The bigger they are, the harder they fall — especially in the world of celebrity divorce.
Basketball great Michael Jordan, singer-songwriter Neil Diamond and Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg top a new Forbes magazine list of the most costly divorce settlements of the stars.
Jordan's pending divorce settlement with his wife of nearly 18 years, Chicago bank officer Juanita Vanoy, could end up as the most expensive in entertainment history, Forbes said, if his estranged spouse walks away with half his fortune.
With Jordan having earned much of his wealth during his marriage, Vanoy stands to collect more than US$150 million.
A close second would be the estimated US$150 million settlement Diamond paid to onetime TV production assistant Marcia Murphey, whom he married in 1969 before his breakthrough album, Touching You, Touching Me, went gold. Diamond later said Murphey, his second wife, was "worth every penny."
Spielberg's first marriage, to actress Amy Irving, ended in 1989 with his ex-spouse awarded roughly half of the filmmaker's fortune, about US$100 million, ranking No. 3 on Forbes' list.
Irving won that settlement after successfully contesting their prenuptial agreement, reportedly scribbled on a napkin, because she had lacked legal representation.
Actor Harrison Ford ranks No. 4 on the list with an estimated US$85 million paid to his second wife, Melissa Mathison.
Forbes ranked the pending divorce between former Beatle Paul McCartney and ex-model Heather Mills at No. 6.
Meanwhile, the Rutgers University women's basketball team on Friday accepted the apologies of Don Imus after the disgraced radio personality got fired from both radio and television for calling them "nappy-headed hos."
The racist and sexist remarks sparked protests from civil rights leaders and prompted advertisers to back out before CBS Radio finally pulled the plug on Imus' 30-year career on Thursday.
Imus had already apologized publicly for the comment but met privately with the Rutgers team late on Thursday.
Head coach C. Vivian Stringer said the team had begun to heal but added the incident spoke to wider problems in US culture, which is still struggling to overcome the legacy of slavery and discrimination.
"We have accepted Mr. Imus's apology," Stringer told reporters after a meeting with the Rutgers board of governors to celebrate the accomplishments of the team, which battled to the national championship contest but lost to Tennessee.
"This is not just Mr. Imus, it is not just Rutgers women's basketball. It spoke to women, it spoke to sexism, it spoke to racism in our society," she said.
The discussion between the team and Imus was to be hosted by New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, but the millionaire politician was badly injured in a automobile accident while en route to the meeting.
Corzine, who had not been wearing a seatbelt, was in the hospital, heavily sedated and breathing with the help of a ventilator.
There's still life in the Anna Nicole Smith saga, after a hearing in a Bahamas court last week failed to end a prolonged battle over custody of late Playboy Playmate's daughter, 7-month-old Dannielynn.
Larry Birkhead, a Los Angeles photographer and former boyfriend of the billionaire's widow, was identified last week as the father of the baby, who could one day be worth a fortune if Smith's estate wins a decade-long battle to inherit from her former oil tycoon husband J. Howard Marshall.
But Friday's hearing over custody of Dannielynn, at which Birkhead had been expected to be awarded guardianship based on court-ordered DNA tests, adjourned soon after it got under way.
Damien Gomez, an attorney for Smith's long-time companion Howard K. Stern, said the hearing was suspended at the request of lawyers for both Birkhead and Smith's mother Virgie Arthur.
But John O'Quinn, Arthur's lawyer, said Birkhead and his client had agreed to meet privately on Saturday in an apparent bid to reach an agreement over custody of the child.
O'Quinn said the father and grandmother of Dannielynn would try "to figure out what they believe is in the best interest of this child and try to get it done."
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located