

What can we learn from serial celebrity break-ups, billionaire bust-ups, misbehaving spouses, pants-on challenged politicos and the ever-shifting landscape of divorce law?? Question is, "What CAN'T we learn"? With latte in hand and clicky finger at the ready, dive in for the best in divorce news, views, gossip, and buzz – assembled below for your reading pleasure. Being in "d" know is just clicks away.

Actress Kate Hudson tells Harper's Bazaar that dating since her divorce from rocker Chris Robinson is "very different" since she has a three-year-old son. Dating as a single mom is, "like growing up. It's adult," she says.
Come on...! Doesn't Goldie Hawn's daughter have anything more insightful to say? Of course dating after divorce when you have a child, or two, or three, is challenging. For a high-profile actress, navigating the obstacles isn't necessarily harder, it's just different. Think of cameras trailing your every move and the fodder for supermarket tabloids. Who's Kate's guy of the week? Most divorced moms don't have to contend with that kind of attention.
As for another marriage, Hudson says she's checked it off her "list of to-dos." She does leave us with one key insight: "The idea of marriage, I realize now, no longer holds the answer to anything."
Click here for more.

First Wives World has a terrific column featured on About.com's Guide to Divorce Support. The Guide's coordinator, Cathy Meyer, graciously asked our own Debbie Nigro to write a guest column for a series she's running this week on "Moving On."
Well, guess what? No one has more experience with movin' on and movin' up than Debbie, who has successfully reinvented her personal and professional life, post-divorce, with incredible energy and verve. She's resilient, and so are you!
In fact, that's the message of her piece on About called "A Formula For Getting Back to Great." It's all about women being in control of their destiny and plodding ahead, putting one foot in front of the other to embrace the present and, of course, the future.
Cathy and her team of experts are providing valuable information and resources that can help get you through. In fact, About has everything from chat rooms where you can swap ideas and information, to advice columns on dating, legal and financial issues and tips on how to deal with your kids in a divorce. They've got everything!
So check it out...but stay tuned to FirstWivesWorld.com because we're on the cusp of some exciting plans that will help you navigate divorce no matter what stage you're in--in fact, we're going to get you through each phase not only with useful resources and support from other women, but you'll be there with a smile on your face because we've got some fun, new shows that will entertain and tickle you as you discover that your best self lies ahead...
Yes, stay tuned. We can't wait...! And, check out Debbie's column here.

You gotta love Fergie. No, not the “Dutchess” who performs as Fergie on a solo basis and in the band Black Eyed Peas, though she’s really great too, but Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York who was married to Britain’s Prince Andrew, the sea-faring chap.
In a new TV interview airing tonight in the U.K., Fergie blames the royal family for her split with Andrew. She says that Andrew shipped out with the Royal Navy just days after their wedding in 1986—and stayed there for five years. She assumed she’d go live with him at the naval port but that didn’t happen. Fergie says she lost the only source of support she had with Andrew being absent.
She tells the interviewer: "I fulfilled every girl's dream, getting married in a glass coach with six white horses. …But two weeks after we got married, they said, 'No you can go to Buckingham Palace and Andrew you go to sea for the next five years.'”
The couple, who have two daughters, split in 1992 and divorced four years later.
Fergie also said she suffered from being compared to Diana, Princess of Wales. “Instead of being myself I tried too hard to compare myself with Diana. "The more I tried, the worse it got.”
Sarah sure seems to have recovered her dignity and strength of character. She’s been a TV interviewer/host, aggressive fundraiser for various charities and causes, is a single mother to two young adult daughters, an author and a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers.
Go Fergie go!
Click here for more.

