The absurd world of celebrity prenups
Nobody knows exactly why Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman are divorcing after 19 years of marriage. But far bigger than the question of whether it really was just the irreconcilable differences cited by Kidman when she formally filed her divorce petition last Tuesday is the one that has set all of Hollywood abuzz: just how much money will Urban be walking away with after news of the couple’s prenup broke?
Nicole Kidman and her husband of 19 years Keith Urban announced their divorce last month
For context, a prenup (short for a prenuptial agreement) is a bespoke legal document signed before a wedding that spells out how assets will be divided in the event of a divorce. Kidman and her country singer husband Urban, who have a combined net worth of $325m (£242m), reportedly signed a prenuptial agreement before their wedding in 2006 that awarded him between $600,000 and $900,000 (the reported figures vary) for every year of marriage – or between $11m and $17m.
However, the contract included an alleged “cocaine clause” which meant Urban, who has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, only got the money if he stayed clean. Reports suggest that Kidman is going to have to crack open her wallet.
Kidman and Urban tied the knot in 2006 at the Cardinal Cerretti Chapel in Sydney - @nicolekidman Instagram
Extreme? A behaviour-based prenuptial clause that is linked to cold hard cash is unusual – but if it is to be believed, then it’s far from the craziest prenup stipulation out there in celeb-world.
Consider, for example, Katie Holmes – Kidman’s successor as wife of Tom Cruise. Some of the more outlandish rumours about her prenup included that it purported to restrict various aspects of her life, including her spending habits and wardrobe, and would pay out monetary compensation based on the number of children the couple had.
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It would also award her $3m for every year she stayed married to Cruise (capped at $33m), a mansion in Montecito, and half of his fortune if she managed to stay the course for 11 years – despite which, she filed for divorce and sole custody of their daughter Suri, after just six.
Katie Holmes filed for divorce and sole custody of their daughter Suri, after just six years to Tom Cruise (pictured at their wedding in 2006) - Robert Evans/WireImage
A yearly marriage fee appears to be popular among stars of stage and screen: Beyoncé and Jay Z’s prenup reportedly gives her $1m for every year they stay married up to 15 years (as well as $5m per child), while Beyoncé was apparently to be awarded $10m if the marriage failed within two years.
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Kim Kardashian’s prenup with Kanye West also awarded her $1m per year of marriage (the couple married in 2014 and divorced in 2022) , and reportedly stipulated that Kim’s mother, Kris Jenner, could not make any career decisions that might impact the couple.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones’s prenup ahead of their 2000 wedding reportedly entitled her to $2.8m for every year of marriage, plus a “straying fee” of $5m if Douglas ever cheated on her. He, meanwhile, would retain sole ownership of any wedding gifts valued at more than £12,000.
In terms of the strangest prenup rumour, the rapper Ice-T and his wife Coco Austin’s apparent prenup gives him the rights to Austin’s breast and buttock implants should they ever divorce. The pair remain married, and Austin’s figure is as perfectly peachy as ever.
Beyoncé and Jay Z’s prenup reportedly gives her $1m for every year they stay married - Lester Cohen/Getty
Tennessee, where Kidman filed for divorce, is an equitable distribution state, meaning marital property is divided fairly but not necessarily equally. California, where Kim Kardashian filed, is a community property state, which means what you own together is split equally. In Kardashian and West’s case, their prenup clearly delineated that the assets they each brought into the marriage, and any assets they created while in it, were to remain entirely separate, even regardless of what house, for example, the family had lived in. At the time of their divorce, West was worth significantly more than Kardashian, at $1.3bn to her $780m.
In the UK, the watershed moment for the rise in nuptial agreements was the landmark Supreme Court decision in Radmacher v Granatino, in October 2010. The Court ruled in favour of Radmacher, 39, a German millionaire heiress, over the validity of the prenup with her ex-husband Nicolas Granatino, 38, a French investment banker.
