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Mel Gibson: Will He Fight His Divorce Payout?

April 14, 2009 RSS Feed Print

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Mel Gibson seems to have missed the lesson that John Cleese provided last month when Cleese managed to cut his payments to his ex-wife in half. People reports that the Gibson divorce may, in fact, be the most expensive in history. He has been married to his wife, Robyn Gibson, for 28 years, and their prenup specifies that she will receive half of everything. In Gibson's case, "everything" is about $1 billion.

In addition to earnings from his films and other projects, Gibson owns over $100 million in real estate, including a Fiji Island, People reports. But the divorce lawyer interviewed by the magazine speculates that there won't be a court battle, as there was with Cleese, because "there's enough money to go around."

I wouldn't be so sure of that. There are lots of reasons to avoid court battles -- to protect privacy, to continue having a cordial relationship with the ex -- but I don't think anyone ever thinks they have enough money, or is willing to part with it without a fight. Now, maybe I'm underestimating Gibson, but based on past celebrity divorces, I think we might be in for a bit of a public showdown.

Just in case Gibson plans to challenge his prenup, here's that lesson from the Cleese case. Cleese convinced the courts that he no longer earned the kind of money that he used to -- and that he was under no obligation to support his former wife in the manner to which she had become accustomed. (For her part, Alyce Faye Eichelberger says that she was used to "'being entertained by royalty and dignitaries in castles" while married to Cleese, according to the Daily Mail.)

While Cleese had a lucrative year in 2007 because of a real estate sale and earnings from Shrek 3, he argued that it wasn't fair to base his spousal support on such high numbers. Now, he says, he earns closer to £76,000 a month and he had to sell his California home for less than he planned because of the economy. It's a situation many divorcing couples, and not just celebrity ones, can relate to -- and possibly learn from.

For more, read: "The Financial Rights of First Wives."

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hotel vergleichen tunesien of 3:40AM May 02, 2010

Saleh is right; Mel's current gold digger deserves nothing -- but his -- er -- Russian whore? -- is parlaying a pregnancy into a fortune from a man whose brain and other organs are probably addled by years of alcohol consumption.
As for his long-suffering wife of 28 or so years, she, of course, is entitled to half of the assets, as pre-determined by California law. After all, she was with throughout his climb to success. And Lord knows how many scrapes she helped him circumvent. She also gave birth to seven of his children, and then raised them while Mel was cavorting around and otherwise making a mockery of their vows. Add to all that his statement on the Tonight Show that he made a "hatchet job of his marriage" -- and to "put the blame here," referring to himself. After all of that, no judge in the world would give Robin less than half. In fact, if Robin truly wanted it, she could probably claim partial ownership to any property he gave the girlfriend because, after all, half of that money was hers. Now wouldn't his girlfriend be mad if she had to part woth those "gifts"? So ... it seems Robin has plenty of negotiating room to get whatever she wants.

Jack of FL 11:43PM September 20, 2009

I don't think the Cleese case (as it is described here) is applicable to the Gibson case AT ALL. In the Cleese case, what was at stake was how much Cleese would have to pay his ex-wife out of his future income. In the Gibson case, on the other hand, the question is how the couple's current assets are divided. Not the same thing at all.
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that spousal support, child support, division of assets acquired during the marriage, and division of assets held prior to the marriage are all very different things and deserve to be treated very differently. Instead, when people talk about divorce settlements - celebrity and otherwise - they tend to conflate all four in vague references to how much the lesser-earning spouse (usually the woman) "gets" from the wealthier spouse. This becomes particularly offensive in cases where the lesser-earning spouse has spent a lot of time doing unpaid work (like caring for the couple's children), only to be treated like she has no real right to any of the money earned by the well-paid spouse during that time.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that while you're married to someone, unless you specifically agree otherwise, whatever you earn is "ours," not "yours" or "mine." So in that respect, Gibson isn't really giving away what's "his" - he and his wife are each taking their share of what's "theirs."

Johanna of MD 12:28PM April 15, 2009