The Nastiest Celebrity Divorces of All Time

Embezzlement. Lies. Luxury. It's all inspiration for an ABC News Original documentary, "The Housewife and the Hustler," covering Tom and Erika Girardi's divorce. These enigmatic age-gap lovers shocked RHOBH fans when their divorce was announced in 2020. A month after Erika filed for divorce, the couple were sued for allegedly using the breakup to embezzle money meant to be distributed to the families of victims in a 2018 plane crash by Tom's law firm. The ABC News documentary will feature interviews from Housewives cast members Danielle Staub and Dana Wilkey and streams only on Hulu June 14.

They met on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith while both were married (she to Billy Bob Thornton, he to Jennifer Aniston), and the scandalous start of their union eventually morphed into one of Hollywood's most solid, stable marriages, despite frequent tabloid stories of cracks starting to form. Those rumours turned out to be more true than we realized when the pair announced plans to divorce in September 2016. Things immediately turned ugly when accusations emerged that Pitt had gotten physical with one of the couple's children during a flight on a private jet, which led to Pitt being subjected to supervised visitation and court-ordered counselling. Things seem to have simmered down since then, with Pitt now admitting his heavy drinking and prolific pot smoking probably contributed to the breakup.

These two weren't the only lovebirds caught in an affair. See the most scandalous celebrity love triangles of all time for more.

After just a year of marriage, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard called it quits amidst her allegations of his heavy drinking, drug use, violence and domestic abuse, while friends of Depp leaped to his defence and called her a gold-digger who was fabricating those claims in order to squeeze as much cash as she could from their brief union. Ultimately, Depp agreed to pay his ex $7 million, a portion of which she pledged to donate to charity; following the announcement of the settlement, however, lawyers for each continued bickering over the terms until Depp finally paid up.

Scary Spice filed for divorce in March 2017, alleging hubby Stephen Belafonte had been physically and verbally abusive to her throughout their decade-long marriage, claiming he got their nanny pregnant and then forced her to have an abortion. Belafonte denied those charges, but dropped a few allegations of his own, divulging that his wife participated in threesomes with the aforementioned nanny (which Mel claimed he had forced her to participate in; each has denied the other's claims). By May 2017, Belafonte was claiming he was broke and homeless; not surprisingly, he's seeking full spousal support. In July 2017, a judge ordered Mel to pay him $40K per month, even as she sought a restraining order against him.

Eleven months after announcing their separation, Kris Jenner and Bruce Jenner filed for divorce after 25 years of marriage amidst tabloid reports that Bruce was planning to transition into a woman (which ultimately turned out to be right on the money when the Olympic gold medallist re-emerged as Caitlyn). While the split initially seemed amicable, that all changed after the publication of Caitlyn's memoir, Secrets of My Life, which painted an unflattering portrait of Kris — who then blasted her ex publicly on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. “She just literally started three families with three different people and f***ed everyone over," said Kris of Caitlyn.

Jon and Kate Gosselin landed their own reality show after she gave birth to sextuplets, adding to the twins the couple already had. The show — TLC's Jon & Kate Plus 8 — was an instant hit, but the couple divorced at the height of the show's popularity. While Kate was dogged with rumours of an affair with the family's bodyguard, Jon went on a post-divorce mad tear, dating various women and becoming a tabloid fixture as his post-divorce shenanigans turned tawdry. These days, Jon is an aspiring DJ, while Kate still stars in the retitled Kate Plus 8, claiming her ex is an absentee father who has little part in his children's lives.

Celebrity divorces don't get messier than the uncoupling of Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassinger, who married in 1993, untied the knot in 2001 and then embarked on a nasty four-year custody battle over daughter Ireland (which resulted in the 30 Rock star's infamous phone message calling his daughter a "rude thoughtless pig."). Looking back, Baldwin compares his divorce to the bloody Battle of Dien Bien Phu (which preceded the Vietnam War), and now describes that time in his life as "a period that was so painful, I was staring off a cliff for six years.”

Don't miss the celebrity couples who called it quits for more recent breakups.

Charlie Sheen's ill-fated marriage to Denise Richards ended in 2006 with a seemingly endless parade of bombshells from Richards, whose allegations about her ex included violence, drugs, porn, hookers, threats and more. The former Two and a Half Men star didn't do himself any favours by referring to Richards with such charming epithets as "washed up piglet shame pile." Since divorcing, the exes have sometimes appeared friendly and other times not; as recently as January 2016, Richards sued Sheen for more than $1 million, claiming he evicted them from the home he purchased for her and their children, alleging in court documents that he called their daughter Lola a “f***ing pig whore,” and told her: "I'm going to kill you and I'm going to kill your mom."

