deserved their half in the divorce after all the crap they went through thanks to their mates. While we know money doesn’t replace time or heal a broken heart, it can definitely warm it and get a gal back out there on the right foot:
Michael Jordan and Juanita Vanoy
After 17 years of marriage, the couple filed for divorce, saying the decision was “amicable.” Of course, after Jordan’s mistress wrote a tell-all book about her fling with the NBA star, you can’t help but wonder if the married couple just made nice for the media in the reasons for their split. After 17 long years of love and being the ultimate basketball wife, Juanita—mother of Michael’s two sons and one daughter—walked away with a whopping $168 million. Michael is engaged to be married again, so unless he’s willing to go all out to make it work a second time around, a prenup would do him good.
Mel Gibson and Robyn Denise Moore
After The Passion of the Christ came out, we were all wondering when Robyn would get out of that creepy household. A recording of Mel’s racist and sexist rants helped her case, and it also didn’t help that photos came out of Mel getting cozy with Russian pianist Oksana Grigorieva (who would become the mother of Gibson’s daughter Lucia) right before she filed for divorce. After 31 years of marriage and seven children (separated in 2006, divorce was filed in 2009 but wasn’t finalized until Jan. 9, 2012), Robyn cleaned up nicely with more than $400 million, said to be the highest in Hollywood history at the time. WOW!
Kobe Bryant and Vanessa
You certainly can’t say the woman was looking for a reason to leave and take all of Kobe’s money. If she was, he gave her countless perky, home-wrecking, NBA-groupie reasons. Finally, after 10 ½ years of marriage and two daughters, Vanessa had allegedly reached her limit of infidelity tolerance. Despite what the haters thought, Vanessa walked away with approximately $75 million from the split.
Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren
Surely the entire country of Sweden warned Elin about some of the American man’s philandering ways, but she took a chance on love. And Tiger took a few chances of his own—more than a dozen sleazy chances actually. After nearly six years of marriage and raising two children, Elin got $110 million in her divorce from the argyle-wearing womanizer (how does he pull that off?)
Shaquille O’ Neal and Shaunie
His “I respectfully cheated” excuse will go down in history as the hottest of messes. Shaunie gave Shaq four kids, 13 years of marriage, meanwhile, Shaq was accumulating a great deal of money and groupies over his career. However, the couple allegedly signed a prenuptial agreement, so instead of half, Shaq was ordered to pay her alimony and child support. And we’re pretty sure what she went through with Shaq inspired her to create the “Basketball Wives” series, which is helping Shaunie rake in the BIG dough on her own.
Eddie Murphy and Nicole Mitchell
Rumors about Eddie Murphy’s sexual orientation and sex drive, along with the fact that he was found in an SUV with a transvestite prostitute in 1997 didn’t make things all rosy while he was married to former model Nicole Mitchell. Incidents like these and others led to their eventual demise, and Nicole, the mother of Eddie’s five children, walked away with $15 million. Sadly, there are rumors she’s already squandered that money though after falling victim to investment fraud and bad spending. But she should be okay now that she’s dating retired NFL player and football analyst Michael Strahan.
Lionel Richie and Brenda Harvey
Sweet, innocent Brenda Harvey had no idea what her college sweetheart and first husband Lionel Richie would become. That is until she pretended to be “room service” in ’88 and busted down a hotel room door to find him on top of another woman (his soon-to-be second wife Diane Alexander). Richie had had been having an affair with Alexander for two years. Harvey was said to have beaten both brutally during her discovery. After 17 years of marriage and informally adopting TV personality and designer Nicole Richie together, the couple split and their divorce was finalized in 1993. If the mistress and second wife Diane Alexander received $20 million from her years with the singer, let’s just assume Brenda got broke off back in ’93.
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