Britney and Kevin. Heather and Richie. Denise and Charlie. Brad and Jennifer. Nick and Jessica. David “The Hoff” Hasselhoff and Pamela Bach. Reese and Ryan. Ah, the list of celebrity breakups goes on and on and on…
Being married to a celebrity or person in the public eye is fraught with more landmines than most of us can imagine. Of course that’s even more the case when both spouses are celebs or high-profile individuals in the public eye.
In taking up the latest high-profile split in India, The Times of India used the recent announcement about the breakup of author Salman Rushdie and TV host/model Padma Lakshmi’s marriage to examine the fact that most of us “normal” folks simply have no clue as to the price celebs pay for their fame. The idea that in exchange for fame, glamour and money, these individuals often put their most important human connection at risk.
Our culture of hype, entertainment, celebrity-driven gossip, chatter and self-promotion feeds on the steady stream of high-profile breakups like harpies in heat.
When it comes to celebrities, Hansal Bhachech, a psychiatrist, quoted in the piece, quite rightly points out: "Celebrities are very 'self-centred' and are in love with themselves.” So the upshot is when a celebrity couple join forces, neither party wants to compromise their career for the other. They’re probably financially independent, so a divorce isn’t a horrific condition of life unless one partner is way more successful than the other, and then the battle begins.
Fundamentally, are these wealthy and powerful people really any different than the rest of us? Don't we all just want a healthy, human and intimate connection with another person?
read more »
First Wives World is pleased to invite you to check out Debbie Nigro's first Webcast.
Debbie did a live taping of her talkshow yesterday at the Heartland Brewery located on the ground floor of the Empire State Building in New York City. Loads of passersby pressed their faces to the glass to find out what all the excitement was about!
Debbie hosted a diverse group of guests: She mixed it up with a financial planner, a life coach, a self-made entrepreneur, the author of a health and beauty book and an astrologer. The lineup even included a special guest, Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling, formerly of "The Howard Stern Show," who appeared as Debbie's blind date!
Click here to watch the video and enjoy!

So remember the trio I mentioned the other day from ABC’s “Ex-Wives Club”?
Marla Maples (formerly Mrs. Donald Trump), Angie Everhart (formerly married to Sly Stallone) and Shar Jackson (K-Fed’s babies’ momma and Britney’s ex-)?
They appeared on "Larry King Live" last night to plug the new show and we learned a little bit more about them and the way they see the show.
Marla said she views the show as a chance to help people transform their lives and that she gets to share what she’s learned to help people. Asked about “The Donald”, Marla said: “It [the relationship] was difficult from the word go. It was always a tough relationship.”
That’s candid. She hadn't given up much on the first episode Sunday night. Further, Marla told Larry she’s not a quitter and that she’ll always love Trump. “I spent a third of my life with this man. We have a daughter together…I don’t believe in anger and regret. I believe in healing.” She was with Trump for 10 years but “the lifestyle was just too hard for me. I had to move on.”
Larry also interviewed Trump to get his comments on the new show and Marla’s involvement. Trump said, “She’s not allowed to be doing it,” according to the couple’s prenup. “She’s a nice person, we have a very beautiful daughter and I hope it’s [the show’s] okay.” He hadn’t seen it. But, “she’s absolutely not allowed to be doing it, because it’s in an agreement.”
Oy.
Marla appeared non-plussed by his on-camera comments: “How are you going to ever make Donald Trump happy? I spent many years trying to…”
The show, the trio said, isn’t about Trump, Stallone or K-Fed, it’s about moving forward. Amen.

For starters, it’s a six-episode series debuting on USA Network tonight, this much we know. The network is flogging “The Starter Wife” like crazy and Debra Messing, who plays Molly, appears ravishing and in a decidedly non-starter-like pose on the sides of buses in New York City, among other cities.
In today’s New York Times, Alessandra Stanley comes up with her own take: “The term ‘starter wife’ is offensive enough to make it sound like a little kit to grow a spouse. Like a starter house that needs work, or a starter hobby kit with the bare essentials, this has the ugly ring of planned obsolescence.”
Ouch.
For those of you familiar with the premise (the series is based on Gigi Levangie Grazer's best-selling book of the same name), Molly’s dumped via cell phone by her husband Kenny, a Hollywood studio bigwig, after 10 years of marriage. She’s kicked to the curb because Kenny’s taken up with a young pop star. What a horrendous cliché and yet there are so many stories out there like this one that are for real.
Molly is the perfect studio exec's wife: She takes care of everything for boy/man Kenny and all with perfect hair. She supports his career, cleans up after him and appears perfect in public for every function. True, the skinny bo-tox bitch hyper-competitive L.A. lifestyle is not how most people live, but in this series, we get a glimpse into this rarified world and what women do to survive in it. Frankly, it looks like it sucks. Big time.
But it's not all botox and bitchiness: "Starter" is a story of reinvention, recovery of self and empowerment. And that's certainly the First Wives World story. Molly's on a journey to find her true self and self-acceptance. We hear she'll also find love again too...Thank God.

