Divorce can often be an expensive process, especially for the man when he has openly committed adultery. For Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, divorce is looking like being a very expensive affair indeed. The guitarist has reportedly offered his wife Jo £3 million per year as part of their settlement!
Ronnie and Jo have been married for 23 years, but Ronnie threw that away when he had an affair with a 20-year-old waitress from Russia called Ekaterina Ivanova.
Ronnie’s offer of £3 per year is in addition to lump sum according to reports from the News of the World.
The newspaper reports from a source close to Ronnie:
Ronnie feels the marriage is over but he wants to do the right thing by Jo - even though they have not talked for months.
Ronnie has an estimated £70 million fortune, and his divorce lawyer is the same person who represent his bandmate Mick Jagger when he divorced former model and star of Batman, Jerry Hall; Joyce Smith. According to reports, Ronnie has instructed his lawyer to give his wife whatever she wants as he doesn’t want the matter going to court.
Jo’s settlement is expected to be as high as £50 million.
In the USA, divorce isn’t exclusively for couples who no longer wish to remain married. It’s long been common for children to ‘divorce’ their parents under extreme circumstances, but what is less common is for parents to divorce their children. Pensioners Heather and Noel Laurent however have done just that, as their son stole a staggering amount of money from them after they’d taken pity on him and taken him into their home.
Their son, Brett Andrew Laurent, was sentenced to eighteen months in prison after he’d stolen his parents’ entire life savings, leaving them with just 34 cents in their account. Brett stole the money from his elderly parents as his father recovered from a stroke.
Brett was kicked out by his girlfriend and turned up on his parents’ doorstep, and when they took him he stole $10,000 from them, and stole items from their home to sell.
His mother Heather stated:
He can rot in hell, the sooner the better.
He will never come into our lives again. He’s had lots and lots of chances.
You just forget he ever existed. We must get on with our lives and forget we had a son.
We just don’t want to see him. We don’t want him to ring us, or write letters or come anywhere near us.
When Brett was in court facing the charges, his mother address the court to make sure that her son received the sentence she believed he deserved.
How could a son, to whom we had given so much help, forgiveness, kindness and hospitality and financial help, ruin our retirement?
Heather didn’t even know that her bank account had been cleared until she tried her card in a cash machine, only for it to be declined.
The new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, opened this weekend to great success, dominating the box office. It might surprise people to know however that the new Bond girl, twenty-eight-year-old Olga Kurylenko, has been married (and divorced) twice.
Furthermore she doesn’t consider the fact that she’s been through two divorces as a failure. Olga fled her native Ukraine to Paris, where she took modelling and in 1999 married her first husband, fashion photographer Cedric Van Mol.
I have not been scarred by my two divorces. The important thing is that I loved them and you cannot regret loving.
I am glad to have spent a part of my life with my two ex-husbands. If I had to go back I would do it again. My divorces were not a sad experience. It’s just communication. People who surround us in our life exchange more and more experiences with us. I learned I had differences from them and they were different people from me.
After splitting from her first husband, she married Damian Gabrielle in 2006. Gabrielle is a mobile phone entrepreneur from the US. They divorced last year.
My ex-husbands were different nationalities but were both very interesting people. I don’t see divorce as a failure. I see it as the end to a story. In a story, everything has an end and a beginning. We take birth and we die. In between I think we try to live as best we can. It’s the same with a marriage. Maybe when the story starts, we know it is going to end. Those people who are together when they are 100 years old, even they know it will end.
What do you do with your wedding album once you’ve split? That’s a difficult question that many people have to deal with when they divorce. Often the stress of the breakup is so great that couples don’t want to be reminded of their failed marriage by having a wedding album hidden away in their drawer.
However one enterprising photographer in Italy believes that not only do couples want reminders of their marriage, they even want ‘divorce albums’ to chronicle the split in their relationship.
Photographer Gianni Fasolini, who hails from Valeggio sul Mincio, came up with the idea of creating divorce albums due to the increasing divorce rate in the area.
People celebrate a marriage as a milestone in their lives, but a divorce is an important event too.
I have been doing photos of weddings and marriage ceremonies for years, day in and day out, and people told me they like having a photo marking important events in their lives. Then I got to thinking that maybe there would be some demand for people marking their divorces and so I started to offer photo sessions for freshly divorced couples - them smiling or shaking hands or in some cases even kissing. I advertised the offer and as soon as people found out about it they were queuing up at my shop for sessions.
Would you be interested in a divorce album of your divorce?
UK divorce law has always taken precedent in divorces handled in the UK, but now Islamic courts in the UK have been given the all clear to decide divorce disputes under Sharia law. The courts will have the authority to decide on the disputes between Muslim couples according to Sharia law, including decisions on financial settlements and custody.
The only proviso to the power is that a law court in the UK has to condone any ruling made by the Islamic court.
Ministers in Downing Street had argued that Sharia law shouldn’t have any place in making decisions within the UK because of the way Sharia law sides against women, placing all of the power with men. As Sharia law places more weight on the views of the man it means that men would tend to get the decision over any disagreement, whether that be surrounding money or custody of children.
