Back in June, on learning Jerry Hall’s magical marriage to Rupert Murdoch was ending after just six years, I wrote that the last thing we fans wanted to learn of our golden girl was that, in the end, she took the money.
I dared to hope that this fiercely independent, talented woman would set a standard. Wealthy already, she would not take a penny of Rupert’s £15 billion fortune.
How wrong I was. As details gradually emerge of the couple’s oh-so-speedy divorce settlement, it appears Jerry will instead enjoy a payday of somewhere between £50 million and £250 million, depending on who you believe, from her nonagenarian ex, including their £11 million Henley mansion and a St Tropez pad.
Not bad for six years of marriage! Yet that huge settlement stands as an insult to any woman Jerry’s age — at 66, she’s two years older than me — who ella dearly hopes to marry again.
The figures in her case may be eye-watering, but the principles are the same. Middle-aged men and women even of modest means think long and hard about marrying. If it fails, they fear they’ll get fleeced.
Back in June, on learning Jerry Hall’s magical marriage to Rupert Murdoch was ending after just six years, I wrote that the last thing we fans wanted to learn of our golden girl was that, in the end, she took the money
I speak from experience. During my last — sadly failed — engagement, I made it clear to my fiancé from him I’d never seek a penny of his money from him.
I wanted a ‘pre-nup’ establishing that if we split, I would get nothing: just keep the happy memories. His children from him would receive their full entitlement: his pension, his home and whatever savings were left after the taxman had taken his greedy share from him.
In turn, of course, he’d have no claim on my finances: I’ve worked hard all my life and it’s up to me what I do with my modest wealth.
When Jerry split with Mick Jagger in 1999, she received around £30 million, including a vast family home. Her children of her are grown-up: she has enough money to last several lifetimes.
Yet it seems she even wanted to be given Rupert’s £164 million Montana ranch and has now been ‘displaced’ from his vineyard in California. How many houses does a girl need?
Inevitably, Jerry has suggested it’s all the stepchildren’s fault. It is claimed they never trusted her, suspecting she was her after their dad’s money. Maybe they were right.
Yes, Rupert has kept most of his billions, but surely she is letting down lovelorn women everywhere.
Call me old-fashioned, but marriage should be about love, not money.
Latest on the wokies’ list of banned books is Anna Sewell’s beloved Black Beauty — for its ‘racist’ title and its scenes of animal cruelty. Crikey, let’s hope they never find out about The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which callously fat-shames larvae.
Olivia got it so right
In her autobiography Don’t Stop Believin’, Olivia Newton-John revealed the skintight black trousers she wore in Grease were not really leather, but a pair of 1950s sharkskin pants.
And when accused of sending a terrible message to girls that you had to be sexy to get your man, she calmly replied: ‘It was about choice. Empowerment comes from calling your own shots and being who you want to be.’
Amen to that, and farewell to the divine Olivia.
Increasingly apoplectic ‘money-saving expert’ Martin Lewis screeches on the BBC about the ‘cataclysm’ of rising energy prices.
Given that Martin sold his website to MoneySuper-Market for £87 million back in 2012, the only ‘inflation’ he has to worry about is his ego ballooning to ever more massive proportions.
Cruise a callous boy, Lewis?
Aging boy-racer Lewis Hamilton says the hardest conversation he’s ever had was turning down Tom Cruise’s offer of a role in his Top Gun: Maverick blockbuster. How revealing of this self-obsessed petrolhead: most of us would find it more awkward to sack our own dad as manager after he’d worked four jobs to support our dreams of becoming a Formula 1 star.
Netting Serena Williams for the cover of Vogue, the magazine’s frosty editor Anna Wintour declares the tennis star is ‘a figure so much larger than the game’. Well said, Anna! So why did our hefty heroine Serena, draped in billowing Balenciaga, appear so Photoshopped to slimness she was almost unrecognizable?
Pouring my favorite tipple, vodka, I noticed the bottle had a rainbow glow. No, I hadn’t had too many: it turns out that Absolute ‘proudly supported the LBGTQ+ community’. Strewth, I wanted a drink not a diversity lecture. Time to switch to gin — but should I call it Mumbai Sapphire?
Brave Anneka Rice confesses that when her Alzheimer’s-stricken father was admitted to hospital with a broken hip, she was tempted to end his life out of ‘deep love’ — after he’d told her not to let him ‘linger in pain’. Weeks before my own dad died, he became bedridden when he fell and broke his hip. I’m just glad all he asked me to do was to cut and file his fingernails from him, the saddest yet most tender thing I ever did for him.
Sean Bean is in hot water for saying intimacy coordinators — on film sets thanks to #MeToo — take the spontaneity out of sex scenes: ‘The natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it down to a technical exercise.’ I agree, sex in movies now is just so sexless.
Having met Mr Bean several times in our local pub, I can tell you that no red-blooded woman would ever need help in getting intimate with him.
westminster wars
Cabinet members say Boris-backstabber Rishi Sunak ‘dug his heels in’ resisting attempts to cut Brexit red tape. So that explains why he had holes in his shoes this week.
Keir Starmer has been on holiday for two weeks — but insists he’s still working. It gives a new meaning to ‘WFH’: Working From Holiday.
Hurrah for Attorney General Suella Braverman ruling it will be illegal for schools to have only unisex loos. Sure, genuinely trans kids deserve their own space, but a girl’s right to privacy should always trump the wishes of any boy who fancies wearing a frock.
Cabinet members say Boris-backstabber Rishi Sunak ‘dug his heels in’ resisting attempts to cut Brexit red tape. So that explains why he had holes in his shoes this week
We know the boy meant well with his documentary about homophobia in the Commonwealth, which he inevitably blamed on the Empire. But Tom Daley went too far when he said: ‘It honestly makes me feel sick to be British.’
Yes, the Empire made mistakes, but it brought democracy and stability to millions. Sorry Tom, but your film ended up a belly flop.
Tom Daley went too far when he said: ‘It honestly makes me feel sick to be British.’ Yes, the Empire made mistakes, but it brought democracy and stability to millions. Sorry Tom, but your film ended up a belly flop
Charlie Josephine, responsible for the Globe Theatre’s new production about Joan of Arc, says: ‘I’m properly passionate about making art that’s honest, particularly stories that center on queer people.’
Hence this Maid of Orleans is ‘non-binary’, with ‘they/them pronouns’. Are pronouns your top concern when the ‘proper passionate’ English are burning you at the stake?
Trans man Kyle Andrew, 26, dodges jail despite admitting burglary and stealing thousands of pounds to pay for his cannabis and crack-cocaine habit.
As this felon had been ‘transitioning’ since the age of 16 — and is all set to freeze his eggs — some woke judge now decrees that putting him in a women’s prison might damage his ‘mental health’. How about the mental health of his victims?
Keep dancing, Helen
Less than six months after her husband of eight years Richie Myler ‘left the family home’ for another woman shortly after she had delivered their baby, Countryfile presenter Helen Skelton signs up for Strictly to find happiness again. With millions tuning in, including many single men, what a great way to rub her ex’s nose in what he’s missing.
Every woman who’s been dumped will be voting for Helen: salute the sequined sisterhood!
With millions tuning in, including many single men, what a great way to rub her ex’s nose in what he’s missing
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