Divorce hurts. Especially when you’re rich and there’s no prenup.
More than a year after the divorce proceedings between Jane Lynch and her estranged wife Dr. Lara Embry took a turn into “unfriendly” territory, their union is now officially dissolved. And it was not cheap.
TMZ reports that in addition to a lump sum of $1.2 million spread out over two years, the Glee star’s former wife will get fifty percent of the funds in a number of bank accounts, including a 401(k); fifty percent of Lynch’s TV royalties; fifty percent of their $56,810 tax refund; their yacht club membership; and the family dog.
Embry, a psychologist, had initially asked for spousal support to the tune of $94,000 a month, claiming that during her three-year marriage to Lynch she had grown accustomed to spending nearly $6,500 per month on clothes, $12,000 per month on entertainment and vacations, and $4,500 per month on dining out.
The divorce was finalized on Monday.
tardis
What’s the line from Aladdin? “You wanted to be a genie? You got it! And everything that goes with it!”
Welcome to the club, I suppose. Man, divorces are nasty.
redcarpet30
I could live high on the hog with what she was spending on dinner alone per month.
sanfranca1
Gold digger!
DarkZephyr
WHAT a greedy COW! Clearly Jane Lynch did WELL to get rid of her!
Cam
“Embry, a psychologist, had initially asked for spousal support to the tune of $94,000 a month, claiming that during her three-year marriage to Lynch she had grown accustomed to spending nearly $6,500 per month on clothes, $12,000 per month on entertainment and vacations, and $4,500 per month on dining out.”
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That right there is a great reason to divorce her.
$4,500 dollars a month on dining out, in a 30 month that would mean she was spending $150.00 a day eating out. Here’s an idea for Embry, a little more eating out your wife, and a little less eating out and maybe the marriage would have lasted.
Desert Boy
Jane Lynch spends $6,500 a month on clothes? I don’t believe it.
Chris
Well, we wanted marriage equality; and now that we’re getting it, we can look forward to divorce equality as well. … Anyone know a good law school for a late-life career changer who wants to get into the divorce business?
More seriously folks — Get a prenup, even if you’re going to “just” live together.
MarionPaige
Clint Eastwood paid a lot to “divorce” Sandra Locke and it turned out that Locke was actually married to another man the whole time she was with Clint Eastwood. Me Thinks that the “protection” gay people had in CA from palimony claims in California was that gays couldn’t marry. Imagine paying out “half” like Lynch has to to someone you weren’t even married to.
It is worth noting that, prior to gay marriage in CA, some gay people in CA dissolved their domestic partnerships before their assets became community property under a then upcoming change to CA DP Law.
When you have a couple that has been “together” for `10 years or so in CA, the THREAT of the highest income party’s assets being community property in a palimony action is an incentive to stay in the relationship (if not in love).
sanfranca1
@Desert Boy: Dr. Embry (the wife) was spending $6500/month on clothes…
gaym50ish
How is a payment a “lump sum” if it’s spread out over two years?
MarionPaige
Patricia Kluge was still being paid alimony by her ex even after she remarried. She then negotiated to get a lump sum payment from her ex to try to keep her winery business alive.
Alimony is something you expect when people marry. but I don’t think anyone gay campaigned or sued for palimony in CA
iggy6666
@Cam:lol. your comment was pure gold!
Matt1961
I think the support laws, especially here in California, are horrible. My ex wife still gets 25% of my income and will continue for life because there’s no requirement that she make an actual attempt to support herself. Jane Lynch’s ex is a PhD? And she can’t support herself? Something’s terribly wrong here. It’s like the judge ( that’s who forces that stuff on divorcing couples) is punishing Lynch.
tricky ricky
I knew the that shrink was in it for the $$$$$.
LadyL
I hate this story. They seemed so cute together. WTF happened??
demented
Owwwwwww. That is a nasty divorce.
@MarionPaige: Shouldn’t Locke have to repay the money if the marriage was null anyway?
@tardis: Yeah, that’s what nobody seemed to predict with marriage equality. all the suck comes with it too, including the divorces, child custody battles, alimony, and and probably those tacky weddings where people wed who barely know each other and split a year later.
teddy55
they weren’t even married that long were they?
petensfo
Settlement is one thing, but you’d think that palimony would be dismissed when dealing with 2 professional people & no kids. What a bunch of baloney.
If I ever get into a serious relationship again, there will definitely be a pre-nup.
Cagnazzo82
Looks like someone got so caught up in the victory of gay marriage she forgot the prenup. Sad.
I’m not even into girls honestly, but I think Jane could’ve done better (looks-wise :).
She’ll never be able to trust another woman after this. Costly betrayal/hard life lesson all in one.
SteveDenver
Graham Norton hosted Taylor Swift, John Cleese and Kevin Pietersen, and the topic turned to alimony: Cleese paid out $20 million in his divorce, and it sounds like Pietersen also paid out. Earlier Graham had asked Taylor Swift if she was dating, and during the alimony chat she brought up again that she was not. Graham observed wittily: “How much money does Taylor Swift have? ALL OF IT!”
It’s too often said that “A couple who are truly in love shouldn’t need a pre-nup.” If people are truly in love, a pre-nup shouldn’t matter.
sejjo
It seems people don’t learn from Spielberg’s divorce from his first wife. Marry out of community of property and get a prenup, even if you’re ‘in love’. I’m an attorney and most of my colleagues marry this way, because lawyers know the marital pitfalls that materialize when the brown stuff hits the fan.
petensfo
@sejjo: Just curious, does that mean if you marry outside of a Comm Prpty state but reside in one, it doesn’t apply? Could that be true? I always thought the only defense was to define your prior assets clearly & never mix funds used to sustain them. Straighten me out, please.
