Crazy Divorce Stories: 5 People Who Suck at Divorce More Than You Do

Crazy Divorce Stories: 5 People Who Suck at Divorce More Than You Do

If you are currently getting divorced and thinking:

I am absolutely sucking at this.

First of all, welcome. You have found your people.

Second, we have some extremely comforting news.

There are people who have handled divorce much, much worse than you.

We're talking about people who have fought over kidneys, dead parents buried in the backyard, a six-pound catfish, and millions of dollars in lottery winnings.

And because we don't want to leave you completely hopeless, we're also ending with a woman who did the exact opposite—she may have negotiated one of the smartest divorce settlement clauses of all time.

So if you are having a bad divorce day, consider this your reminder:

You may be sucking at divorce. But you're probably not sucking this badly.

Crazy Divorce Story #1: The Husband Who Wanted His Kidney Back

Let's begin with Dr. Richard Batista of Long Island, New York.

And yes.

We're talking about an actual kidney.

In 2001, Batista donated one of his kidneys to his wife, Dawnell, after she had experienced two failed kidney transplants.

It was an extraordinary thing to do for someone you love. Unfortunately, the marriage did not survive.

Dawnell filed for divorce in 2005, and by 2009 the divorce had become spectacularly ugly. Batista argued that he wanted either:

A. His kidney back.

Or...

B. Approximately $1.5 million, which he claimed represented the value of the kidney.

Friends. We have officially entered the "maybe log off and call your therapist" stage of divorce.

Batista publicly said he felt deeply betrayed by the end of the marriage. But unfortunately for him, the legal system did not recognize a previously donated organ as marital property that could simply be reclaimed in divorce.

A New York matrimonial referee rejected Batista's $1.5 million claim, explaining that a donated kidney was a gift and that putting a monetary value on a human organ raised obvious legal problems.

Which leads us to our first important divorce lesson:

You cannot undo the marriage by undoing everything you ever gave your spouse.

This happens in less kidney-y ways all the time.

People start thinking:

I bought that for you.

My family paid for that.

I supported you through medical school.

I helped you build that company.

I paid the mortgage.

Those facts may absolutely matter legally depending on the circumstances. But emotionally, divorce creates this incredibly strong urge to take everything back.

The years. The money. The sacrifices. The kidney.

Unfortunately, divorce doesn't have a rewind button.

The smartest question usually isn't:

How do I undo everything I gave this person?

It's:

What do I need now to build the next part of my life?

Crazy Divorce Story #2: She Got the House. He Got His Dead Parents.

This next story comes from Australia, and we need to give you an important disclaimer:

This one has circulated for years as an outrageous divorce story, but unlike the kidney case, we haven't been able to locate a clean published court decision confirming every detail.

So we're filing it under:

Possibly true, definitely insane, and an excellent argument against putting your parents in the backyard.

As the story goes, a divorcing couple had lived on a family property where the husband's deceased parents had been memorialized in the backyard. His wife got the property in the divorce.

There was one small problem.

His parents were still there.

Reportedly, he was given a limited amount of time to remove the urns and headstones from the property.

And suddenly we have discovered a sentence nobody expects to hear from their divorce lawyer:

Congratulations, she gets the house. You have 14 days to come get Mom and Dad.

Now, according to the version of the story we discussed on How Not to Suck at Divorce, the parents had been cremated.

So this isn't quite Poltergeist: Divorce Edition.

But still.

Imagine doing your final walk-through:

Kitchen appliances? Check.

Garage door opener? Check.

Parents? Shit.

This raises one of the stranger realities of dividing property in divorce:

Emotional property can be harder to divide than expensive property.

Family heirlooms.

Photographs.

Wedding gifts.

Furniture from your parents.

Your child's baby things.

A pet.

And apparently, occasionally, the remains of your former in-laws.

Which brings us to our official advice:

Maybe don't create a family cemetery behind the hydrangeas.

Because you truly don't know who's getting the house.

Crazy Divorce Story #3: Pinky, the Six-Pound Catfish Caught in the Middle

Forget child custody.

Let's talk about:

Catfish custody.

Peter and Jane McNelly reportedly had a very unusual member of their household:

A giant, six-pound catfish named Pinky.

Jane apparently thought Pinky was beautiful. Peter reportedly described Pinky as essentially the ugliest thing he'd ever seen.

