The Bobby Flay-Stephanie March divorce will go down as one of my favorite celebrity divorces of all time. It was easy to cover because there weren’t any children involved, so you could really immerse yourself in all the petty little details and epic grudges. There was so much back-and-forth in the press – Stephanie is a golddigger with a bad boob job! Bobby cheated repeatedly! – and it was all so childish that it became funny very quickly. The best move was when someone (!!) paid for a plane to fly a “CHEATER” banner over Bobby Flay’s Walk of Fame ceremony. That was possibly the most classic grudge move EVER! Anyway, the back-and-forth accusations had a purpose: Flay and March were in intense negotiations about throwing out their pre-nup. March wanted the pre-nup thrown out because she wanted Flay to give her way more than $5,000 a month and she was trying to force him to throw money at her to get her to go away. It sort of worked.
Bobby Flay and Stephanie March have finalized their divorce.
“We have come to an amicable divorce settlement,” Flay and March tell PEOPLE in a joint statement. “We look forward to putting this difficult time behind us and we ask that you respect our privacy as we move forward.”
It’s hilarious to ask for privacy now, after all of the crap they spread about each other in the press. Anyway, TMZ says that the divorce settlement negotiations were tough but at the end of the day, Flay caved because he didn’t want this thing to end up in court. One source told TMZ: “He didn’t want a plane flying over the courthouse.” TMZ’s sources didn’t have an actual number, but “sources” claim Stephanie got much more than the $5K a month.
But! Page Six’s sources say that March is definitely being kicked out of the Manhattan apartment she shared with Flay (which she was sharing with her sick mother for the past several months) and she’s not getting their Hamptons home either. Flay is letting March and her mom stay in the Manhattan apartment for a few more months, probably just long enough for March to find another place. A pro-March source told Page Six: “March’s legal team questioned the prenup and were able to secure her a better deal than what was provided in the original agreement. It will never be as much as Stephanie deserves, but it is significantly better than the $5,000 a month. Her friends say the more generous settlement wasn’t due to Bobby’s desire to do the right thing, but his fear of being exposed [as an alleged cheater].” Well, I for one am glad that March got more money. She did what she had to do. Meanwhile, I hear Flay’s jumpoff is in her mid-20s.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
Since Hollywood likes doing remakes so much I hope there is a scene with a plane pulling a “cheater” banner in a remake of the “First Wives Club” That is just classic major shade
Shade? That’s about as upfront as it gets.
+1. Not shade.
While I do think prenups generally should stand, I’m glad the courts didn’t need to get involved to overturn this one. It would set a terrible precedent. Not sure I like the example this sets either – she signed it. But on the other hand, she did have to put up with Flay and his wandering wang.
A good pre-nup has to be many things. It has to be properly written so that everything is clear and all possibilities are dealt with. It also has to be fair – the courts do not like pre-nups were one party clearly benefits at the expense of the other even if both parties signed it. It also has to be clear that both parties were well advised and well represented – i.e. by lawyers who were working for one party only.
I am a former family lawyer and I know that just having a document called a pre-nup doesn’t mean it will stand up in court. I’m glad March got more than the pre-nup ordered. $5,000 per month is not fair from a man who makes the kind of money that Bobby Flay makes. It’s simply a matter of economics.
P.S. I got so tired of dealing with this kind of crap that I now work teaching english in China.
(Just wanted to pop in and say that I understand your desire to be well away from stuff like this, and that I hope your teaching gig is a lot more gratifying.)
Even a single dollar paid out to a professional gold digger is a dollar too much. It is very hard to feel the slightest twinge of pity or sympathy for a person, male or female, who believes that marrying money is like winning the lottery. Lazy gold diggers need to do exactly what the rest of us do. Work hard for a living & if they want luxuries, then work even harder. Especially more so when no kids are involved
@ belle de jour : It is much more gratifying and a lot more fun. I have this thing now called “free time” and I am enjoying it greatly. Thanks for the comment and best wishes.
@tristan: that seems excessively harsh. Stephanie March does not strike me as a gold digger, and even if she were attracted to his money, they were married for how long?