Another multimillion dollar fortune bites the dust.
Okay, it's not gone, it's just going to be split with an ex-wife. In the U.K., where high-profile divorce proceedings appear slightly nastier than in the U.S., it seems that multimillionaire John Charman lost his appeal against a court order requesting that he pay a whopping 48 million pounds (or $95 million U.S. dollars) in a divorce settlement to his ex-wife.
Charman, 54, CEO of Axis Capital Holdings, had challenged the size of the award to his former wife Beverley, 53, made by the High Court last year. Beverley is being represented by Martin Pointer, same attorney who’s repping Heather Mills McCartney, the estranged wife of Sir Paul.
Charman’s ex- estimated him to be worth 160 million pounds. Charman had originally offered her a 20 million pound lump sum, but that wasn’t in the cards.
The pair met as teenagers and married when they were each 20. They separated in 2003.
For more on this story, click here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aU190UDqR.Qs&refer=u...

In an interview with an American journalist that’s set to
air next month, Geldof said custody
laws forced him to "jump through humiliating hoops" during his
divorce. He expressed the pain and anguish that many dads feel: "It
freaked me out. I could not live without my kids. I missed the sound of them
turning in their sleep…I just wanted to go to some dark, grey corner of the
world and howl into the void.”
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Bonham-Carter competed against 40 other actresses to land a part in the Burton-directed film “Sweeney Todd.” She concedes that blending her work and personal life has taken its toll.
Regarding the part, she said: "We had no talk of it at home, because until he'd seen every other actress, Tim wouldn't say anything. And then when I knew I had the part, I thought, ‘Oh my God we've got to work together', which is also stressful.”
<<<
He can’t get no satisfaction, eh? Well, Mick Jagger produced four kids with ex-wife Jerry Hall and continues to make loads of money touring at age 60 +. So why is he so stingy?
Model/actress Hall tells The Daily Mail of London that Mick was notoriously tight: "He always wanted me to pay for everything to do with the house and children, which I didn't mind doing, I guess, because I had the money…He's generous with presents, but yeah, he's pretty tight with the day-to-day stuff." Go figure, huh?
read more »So how many of you provide support to your ex-husbands in some way? Okay, I’m not talking about financial support though that is, of course, absolutely the case for many women.
Rather, I’m referring to emotional support. Yes, emotional support in the form of cheering them on publicly or privately. After the anger and hurt subsides, it’s the idea of wanting the best for the ex.
According to a report in the New York Post,
the soon-to-be ex-wife of New Jersey Nets star Jason Kidd said she’s not harboring bad karma toward her estranged husband and is rooting for him to win the NBA title this season.
Joumana Kidd said she and Jason are now friendly toward one another and feel badly about their nasty public divorce; there were allegations of infidelity and domestic violence.
The Nets are a game away from eliminating the Toronto Raptors and advancing to the Eastern Conference second round and Joumana told the newspaper she’s steadfastly behind Jason.
Joumana and Jason Kidd have three kids together, so it’s also in the family’s interest to show some solidarity. Taking a page from the Kidd saga and sports analogies, maybe supporting the home team—even if he’s not at home any longer—is a good move. All the support might come back in spades and even if it doesn’t, rising above is a good thing. It’s all about spreading positive karma.
You don't have to stand behind your ex-man all the time--but even if you can some of the time--it's a good thing.