Which does make us wonder how this fish entered the marriage in the first place.

Was Pinky an impulse purchase?

Did Jane come home one afternoon carrying a six-pound catfish?

Did Pinky begin as a normal-size fish and slowly become the Shaquille O'Neal of the aquarium community?

There are questions.

According to the widely circulated story, when the marriage ended, Peter kept the house.

But Peter was not keeping Pinky. Jane moved into a smaller apartment and took the fish with her. Pinky apparently had to live in a smaller tank, reportedly alongside another fish.

And then comes the saddest sentence in this entire blog:

Pinky allegedly suffered a heart attack and died.

We have not found a primary court record confirming the Pinky story, so we're treating this one as divorce folklore rather than established case law.

But metaphorically?

Pinky is doing a lot of work for us.

Because pets become a huge issue in divorce.

Dogs.

Cats.

Horses.

And apparently enormous aquatic creatures.

People love their animals like family, and when a marriage ends, figuring out who gets a beloved pet can become deeply emotional.

So while we can make jokes about Pinky, the underlying issue is very real:

Think about your pet's life after the divorce, not just who "wins" the pet.

Who has the appropriate space?

Who handles the vet?

Who has historically cared for the animal?

Can both households realistically accommodate it?

Because sometimes what feels fair to the humans is not actually what's best for the animal.

Justice for Pinky.

Crazy Divorce Story #4: The Woman Who Hid a $1.3 Million Lottery Win

This one is not divorce folklore.

This one made it all the way to the California Court of Appeal.

Meet Denise Rossi.

In December 1996, Rossi won approximately $1.3 million in the California Lottery as part of a lottery pool.

Eleven days later, after 25 years of marriage, she filed for divorce from her husband, Thomas.

There was just one minor detail she failed to mention during the divorce:

THE $1.3 MILLION LOTTERY WIN.

She did not disclose it.

Her husband apparently had no idea.

And for more than two years, she almost got away with it.

Then Thomas received a piece of mail addressed to Denise from a company that offered lump-sum payments to lottery winners.

Basically:

"Hey Denise! Want cash for those lottery payments?"

Thomas:

I'm sorry, the WHAT?

He went back to court.

The court found that Denise had intentionally concealed the winnings during the divorce.

The consequence was spectacular.

Her ex-husband was awarded the entire concealed lottery asset.

Not half.

All of it.

The California Court of Appeal later upheld the ruling.

Please tattoo this divorce lesson somewhere useful:

DO NOT HIDE ASSETS IN A DIVORCE.

We know.

You think your spouse doesn't know about it.

You think nobody will find the account.

You think the cash can't be traced.

You think the crypto is invisible.

You think the business is impossible to value.

You think nobody knows about the bonus.

And maybe nobody knows today.

But divorces involve discovery.

Subpoenas.

Tax returns.

Bank records.

Forensic accountants.

Electronic trails.

And occasionally...

a very poorly timed piece of junk mail.

Crazy Divorce Story #5: Marvin Gaye Paid His Ex-Wife With His Next Album

This one is so good that it almost doesn't qualify as someone sucking at divorce.

It's more like:

Divorce became performance art.

When Marvin Gaye and his first wife, Anna Gordy Gaye, divorced, Marvin was in serious financial trouble.

Anna was seeking a significant settlement.

Marvin didn't have enough cash.

So his attorney came up with an unusual solution.

Anna would receive money tied to Marvin's next album.

Their agreement ultimately provided her with $600,000: $305,000 from the advance for the next record and another $295,000 from royalties, with protections built in if the album didn't generate enough.

And what album did Marvin Gaye make?

Here, My Dear.

An entire album about...

the divorce.

The marriage.

The anger.

The heartbreak.

The money.

Basically, Marvin Gaye had to create music to pay his divorce settlement and decided:

Fine.

Then the divorce is the album.

It has literally been described as a divorce concept album.

Petty?

Maybe.

Iconic?

Absolutely.

But there is actually a useful divorce lesson hidden in this one too:

Creative settlements can solve problems when there isn't enough cash sitting in an account.

Divorce settlements don't always have to look exactly the same.

Depending on the law where you live and the assets involved, lawyers may structure agreements around property, future payments, business interests, investment assets and other sources of value.

Which brings us to a woman who understood that concept VERY well.