I’ll probably get yelled at but what woman with any sense of self-worth agrees to be the third wife of a multimillionaire with a $5,000 a month prenup? I get being in love but you have to figure that is $60,000 a year to essentially give up your career and follow him so that his career, and therefore his paycheck, continues to grow. If you’re going to be the the third wife of a man with his reputation you have to figure that this is not a relationship with a high percentage of lifelong potential. I’m glad she got more money but I’m appalled that she didn’t see the issues going into this marriage.
Exactly.
There should’ve been a clause in there where it says she would get a lot more if he cheats, like the one between Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas.
Ellen Barkin married a man who had been divorced four times before! And yes, they are divorced now too. I heard that Catherine Zeta-Jones had a pre-nup that said she got 10% of Michael Douglas’s wealth transferred to her on the day they married and that this resolved all property issues that might come up in the event of a divorce. Sounds good to me.
Flay was worth significantly less when they married. $5000 in 2005 not the same as $5000 in 2015 + I think it’s fine she’s getting more money.
He’s a creep.
“March, understandably, is not happy with this prenup and is currently fighting with her ex over his assets. And there is plenty to squabble over.
After all, Bobby Flay’s net worth has really skyrocketed over the past few years. Back in 2008, he was reportedly worth just $1.5 million. But by 2012, that number had grown to $9 million. And more recent estimates have Bobby Flay’s net worth at around $16 million.”
“http://www.hollywoodtake.com/bobby-flay-net-worth-split-stephanie-march-separation-burger-empire-money-food-network-78526
I’m never going to pass judgment on a prenup being thrown out because you never know what happened behind the scenes. I’m sure he broke plenty of promises too.
Agree with this. Nobody really knows.
While I think Bobby is an epic asshole, I’m not cool with prenups being overturned usually unless there was some hinky stuff going on when it was signed and/or his income increased by like x100000. There was no infidelity clause and he had a history of a wandering dong (it’s not like he was known for having one affair, it was more like rumors of multiple affairs and he was proven to be a major womanizer of the cooking world). She knew all of this going in, and she wasn’t some 19 year old kid with a strip mall lawyer when the pre-nup was signed.
I have a lot of sympathy because he was a shitty husband, but not for all the mudslinging (and both were crazy immature with the mudslinging) and the attempt to raise the prenup.
This!!!! She’s no hero, if she had a problem with the prenup she should have brought it up before she married him. I’m glad there weren’t kids involved.
yes, but don’t you think she made such an issue of the prenup purely to retaliate?
i never thought it was for the money, though i’m sure she’s happy with more.
she simply wanted to D.R.A.G. his a** through as many mud piles she could find to humiliate him.
and that she did, didn’t she?
Kaiser – who is the 20something jump off?
is it his assistant – Bteam tyrell?
But it did not get overturned, they settled before they went to court.
I think Flay listened to his PR team and knew that should not be dragged through the society pages.
I do think she not only had to give up the city apartment but the Hampton home as well. She was responsible for all the finished product. I think that was just one last screw you Flay wanted to give her.
You do realize the prenup wasn’t overturned. They agreed to a different settlement. For all anyone knows about the prenup maybe it didn’t have a confidentiality clause, and she would be free to write a tell all book. Maybe he didn’t want that to happen, because it wasn’t pretty maybe even more than the affairs. Maybe the prenup wasn’t written clearly and legally would not hold up at all.
Good point. The pre-nup was never overturned in court because it never got to court.
You could call me bad, but I really want a spectacle of a divorce drama in hollywood for years. That would bring a great reviews. Anyway, Stephanie for what she wants and this is finalized, and I hope she will get herself some acting roles and take care of herself before she finds herself another man.
If someone made an epic documentary with real dirt on a bunch of dramatic Hollywood divorces, no lie I’d watch it.
I thought it was absurd she tried to take credit for his success. She claimed she tasted food and made menu suggestions. She was his third wife and he was only in his 30s – she seemed pathetic to me in all this.
I still think he was having an affair with Giada and no one believes me. SMH
Eh I think they are too similar to have a serious relationship . Fool around with no strings sure but Giada isn’t going to be the little woman waiting for him at home and narcissistic men need to be the center of attention.
Yep. I can see them hooking up occasionally, but that’s it. Both of them probably want to play around now that they are each divorced.
I think Bobby and Giada had/have something going on. It’s just a little too convenient they both separate/divorce within months of each other.
