Déjà View
BIG-DIGIT DIVORCES
FRONTRUNNER
24
BILL GROSS
The bond king’s 2016 split from his wife of three decades devolved into dueling restraining orders and a fake Picasso. Sue Gross reportedly got the 1932 painting “Le Repos”—except she allegedly already had it, having swapped it on Bill’s wall with a copy she painted herself.
New Billionaire
REBOOT
On May 3, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates announced they were divorcing after 27 years of marriage. That same day, Gates’ Cascade Investment arm transferred $2.4 billion worth of stock in four companies (Canadian National Railway; car-dealership group AutoNation; Mexican Coke bottler Coca-Cola Femsa; and Mexican broadcaster Grupo Televisa) to French Gates; he also transferred $851 million in John Deere shares to her in mid-May. One of three living American women, as best as Forbes can determine, to attain billionaire status via divorce (Jeff Bezos’ ex, MacKenzie Scott, and Sue Gross, who was married to Pimco’s Bill Gross, are the others), French Gates stands to get more—potentially much more. The couple have asked a judge in Washington (a community property state in which most divorces are settled with a 50/50 split) to follow a separation agreement to split up Gates’ $126 billion fortune, which encompasses stakes in more than a dozen companies, including an estimated 1% stake in Microsoft, U.S. farmland, a $131 million home near Seattle and private planes. French Gates reportedly began consulting divorce lawyers in 2019 after her husband’s meetings with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein became public. Days after the divorce announcement, a spokeswoman for Gates acknowledged he had an affair with a Microsoft employee “20 years ago.” French Gates cofounded the $50 billion (assets) Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 before establishing Pivotal Ventures in 2015 to invest in social progress for women and people of color. “I tell my daughters to have their voice in this world, and it became clear I needed to role-model that,” she told Forbes at the time. Last year, with support from MacKenzie Scott, French Gates launched Equality Can’t Wait, an initiative offering $40 million in grants to women’s organizations throughout the U.S. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M
TED TURNER
His decade-long marriage to Jane Fonda broke up in 2001, yet the Oscarwinning actress still calls Turner her “favorite ex-husband.” The media mogul speaks fondly of her, too. “When you love somebody, and you really love them,” Turner said in 2012, “you never stop loving them no matter how hard you try.”
HAROLD HAMM
The fracking tycoon wrote his ex-wife an astronomical $974,790,317.77 check from his Morgan Stanley account after their 2014 split. She pocketed her zillions, unsuccessfully tried to get more—and then funded a political action committee that helped unseat the judge who oversaw the divorce.
JULY 2021
NEW BILLIONAIRE BY RACHEL SANDLER. MELINDA GATES: JONAS FREDWALL KARLSSON/TRUNK ARCHIVE; GROSS: FRANK AUGSTEIN/AP; TURNER: JIM SMEAL/RON GALELLA/GETTY IMAGES
Bill and Melinda French Gates aren’t the only members of The Forbes 400 to learn that yachtloads of money can’t buy a happy marriage. The 50 current richest Americans have gotten hitched 72 times in all, with 35 unions (49%) ending in divorce. Some billionaire marriages end amicably. Others, well . . .
