EXCLUSIVE: The World's Dirtiest Divorces Part 2 — Including Martha Stewart's Split and the Hollywood Horror Stories You've Forgotten
A raft of stars have suffered splits.
May 18 2025, Published 7:00 a.m. ET
RadarOnline.com continues to delve into the planet's nastiest splits – including the ones everyone has most likely forgotten.
Sonny Bono and Cher
I Got You, Babe should've been the song Sonny Bono was humming after he got the better of Cher following their 1975 divorce.
The most celebrated married couple in pop music history wrangled so long over the financial settlement that by the time she and Bono reached a compromise, Cher had already married and divorced rocker Gregg Allman.
Although the exact details have never been revealed, Bono’s lawyer, Marvin Mitchelson, once said: "Cher just wanted to split their assets down the middle. But Bono wanted Cher to pay him some of the millions they would've earned if she hadn’t dumped him. I won Sonny's case. I got Cher to pay Sonny millions of extra dollars."
It wasn't easy. After a fed-up judge demanded that they reach an agreement, the couple and their lawyers dug in for an all-night session. Calling it a "sleepless hell," Mitchelson battled for 17 straight hours.
"At 2am we ended up on the living room floor at Cher's home, arguing and shouting," he recalled.
"Finally, at 4 a.m., we all agreed on everything and dropped to the floor in exhaustion. It was the last time Sonny and Cher slept together."
Sonny Bono and Cher spent so long negotiating their divorce she remarried and divorced again before it was finalized.
Andy and Martha Stewart
In 1987, when Martha Stewart’s lawyer husband Andy parted from her after nearly 27 years, she wisely had the divorce papers sealed. "She didn't want her public image tarnished at a time when she was starting to become nationally known and loved by millions of fans," said a source.
There was certainly enough to tarnish several kitchens-worth of pots and pans, because Martha, by some accounts, had been the wife from hell: badgering, threatening and downright cruel.
One Mother's Day, when her hubby got up early to prepare her breakfast in bed, Martha allegedly took umbrage at something on the tray and threw the whole meal at him. Often she relegated him to busboy status in her catering business and yelled at him for the slightest infraction. "She treated him like a dog," admitted her own brother, Frank Kostyra.
And when Andy announced that he was leaving her, Martha went into an overdrive of fury, reportedly sending poison-pen letters to his pals and storming into his office on several occasions, once threatening to shatter the window and throw things onto the street. What apparently galled her the most was that he’d been the one to end the marriage.
Andy chose an ironic moment to announce his departure – while Martha was making a publicity tour for her book Weddings, which she’d dedicated to him. This led someone at her publishing house to jokingly suggest changing the title to Martha Stewart Divorces.
Martha and Andy Stewart ended their 27-year marriage quietly, with sealed divorce papers to protect her public image.
Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke
Clint Eastwood made Sondra Locke’s day when he agreed to give her $450,000, a house and a film production deal if she'd drop her palimony suit against him. She'd been forced to sue, charged Locke, because of Eastwood's "stingy spitefulness" after he ended their 11-year relationship in 1989 (by changing the locks of the house they shared.)
"How much do you want for each time we did it?" Locke said he once asked her.
But seven years later, Locke took Eastwood to court and aired his dirty linen. She said he'd rejected all her film ideas, in what she called an effort to wreck her career – and demanded $2.5million.
She told how he’d cheated on her throughout their relationship, made her have two abortions and even convinced her to be sterilized. Perhaps sensing defeat, Eastwood settled, reportedly for several million dollars. "I feel fantastic," Locke said.
"Clint revealed himself to be the person I knew him to be."
Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke parted after 11 years, settling with money, property and a disputed film deal.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
If Elizabeth Taylor’s relationship with Richard Burton began with a bang – the most public scandal in Hollywood history – it ended with a whimper. Twice.
In 1962, Taylor and Burton did everything but have sex in public while filming Cleopatra in Rome. Since Taylor was still married to Eddie Fisher, outraged Congressmen tried to bar her from returning to the U.S., while the Vatican branded her "a woman of loose morals." But by their first divorce in 1974, the public had lost interest in the brawly, spendthrift couple.
That July, it took only 30 minutes to dissolve their 10-year marriage. A Swiss judge asked Taylor just one question: "Is it true that to live with your husband was intolerable?" Liz needed no time to ponder Burton's boozy, abusive outbursts and philandering. "Yes," she replied.