And Now: The Woman Who Absolutely Did NOT Suck at Divorce

Her name was Rita Lucas.

And she was playing chess while the rest of us were fighting about who gets the air fryer.

Rita was married to economist Robert E. Lucas Jr., a University of Chicago professor who was already considered extraordinarily influential in his field.

The couple divorced in 1988.

And Rita apparently understood something very important:

Her husband might eventually win a Nobel Prize.

So her divorce settlement contained a clause.

If Robert won the Nobel Prize before a particular date, Rita would receive half of the prize money.

That expiration date?

October 31, 1995.

Now guess what happened.

Robert Lucas won the 1995 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

The announcement came only weeks before Rita's clause expired.

That woman threaded the needle like she had written the Nobel committee's calendar herself.

According to later accounts, Lucas's response was:

"A deal is a deal."

The award was worth approximately $600,000 after taxes, meaning Rita received roughly half.

Rita.

We salute you.

Because while everybody else in this blog was asking for kidneys and hiding lottery tickets, Rita was apparently looking at her husband's career trajectory and saying:

Put future Nobel Prize proceeds in the agreement.

That is not sucking at divorce.

That is planning.

And Rita Wasn't Even the First Nobel Prize Ex-Wife

Enter:

Albert Einstein.

When Einstein and his first wife, Mileva Marić, divorced in 1919, Einstein had not yet received the Nobel Prize.

But he was apparently confident enough that he eventually would.

Their divorce agreement included future Nobel Prize money.

Einstein ultimately received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, and the award money was transferred under the arrangement made with Marić. Historical accounts differ slightly in describing precisely how the money was held and used, but the core story is true: future Nobel money was part of their divorce negotiations before Einstein had actually won it.

Which gives us perhaps the greatest divorce lesson in this entire ridiculous collection:

Don't only look at what exists today.

Look at what may exist tomorrow.

Bonuses.

Stock options.

Deferred compensation.

Business growth.

Royalties.

Intellectual property.

Future payouts.

Investments.

Pending deals.

And, apparently, Nobel Prizes.

You don't need to be married to Albert Einstein.

You do need to understand the financial life you built together before signing a settlement ending it.

What These Crazy Divorce Stories Actually Teach Us

Okay. Yes.

The kidney is funny.

The dead parents are objectively a lot.

We will never forget Pinky.

And Rita Lucas deserves a commemorative plaque somewhere at the University of Chicago.

But beneath all of these crazy divorce stories is something important.

Divorce makes people weird.

It makes smart people make bad decisions. It makes normally rational people obsess over things they would never care about otherwise.

It makes hurt people want revenge.

It makes scared people hide money.

It makes angry people spend $10 trying to win $5.

And sometimes you get so consumed by what your spouse is doing that you forget the only question that really matters:

What gets me to the other side of this divorce in the healthiest possible position?

Not:

How do I beat them?

Not:

How do I punish them?

Not:

How do I prove I'm right?

Not:

How do I get my kidney back?

The finish line is not your ex-spouse losing.

The finish line is you getting your life back.

And that takes stamina.

Because divorce is a marathon.

It is not a sprint.

There is no award waiting at the courthouse for the person who got divorced fastest.

There is no trophy engraved:

CONGRATULATIONS, CHAD. BEST DIVORCER OF 2026.

Take the break.

Watch the stupid television show.

Call the friend who makes you laugh.

Go wander around Target.

Listen to something that has absolutely nothing to do with divorce.

And yes, sometimes listen to three ridiculous divorce stories about a kidney, somebody's deceased parents and a gigantic catfish.

Your brain needs the interruption.

You're not a divorce factory.

You're a human being going through one of the biggest transitions of your life.

And when you're thinking:

I cannot do this anymore...

Remember something.

You already are doing it.

Maybe you're not walking away with half of your ex's future Nobel Prize winnings.

Fine.

Your win is different.

Your win is getting to the other side with enough of yourself left to build the healthiest, happiest next chapter of your life.

And we are so freaking proud of you.

You've got this.

And we've got you.

Listen to the full episode of How Not to Suck at Divorce: “3 People Who Suck at Divorce More Than You.”

And if you are preparing for divorce, already in it, or terrified that you're making expensive mistakes, check out the Divorce Crash Course. It was built to give you the information we wish every person had before they started making the decisions that can shape the rest of their divorce.