Cam
@Matt1961: said…. “My ex wife still gets 25% of my income and will continue for life because there’s no requirement that she make an actual attempt to support herself. ”
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Most people I know who are divorced have a limit on the time alimony is paid. It sounds like you got a weird just, but you may want to think about getting the support re-looked at. The longest I heard about was from one 20 years ago where they wife got alimony for 12 years and then it ended. I’ve never heard of a “For Life” alimony arrangement unless your case was a long long time ago. Get a lawyer, and get a different judge to adjust it.
BJ McFrisky
What, it’s a surprise that marriage is followed by divorce?
Another lesson in “Be careful what you ask for, for you just might get it.”
@sejjo: Spielberg and Irving DID have a prenup—written on a napkin, no less—that was discredited by Irving’s . . . wait for it . . . lawyers! As long as there are greedy, selfish people out there, most prenups will be contested in a divorce as not binding. That’s what lawyers do, you know that.
demented
@BJ McFrisky: Well, if it was written on a napkin, I’m not surprised it was overthrown in court!
BJ McFrisky
“When your ex-wife rips out your wallet through your testicles.”
– Robin Williams, on the definition of divorce.
@Cam: To be clear, one cannot just “get a different judge” to adjust one’s alimony payments—the courts don’t work that way. And yes, alimony is for life, or until the wife dies or gets remarried. For 10 years I worked in the D.C., Virginia, and California courts systems and never once did I see or hear of a case of “temporary” spousal support.
Cam
@BJ McFrisky: said….
“@Cam: To be clear, one cannot just “get a different judge” to adjust one’s alimony payments—the courts don’t work that way. And yes, alimony is for life, or until the wife dies or gets remarried. For 10 years I worked in the D.C., Virginia, and California courts systems and never once did I see or hear of a case of “temporary” spousal support.”
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Alimony is not for life, and no it isn’t until the wife gets remarried. The spouse who asks for alimony is evaluated as far as their ability to earn is considered as well as the financial situation of the marriage.
“The standard in most states today is rehabilitative alimony which is paid for a certain duration and gives a woman time to “rehabilitate” herself financially post divorce. Specifically this means taking college courses if she has no marketable skills or re-entering the workforce and rebuilding her career post divorce. Basically it is support while she has the opportunity to “get back on her feet.””
The last state to offer permanent alimony has reformed it’s divorce laws. The law has changed and it leaves open the opportunity to refile the support case due to this.
MarionPaige
Clint Eastwood wasn’t married to Sandra Locke, they were just living together. However, when Eastwood decided to split, Locke demanded “compensation” (even though they were never married and SHE WAS MARRIED THE WHOLE TIME TO ANOTHER MAN).
There is a reason why the marriage rates were / are declining. And, I’m sure alimony and losing half your assets had / has something to do with people losing interest in marriage.
In re pre-nups, the RULE I read was that each party to a pre-nup had to be represented by their own lawyers for the agreement to be valid. So, a pre-nup on a nakin might actually have been valid had Speilberg’s ex been represented by a lawyer of her choosing
Again, you get married, you are at least conscious of divorce. But, just think of all the gay men living together in California who have now had the nightmare of Palimony forced on them?
BJ McFrisky
@Cam: Don’t know where you got your quote, but it’s not the law. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with your version, but it just isn’t a fact.
Look it up.
1EqualityUSA
You two are free from each other so, go on and live your lives and heal and don’t look back. It’s done, so be done with it.
schwma
Yikes! Is it possible to do a pre-nup post-nup? I wonder. lol
vive
@BJ McFrisky: “Don’t know where you got your quote, but it’s not the law. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with your version, but it just isn’t a fact.”
“The” law? I thought different states had different laws in this regard.
crowebobby
Marriage has always been right there with colon cancer on my list of things to avoid at all cost, but I’m truly happy the people who want it are finally receiving the right to it.
MarionPaige
I was actually hoping that a brain dead gay couple (that moved from ny to ca) married in CA, just to see which one killed the other when it got down to the divorce. According to the now almost historic book “the male couple” it is common for there to be a large age difference in male couples, which hints that it is common for one partner to have a higher income than the other, which then leads to messy gay breakups where palimony is possible.
Again, the never ending benefits of gay fucking marriage. Compare Susan Sarandon and her former “partner” ending their sexual relationship to Lynch paying through the fucking nose to end her sexual relationship.
MarionPaige
not to keep beating a dead horse (because no one is marrying, relatively speacking) butt,
What IS “special” about marriage is that it is A CONTRACT FOR SEXUAL SERVICES, sex is part of the marriage contract and marriage, in most states, is the only contract in which the “state” allows you to contract for sex (without it being called prostitution). It is because sex is being contracted for in marriage that The State has generally been “particular” about what it is a party to (the State is a party to marital sex because it is licensing it).
The “big question” I raised back in 1996 (and which is likely to become the real marriage revolution question) is: Do we really need THE STATE to be a party to our sexual relationships? Those who say Yes can pay the alimony. Those who say no can form legal partnerships.
sangsue
@Chris:
It’s only fair.
sesfm
Hmm if both spouses are female, how do the courts know whom do to side with??? They’re not equipped to actually consider facts, are they?
sesfm
* Hmm if both spouses are female, how do the courts know whom to side with??? They’re not equipped to actually consider facts, are they?