Still, life with Burton couldn't have been that intolerable. In 1975, they remarried on an African riverbank. Three months later, in January 1976, Burton – doing a play in New York – summoned Taylor from their home in Switzerland. Taylor thought he needed her to nurse him through another illness; instead, he told her he wanted a divorce so he could marry Suzy Hunt. "You mean you called me all this way to tell me that?" Taylor said.
They divorced in Haiti that August.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor married and divorced twice, following a turbulent relationship that began during a film production.
Tommy Mottola and Mariah Carey
Sexy songbird Mariah Carey seemed in a hurry to end her four-year marriage to Sony Records’ honcho Tommy Mottola – flying to the Dominican Republic to get a quickie divorce from the man often called her Svengali.
Mottola discovered Carey when she was a teen. She claimed she was technically a virgin when she married the music mogul, 20 years her senior. There were whispers that Mariah owed her extraordinary success to Mottola and was totally controlled by him.
When they parted, some thought she'd flop on her own, but Carey is still soaring. However, she said she was surprised to find out about film offers Mottola had rejected without her knowledge – because he didn’t think acting would help her singing career.
Even so, said Carey: "I care about Tommy and still love him as a person. Tommy represents a huge portion of my life, and he’s helped shape the person I am."
Tommy Mottola and Mariah Carey divorced after four years, following reports of career control and personal tension.
Ashley Hamilton and Shannen Doherty
After just five months of marriage, Shannen Doherty, former Beverly Hills 90210 real-life bad girl, sued for divorce from actor Ashley Hamilton.
Although she filed in April 1994, Doherty actually left their Beverly Hills house in February, the day after police were summoned by neighbors who heard screams and breaking glass.
The cops found Doherty with a cut and a bruise on her right cheek, but no charges were filed against Hamilton, who was absent when they arrived.
Doherty said her injuries had been caused by a friend named Allison, who was also curiously missing.
Ashley Hamilton and Shannen Doherty separated five months into their marriage, shortly after a domestic dispute led to a police visit.
Jack Gordon and La Toya Jackson
This is not the story of Adam and Eve – although those are her pet snakes' names – but of La Toya Jackson’s odd alliance with Jack Gordon. When Jackson met Gordon – a convicted felon, a former massage parlor owner and a divorced man with two grown kids – he was working on the TV show Music Video. He saw La Toya appearing with the Jackson family in Vegas – and envisioned her as the perfect hostess for his show.
Somehow, Gordin became her new co-manager, and they secretly wed in 1989. Gordon claimed "it wasn't for love" but for La Toya's "safety." Then the NYPD arrested Gordon for allegedly assaulting his wife with a chair. La Toya was rushed to the hospital, where it took 12 stitches to fix her swollen mouth. She declined to press assault charges, blaming it on Gordon's new medication, and later hinted that she'd only married him to escape her domineering family. Before long, however, La Toya's finances were said to be in ruins and Jack was booking her to sing in sex clubs.
She filed for divorce in 1996, charging Gordon had beaten her repeatedly. She is now suing him for $20million.
Jack Gordon and La Toya Jackson's troubled marriage ended in divorce and legal action after years of reported control and conflict.
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Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson
As the wild-man drummer for the heavy-metal band Motley Crue, scruffy, tattooed Tommy Lee has never had a problem attracting beautiful women.
Lee married Melrose Place vixen Heather Locklear in May 1986, but after putting up with his rock-star shenanigans for seven years, she asked out. She’d had enough of Lee’s drunken binges and womanizing. Said a family friend, "He can be a awfully sweet guy, but when it comes to being faithful, Tommy just can't cut it." Locklear is now married to Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora.
Tommy then married former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson in Cancun, Mexico, after a four-day romance. (Their sexual interludes are now being shown in a controversial, X-rated, bootleg video.)
Anderson gave Lee two sons, but sued for divorce after only 21 months. "That man has caused me so much pain and misery that I hope he burns in hell," she said. "When this guy’s drunk, he's mean – someone who gets his rocks off by beating up women.”
Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson divorced less than two years after marrying, following incidents of domestic violence and legal consequences.
The straw that broke the camel’s back came on February 24, 1998. Lee began kicking and hitting Anderson while she was holding their 7-week-old son Dylan. Convicted of spousal abuse, Lee was sentenced to six months in jail, plus three years' probation. He had to donate $5,000 to a battered women’s shelter, stay off drugs and alcohol – and keep at least 100 yards away from Anderson.
