Johannesburg - An R8 million house registered in her name, along with fully paid insurance, security, rates, taxes, electricity and water charges.
Add a car worth half-a-million, R80 000 monthly maintenance for five years, R300 000 furniture and a five-year comprehensive medical aid covering everything from dental to surgical procedures - that’s what a northern Joburg socialite demanded as a divorce settlement from her husband.
The socialite and the former football administrator, who cannot be named due to laws governing divorce, were granted a decree of divorce last month amid counter-allegations of jealousy, excessive partying and drinking, and irreconcilable differences hinging mainly on their different religious and moral values.
In addition to the R80 000 maintenance she requested, the socialite had wanted her now ex-husband to:
* Pay R20 000 for each of their two children monthly.
* Retain the children on his medical aid scheme.
* Pay for the children’s education, including but not limited to private school fees, uniforms, stationery, compulsory school outings, extramural activities, extra lessons if required and tertiary educational costs.
* The man will also retain the children and their mother on his medical aid, although the ex-wife will be taken off it after a year.
* They have waived any claim of maintenance from each other.
But in his answering affidavit, the man pleaded poverty, saying that if he had money he would not have stayed on in their marital home pending the finalisation of their divorce and tolerated the socialite’s “rude and mean behaviour towards me”.
He said she had always been self-sufficient and he had never had to support her, except when she left her acting job and he had helped her set up her own business.
“Such assistance was always understood by both of us to be of a temporary nature. Her change of attitude is simply calculated to embarrass me… It is not a genuine request and this is proven by the exorbitant and luxurious demands,” he said.
The man, who cited in court papers that he made two monthly car repayments of R14 864.71 and R16 330.48, described as “redundant” the R300 000 claim for furniture, saying the socialite was entitled to 50 percent of the furniture in their matrimonial house.
The socialite had called for an equal division of their joint estate, saying they got married in community of property.
But the man annexed an antenuptial contract to the divorce papers, saying the socialite was not entitled to the northern Joburg house they lived in, a property in Pretoria and his investments, bonds and shares.
The woman denied entering into an out-of-community-of-property marriage in 2006, saying “the alleged antenuptial contract concluded between the parties is invalid and falls to be set aside (because) it was not signed by” her and was notarised without her authority.
But a copy annexed to court papers has two signatures resembling those on the divorce decree and credited to her and her now ex-husband.
Attempts to get clarity on this from the parties failed, but the final decree seems to be based on the contract, with the man keeping everything he owned before the marriage and the woman keeping her property in the west of Joburg.
The man painted the socialite as an unfit mother whose “level of alcohol abuse has reached intolerable levels”, saying she was “unstable and not in a position to look after the minor children”, but the court granted shared custody, taking into consideration a psychologist’s suggestion of a dual-residency plan for the children.
Under the settlement, the man undertook to pay his ex-wife R5 000 for each child every month and is responsible for the children’s school fees, uniforms and extramural activities.
While he accused her of being a party animal and drunkard, the socialite said:
* They had never gone out for dinner as a couple since before they were married.
* The man refused to buy her gifts and has never bought her a birthday present.
* He neglected to support her emotionally and professionally.
* The man was excessively jealous, to the point of compelling her to quit her acting job.
* He forbade her from socialising with her best friend and her gay and lesbian friends.
* He abused his economic power by withholding financial support.
* He behaved in a controlling and dictatorial manner towards her.
The Star