ALIMONY CALUMNY

How to Divorce a Billionaire (the Maria and Melinda Way)

We’ve read their books... So here’s the Cliff notes on how to be really rich and really single.

We asked the Daily Beast team to review two books with serious ambitions to be best-sellers... from women who are definitely not needing the money.

After walking away from marriages to famous men, Melinda French Gates and Maria Shriver both felt lost and uncentered. While each had spent decades traveling the globe—Gates as co-chair and founder of The Gates Foundation and Shriver as a prominent journalist—they realized that they’d “never been to me.”

In memoirs published just two weeks apart, both Gates and Shriver share their journeys toward healing and, as the chart shows, there’s a great deal of overlap. Fortunately, the two did the hard, inner work that enabled them to come out the other side of divorce a bit wiser… a bit kinder… and a whole lot richer.

But don’t think about their incredible privilege which only gets the faintest nod by both authors.

Instead, focus on the generosity of them sharing their feelings and wisdom with the world. Maybe you can’t afford a therapist who offers to “sleep with my phone by the bed” in case Gates has a panic attack.

But you can shell out $18 for the book to learn what Gates’s therapist said and jump start your own incredible journey toward inner peace. Compared to actual therapy–or space travel–it’s a bargain.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Hugh DoughertyExecutive Editor

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.