World's top ten divorce settlements (LIST)

1. Rupert and Anna Murdoch – $1.7 billion

Rupert married Anna in the 1960s, with the pair remaining together for 32 years, having three children. They split amicably in 1998. The divorce was finalized in June 1999 when he agreed to let her leave with $1.7 billion. 17 days later he married Wendi Deng.

2. Adnan and Soraya Khashoggi – $874 million

Saudi businessman Adnan made his money as an international arms dealer for the Saudi royal family. He then launched his company Triad, based in Switzerland, owning banks hotels and real estate across the world. He married Soraya in 1961. Their 1982 divorce resulted in an estimated $874 million settlement.

3. Craig and Wendy McCaw – $460 million

Craig made his money turning a failing TV cable service into a successful business, eventually selling for $755 million. In 1981 he then acquired cellular phone licenses, eventually selling to phone company AT&T for approximately $12 billion, becoming its largest single shareholder.

The pair met at Stanford University when she tutored him, with them marrying in 1974. In 1995 divorce proceedings were initiated with Wendy wanting her share to support a $200,000 a month lifestyle.


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If you smiled in yearbooks, you're marriage is more likely to be a success

In Anneli Rufus' expose on some of the interesting, yet freakily unusual, statistics on divorce and marital success, she reveals that a person who never smiled in yearbooks in high school are five times more likely to have a marriage end in divorce than if you 'smiled intensely in photographs'.

Rufus explains [Via The Daily Beast]:

Two tests, the first involving college yearbook photos and the second involving miscellaneous photos taken during participants' youths, yielded this finding. "People who are optimistic— and that's what smiles tend to show in childhood—find it easier to get along with people," including the people they're married to, asserts Coontz, who is also the author of Marriage: A History. Optimistic types "also find it easier to put up with periods in life that might be difficult." Nonetheless, she warns: "Optimism is certainly not going to protect you from everything, so it's no guarantee." 

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