However, “in England, nuptial agreements are not automatically binding,” says Ellen Jones, family and divorce lawyer at London law firm Forsters LLP. “Rather, the law states that a nuptial agreement is likely to be upheld on divorce if both parties entered into it freely with a full appreciation of its implications, and if the outcome it brings about on divorce is fair.”
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas’s prenup reportedly entitles her to a ‘straying fee’ of $5m if Douglas ever cheated - Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Turner
In the US, where prenups first became popular, the agreements “provide utility even for people who are not wealthy,” says Kara Chrobak, an attorney and founding partner of American firm Bespoke Law LLC, who works primarily with high-net-worth individuals. That’s because in America, divorce laws on the division of property and assets vary wildly from state to state, “so the benefit of a prenup [which is dictated by the state laws where it was drawn up and supersedes state laws in wherever the divorce is filed] is so that parties can come up with their own characterisation of what is marital and what is separate property that feels right to them”.
What constitutes fair? Well, the law doesn’t exactly say, although Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo’s prenup, which reportedly barred her from weighing over 135lb and required her to pay him $500,000 for every pound she gained, doesn’t sound exactly equitable. Luckily for Simpson and her scales, the couple ended things in 2009 without getting married.
And the reality is, says Monica Mazzei, a family law specialist in Buchalter’s San Francisco office, that clauses like this – or even Urban’s alleged coke clause – are likely unenforceable in many parts of the States too, especially in California, and especially if a prenup was drawn up in California, where clauses like these would run afoul of the state’s no fault divorce laws.
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“I had a Hollywood couple a long time ago who wanted a weight clause in their prenup and we had to tell them it was not enforceable,” Mazzei recalls. That’s not to say people don’t ask: she’s had requests about wives needing to keep up with household duties or do certain things around the house, and says the most popular request she gets is about cheating, and whether an affair means the other party still has to pay out (also not enforceable).
You can put such requests into a prenup, she says, “but if you put a non-enforceable decision in your agreement you risk the whole agreement being looked at unfavourably – so I would refuse to put in a clause like that”. Children and custody arrangement are also off the table when it comes to prenups.
In England and Wales, says Jones, behavioural or weight clauses – which would not be enforceable – would likely be treated with caution. “Even if a clause is not expressly punitive, an English judge would be unlikely to endorse an award that is based at least in part on a party’s behaviour being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ during the marriage,” she points out. “Additionally, it is possible that a ‘lifestyle’ clause could form part of, or point to a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour by one party towards another… meaning the agreement could effectively be disregarded by the English family court.”
Isn’t any sort of prenup a bit… well, controlling? “No – it’s just a sensible precaution”, says Mairead Molloy Doyle, a relationships dynamics and business strategist. Essentially, anyone wealthy and smart would be mad not to have one. “A prenup isn’t planning for a divorce, it’s protecting the marriage against money arguments,” she says. “It gives clarity and security – it’s conflict resolution for the future.”
Good advice, perhaps, for America’s hottest couple right now, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, who announced their engagement in August and are surely prime candidates for an iron-clad prenup (just like Swift’s billionaire pop star pal Selena Gomez, who has just married musician Benny Blanco, with a reported prenup in place). Given that Swift’s net worth is estimated to be $1.6bn, with Kelce’s a mere $70m, “a prenup makes total sense for them,” says Mazzei.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced their engagement in August - @taylorswift
“They’re both wealthy, but she is a lot wealthier than he is so I would expect their prenup to be that everyone’s keeping everything separate. Her team is going to make sure all her intellectual property and name and likeness are airtight, and if they get divorced she’ll write him a cheque and go on her way.” As well, of course, as ensuring an NDA is firmly in place to ensure there’s no post-divorce disparagement.
If they don’t get round to it, however, it’s not the end of the world. “Crucially, getting married doesn’t mean it’s too late,” says Jones. “A post-nuptial agreement, signed during the marriage, carries the same weight as a prenup.” Purportedly, she adds, Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott married and divorced with neither arrangement in place, and she still walked away with $38bn.
Whatever the arrangement, it appears Keith Urban’s sobriety – if he gets a good lawyer – will have earned him much more than good health.
