You know the expression “work hard, play hard?” That’s the official motto of professional athletes everywhere. They spend countless hours training so they can dazzle during the big game. And in their off-time, these athletes do their best to party hard and make all that hard work worth it.
Sometimes, though, the “hard work” is their marriage, and athletes find out the hard way that spending all that time away from their spouses training, playing, and traveling doesn’t exactly build a strong relationship. And this leads to some messy divorces that are just as intense as any challenge from a rival player or team.
What were the messiest divorces in athletic history, and how did the athletes handle them? Keep reading to discover the answers!
Michael Jordan
It’s fair to say that Michael Jordan is the most famous athlete in history. And he is also one of the most successful athletes, which led to a pretty messy divorce from his wife Juanita Vanoy in 2006.
In the divorce, Vanoy received an eye-popping $168 million. But it seems she might have really earned that money by putting up with a lot from her famous husband over the years. For example, the Chicago Tribune reports that a woman named Karla Knafel said that Jordan offered her $5 million in order to stay quiet about an alleged affair they had back in 1991.
Even if the affair didn’t happen, though, being married to Jordan wasn’t easy for Vanoy. Eventually, friend of the family Les Coney told People, “He’s a magnet. He hasn’t played basketball in five years, but still, people stop and take pictures and ask for autographs. Marriage is hard for any couple, and if you add celebrity to that, it’s even harder.”