As for Stephanie, I think she negotiated poorly when the prenup was signed. I am willing to bet the settlement included buying her a new apartment (with price stipulated) and her support increased to $25,000/month.
Yes Jane!! They are so complimentary of each other on the Next Food Network Star. I swear there is something there, past or present.
I honestly don’t understand why he has to pay her alimony when there aren’t children involved. The idea behind alimony is that women take career hits and enable their partner’s career when they have kids, so you compensate them for those losses–whoever makes more money compensates the other. But a wife with no kids?? I just don’t get it.
Spousal support has nothing to do with children. It is to allow the former spouse to live in the same style she/he became accustomed to during the marriage. Like if Ellen and Portia divorce, Ellen would have to pay Portia spousal support because Portia would not be able to continue the same lifestyle she has enjoyed with Ellen during their marriage without it.
This was how it was described to me by my attorney husband (no, he’s not a divorce lawyer).
Sometimes women take career hits to enable their partner’s career even when they (gasp!) don’t have kids. I know, because I did.
I used to be a practicing music therapist and my husband is a wind band conductor. He got a job in a state that does not recognize my profession, but he needed to get the collegiate experience (very hard to get your foot in the door). In a state that doesn’t recognize my license, anyone with an iHome and hours of playlists can go around calling themselves a “music therapist” and arrange things like child playgroups where everyone sits around listening to music. There’s no protection for licensed therapists to practice, and it’s very hard to get clients to agree to pay the AMTA going rate of 60$/hr with budget “therapists” claiming to do the same thing (they don’t) for a tenth of that cost. Also, private insurance and medicare/medicaid will not reimburse–it all has to be out of pocket. That kind of cost stacks up fast at $60/hr, even if you break it down into half hour sessions. I don’t blame people in our new city for not wanting to pay those costs, especially when they can get a budget “music therapist” to talk to about how music makes them happy for $10/hr.
So what, exactly, am I supposed to do? We don’t have enough money or time for me to go back to school and retool for another degree, and he’s planning on moving to the next rung up the ladder in a year or two. When I started my music therapy degree I was single, didn’t think I would ever get married, and I had no idea I was going to be a band director’s wife and get dragged from pillar to post to states that didn’t recognize my profession as a thing. If we got divorced, you can bet I would expect alimony after throwing away my career so that he could follow his dreams. I supported him in his career decisions and all assets earned during that time is OUR money, not solely HIS. I would use this alimony to go get qualifications in another field so I could support myself. I have absolutely no problem with women who take career hits insuring their spouse’s success to get recompensated for this if divorce time comes.
Word! I’m married to a man in the army, trying telling me I didn’t take a hit to my career to support his. PLEASE.
Not even remotely accurate – alimony has nothing to with child support.
Smart move on his part.
Seems like the banner was the tipping point, because I don’t think I heard much about them after that, until this news.
Agreed. Banner was brilliant move because she has nothing to lose and is willing to humiliate herself. Not sure how much more money she got. She still seems bitter to me with yesterday’s article how she is being thrown out of their home. It was a negotiated agreement, lady. Move on.
Years ago Stephanie appeared on one of Bobby’s cooking shows and talked about how he didn’t do it for her when they 1st met. Then she tasted his cooking and fell for him.
They came across as an odd couple in that show. I got a weird vibe from it and have always wondered how much they were really into one another after watching that episode.
i saw that episode, too, and a few others that she was in and one with her mom.
their interaction made me uncomfortable.
i remember thinking that he must have been attracted to how uppity she was.
she seemed to patronize him and he reacted with adoration.
at least that was my impression.
sad when any marriage ends.
but given the rumors of his philandering…whatever he had to pay up is well deserved.
I saw that one too and did not like his patronizing “isn’t she cute trying to cook” shtick because she made her family’s traditional pot roast. He came across as arrogant and supercilious and I remember thinking what an odd pairing and that the marriage likely wouldn’t last. And I’m happy she got more money – he took marriage vows then proceeded to break them with many women. For that he must pay.
I must have seen that one, too, and yes, they just seemed disconnected from each other. I wonder why they even got married.
You are right – they never really seemed like they belonged together.
