High-profile marriages sometimes turn into high-profile divorces — giving people a glimpse into what can happen when there’s a lot of money at stake.

The very public divorce between the man who founded a well-known cancer treatment program and his wife has finally come to an end. While his ex-wife walked away with considerably more than he believed she should have according to their prenuptial agreement, she still ended up with far less than she initially sought.

Their divorce trial took 32 days in court to settle — which sounds incredible, until you look at the amount of money that was at stake.

The ex-husband’s attorneys allege that the divorce took four years too long to finish simply because the ex-wife wouldn’t acknowledge the legitimacy of their prenuptial agreement. They say that his ex-wife was trying to extort money from her former spouse and destroy his reputation.

For her part, the ex-wife says that she couldn’t agree that the prenuptial was valid because her husband’s position was that she owned none of the marital assets at all. She also blamed him for the lengthy divorce, saying that he purposefully hid his assets and tried to stop her from getting documentation of them. She ultimately had to bring witnesses to the stand in this epic divorce trial just to testify about her husband’s lavish spending — rebutting his contention that he wasn’t as rich as she claimed.

Ultimately, although she had asked for $400,000 monthly in spousal support, she will only receive a little over $27,000 monthly instead. She’ll also keep her jewelry, a Porsche, a collection of Santa Clauses, some motorcycles and a pension fund. In addition, she’ll receive a one-time payment of more than $6 million — which represents her share of the cancer treatment centers that were marital property.

She did not win her bid for several other things, including $2 million she claimed her husband misappropriated from marital funds because she was unable to prove where the money came from initially.

This case illustrates just how difficult it can be to put a true dollar figure down on marital assets when things sour and one spouse wants to make things difficult. It also shows how important it is to gather documentation while you can — usually before you announce you want a divorce.

Source: dailyherald.com, “Cancer Center founder’s wife gets $6.5M, $27,500 a month in divorce,” Harry Hitzeman, Sep. 13, 2017