Critics have claimed however that the decision would help to marginalise minority communities,
Robert Whelan is part of the Civitas think tank, he said of the decision:
The problem with the Government’s attitude is the big question over how far submission to sharia courts is voluntary among Muslim women.
Women who live in some communities may have no option but to go to the sharia court. The case is then rubber-stamped by a family court without any of us knowing how the decision was reached.
David Duchovny, who only recently checked out of rehab for his sex addiction, is getting divorce from his wife, actress Téa Leoni. It is reported that the reason for the divorce is David’s affair with his tennis coach, 28-year-old Edit Parkay. However Edit denies that she’s the reason for the divorce, despite admitting the affair just a few weeks ago.
We played tennis, and we were playing partners and friends. There is no romance, and we are just friends. No love, nothing. That is all I have to say.
David’s lawyer is trying to play down the reported adultery between David and Edit, which would presumably harm any financial settlement between David and Téa. Stanton Stein, divorce lawyer for David Duchovny, said:
Edit Parkay met with me personally before this article came out and told me she never had a sexual or romantic relationship with David.
However it does appear that the affair may work both ways as it’s also reported that Téa Leoni and her co-star in her new film ‘Manure’, Billy Bob Thornton, are also seeing each other.
Téa Leoni herself stated about Billy Bob:
We have this incredible cast with Billy Bob Thornton, who is maybe my new favourite person in the world.
Getting divorced is always stressful, but when there are teenage children involved the stress can be far worse. If you’re going through a divorce and you have teenage children, here is some advice on dealing with them and making sure it’s as easy as possible for them to cope.
The teenager might think that the divorce is their fault, it’s important to reassure them that it’s not. Explain why the relationship has broken down and that it’s not their fault. You should be open about the relationship breakdown and discuss the problems faced by the teenage child.
Above all else, don’t be negative about the other parent as the teenage child will still love them and want to be a part of their lives. It’s also important you try to get along with your former partner for the sake of your child.
It’s also important to reassure the teenager that they’ll receive the financial support of both you and the other parent. If you make promises about things you should stick to them, otherwise you risk the eventuality of the teenager playing you off against your former partner.
Finally you should remain involved in their lives as much of possible. Show that just because your relationship with your partner is over, your teenage child isn’t losing a parent as a result.
Going through a divorce can be an expensive thing, but there are some things you can do to make sure you’re adequately prepared for the eventuality of divorce.
Here are few suggestions to make sure you’re ready when divorce does happen.
Have a pre-nuptial agreement
These are not binding in the UK, but judges can take them into consideration when making a decision on the financial settlement.
Plan your expenses
Make sure you prepare for your legal expenses, you don’t want any nasty surprises when you’re struggling for money.
Get a final consent order
You should make sure to get this so that your ex doesn’t return at a later date for more money!
Gather evidence of finances
Make sure you collate evidence of any of your partner’s assets, their financial income and any gains.
Don’t tell your bank
This may seem odd, but your bank could freeze your account if there is a dispute over money, which would leave you without any finances to fight a legal battle.
Keep expenses records
You should record all of your expenses so that you can prove the standard of living that you’re used to.
Get an estimate
If you’re using a divorce lawyer, make sure you ask for an estimate for costs before you begin. You don’t want costs spiralling after you’ve started proceedings.
A Japanese woman has been arrested by police after she ‘murdered’ a video game character that divorced her video game character in a popular online role playing game.
The game is called ‘Maple Story’ and allows players to build their characters over time, earn weddings and buy products from shops online for their virtual world. The 43-year-old woman, a piano teacher, has admitted breaking into a computer and illegally erasing the character of a man from Sapporo, who divorced her character in the game.
The woman said:
I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry.
The game has over 50 million players in Japan and South Korea. The woman told police that when she realised her virtual husband had divorce her she was outraged, resorting in her killing the character.
Police were notified of the crime when the man from Sapporo reported that his character had been deleted. The charges faced by the woman include illegal access to a computer and manipulating electronic data. She faced up to five years in prison for the virtual crime.
According to reports, Heather Mills has already spent half of the money she received in her split from former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney. Mills received £24.3 million from her bitter divorce, and has reportedly already spent £10 million of that money in just seven months.
The former model has spent the money on expensive luxurious holidays, wages for her personal staff and properties around the world, including an apartment in New York. Mills has reportedly spent £500,000 on wages for her staff.
Mills is so concerned about the amount that she’s been spending that she’s even asked Paul to buy her a home in England because she can’t afford it.
A source close to the model stated:
Heather has been moaning her money isn’t going as far as she thought, but she’s just burning her way through it. She reckons she has spent £10 million since the divorce and still doesn’t have a finished house to live in.
Mills has already spent £2.5 million on a property in New York, and another £6 million on properties around the world.
Mills has also had to pay bills from her divorce lawyers and her publicist.