Wrestler Hulk Hogan and wife Linda were married for 25 years when he had an affair that brought their relationship to a screeching halt — along with their Hogan Knows Best reality show. Linda alleged her ex was a a habitual drug user with a violent streak, who physically and verbally abused her (charges the Hulkster vehemently denied). Shortly after filing for divorce, Linda began dating a 19-year-old. In the settlement, she reportedly walked away with a 40 per cent share in her ex's companies and 70 per cent of all liquid assets. The exes are apparently not on friendly terms; in a 2016 open letter, Linda wrote: "YOU have singlehandedly ruined our 25-year marriage and our family."

Paul McCartney's six-year-marriage to Heather Mills came to a bitter end in 2008, with Mills claiming the former Beatle was constantly stoned throughout their marriage, and held back her career (charges he denied). While she sought half of his fortune — estimated at being in the hundreds of millions — she walked away with a $50-million settlement (amazingly, there was no prenup). Sir Paul has since admitted that marrying Mills was a "prime contender" for the biggest mistake he'd ever made in his life. He has since remarried; she continues to slag him occasionally in the press, recently sniping that the only reason he worked with Kanye West and Rihanna was his desperation to stay relevant.

Viewers of The Real Housewives of New York watched Bethenny Frankel's doomed relationship with Jason Hoppy play out on the reality show, with cracks in the couple's marriage already beginning to show on her RHONY spinoff Bethenny Ever After. The divorce got down and dirty as they battled over custody of their daughter, with both ex-spouses making vicious claims about the other; a judge issued a restraining order against Jason, whom Bethenny had accused of stalking her. She later described the split as "brutal, horrendous, excruciating."

Kelsey Grammer’s third marriage — to one-time lingerie model Camille Donatacci — ended bitterly when she filed for divorce in 2010, claiming he verbally and physically abused her, while the former Frasier/Cheers star fired back by alleging his ex thought she was marrying Frasier Crane, and was less interested in maintaining their marriage than in increasing her own fame. Kelsey later married 25-years-his-junior flight attendant Kayte Walsh, with whom he shares three young children, while Camille went on to become one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

The marriage was brief — only 16 months — but the ensuing divorce was one of Hollywood's messiest, with accusations of drunken rages, pill-popping drug abuse, violent assaults, tabloid rumours that Gest was gay and, most explosively of all, Gest's accusation that the Cabaret star gave him a sexually transmitted disease. (Minnelli also accused Gest of stealing $2 million from her). The divorce was settled in 2007, with Gest (who died in 2016 at 62) reportedly walking away with a tiny fraction of the millions he had demanded in order to halt the ongoing legal battles that had wiped him out financially.

Life could not have been better for Sandra Bullock, who had just won her first Oscar and was in the process of adopting a son, David, while happily married to motorcycle customizer/Discovery Channel host Jesse James. What appeared to be a solid union, however, came crashing down when a tabloid revealed James had been cheating on America’s sweetheart with a bevy of heavily tattooed biker-type women. The marriage ended shortly after, with James subsequently describing himself as "the most hated man in the world."

Comedian/TV host Steve Harvey's divorce from second wife Mary was settled in 2005, with Mary receiving three of the couple's homes as well as $40,000 a month until 2009. But the ugliness didn't end with the divorce; in 2013, Mary spent 30 days in the slammer for violating a confidentiality clause in the divorce agreement, and in spring 2017 launched a $60-million lawsuit against her ex that accused the Family Feud host of, among other things, “soul murder," which she defined as "a combination of torture, deprivation and brainwashing." Her ex's attorneys, by the way, responded by dismissing her suit as "meritless, frivolous and... completely false."

Tiger Woods’ marriage to model Elin Nordegren came to a calamitous conclusion when she reportedly attacked him with a golf club after learning he’d been cheating on her — which led to subsequent revelations that he’d been carrying on numerous affairs with multiple women throughout their marriage. The ensuing scandal cost the golf phenom millions in lost endorsement deals, to say nothing of paying out a divorce settlement reported to be in the $100-million range.

Don't miss 22 celebrity couples who prove that true love stands the test of time (yes, they do exist)!