His jump off is Tirrell his PA or something. She’s been at the Hamptons every weekend sending photos to her pals. I remember when he talked about getting engaged to Steph. She was going to Texas for the holidays and I got the impression there was another guy there. He said he knew he better lock her down and he proposed? I thought it was cute at the time? They married in Feb. I think? They’ve always been an odd match, seemed so different. He was a cheater and she knew it! She probably thought she could change him, just as his jump off does! Lol!
Flay got what he deserved. My heart goes out to Stephanie, though i don’t see her as a victim. I accidentally married a terrible man and if he was wealthy I think i should have gotten a big payout. Its too bad she signed the prenup but he is so awful he deserves to pay. I mean what type of person would kick their soon to be ex and ailing mother in law out when they have tons of houses and boatloads of money already?
That ‘cheater’ sky writing stunt was so deliciously juvenile. Loved it!!
Wasn’t it, though? The worst part of my nature offered up a shameless, brazen high-five.
(I don’t even remember the last time I enjoyed such a tacky, literal & extremely timely interpretation of pointing out ‘what’s writ across the sky’ in large letters!)
Probably not exactly the opening amuse-bouche of his divorce dreams.
Who is he?
If the prenup was thrown out it might be because he failed or infringed aspects of it. Or she has dirt on him. Since I have no clue who he is or what’s his profession, it could be she could dirty his image.
He’s a celebrity chef. He has a show on Food Network and he owns some restaurants. Also, he’s done other shows besides his own.
This was his third marriage. What did she think would happen? Never be wife #3, imo.
Anyhoo, in the original pre-nup, she gets $1million from the house, $50k moving expenses on top of the $5k/mo.
So, if she gets more than that, so be it.
But I still hold to my opinion that she knew what she was getting into and she knew what she was signing. But she made it an ugly divorce.
Hope the next husband knows that pre-nups in their marriage won’t mean a thing to her, especially if he’s rich.
First that is a pretty strict pre-nup based on his wealth and there length of marriage if that is true, but I am guessing there wasn’t a confidentiality clause. The cheating banner and all the publicity just seems to scream that. She could write the tell all book, and he probably thought thats not so bad, and then thought better of it. That why we got the divorce show to begin with. In essence he is just paying her what she might have made off a book we never get to read. Too bad as someone said a book on the inside scoop on these celebrity divorces would be interesting. Wish someone could write it even without names would be a fun read.
Good for her. I’m sure it’s still a drop in the bucket for him…
Flay is nasty, virtually forever horny–and the entire Culinary and Gossip/Entertainment industry has had his number for years.
No one would bat an eyelash at his 20-something jump off either but the age difference is once again, uncomfortable. For him to try and pass himself off as anything other than what he really is is comical. ( See Giada D. for this reference of good little Italian Catholic Girl gone bad. Please, Giada, beautiful/semi-talented or not-take a seat. )
The young jump-off makes him appear even more pervy and skeevy if such a thing is possible.
Just a few comments to take the focus off his stupidity. I’m not a fangirl, but she is no bobble head.
She’s been working since she was 23. She made her Broadway debut in the amazing 1999 Death of a Salesman at 25. I was lucky enough to see it. She wasn’t working with lightweights – Brian Dennehy, Elizabeth Franz, Kevin Anderson (Biff).
She appeared in 96 episodes of Law and Order. Some fans known as shippers were eager for an Alexander Cabot/Olivia Benson romance.
In terms of philanthropy she’s been involved with rape, domestic violence and the World of Children Awards. She wrote a good article for Huffington Post about being with the group in Nepal.
The final group recognizes changemakers integrally involved with some pretty neat programs for children. They also provids financial assistance for the development.
The winners are impressive – 2 high school freshmen who developed a film Just Yell Fire about techniques to use if you’re being attacked. Girls should yell Fire as people will respond to that rather than rape. Free the Children was founded in 1995 by a haman rights activist when he was 12. They have great programs and just finished building their 650 school.
She’s been working with some of these charities since 2007.
I wrote this because I am so irritated that even though he’s sleazy – but he’s also a BRILLIANT CHEF! She’s just a stick figure.
People are more complex than that. She married a sleazy asshat. She went on and lived her life. She had her professional life and her charitable work. The latter has made a difference. Haven’t any of you been so involved with family, work & school that you couldn’t let self-involved adult babies slow down. Life doesn’t wait. Than there is the final straw & you’re done. He’s a dog. Sucks to be him.