Michael Jordan and Juanita Vanoy divorced after 17 years, 4 months of marriage. The settlement was reportedly about $168M. See the full timeline.
Figures are reported estimates. Last updated Oct 2026.
Was the largest celebrity divorce settlement at the time of the split.
Michael Jordan and Juanita Vanoy met in Chicago in the mid-1980s, when Jordan was a young star with the Bulls and Vanoy was working in the city. They began dating soon afterwards and married on 2 September 1989 in a Las Vegas ceremony. Together they raised three children, Jeffrey, Marcus and Jasmine, and lived for years in a large home in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. Vanoy was known as a private and steady presence beside one of the most famous athletes in the world, and she stayed out of the spotlight even as her husband's fame grew to a global scale.
Jordan's wealth was built on six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls, five Most Valuable Player awards and, above all, endorsements. His long partnership with Nike produced the Air Jordan line, which turned into a business worth billions of dollars over time, and he added lucrative deals with Gatorade, McDonald's, Hanes and many others. He also earned money from the 1996 film Space Jam and, later, from his stake in the Charlotte basketball franchise. During the marriage his endorsement income regularly exceeded his basketball salary, and almost all of it was earned while the couple were together.
The couple married in 1989 and the marriage coincided with the Bulls' two great championship runs in the early and late 1990s. Jordan briefly retired in 1993 and tried professional baseball before returning, and after his final title in 1998 he stepped away again. Vanoy filed for divorce in January 2002, and the two reconciled briefly before the case resumed. The divorce was finalized on 29 December 2006, after a marriage of 17 years, bringing to an end one of the best-known partnerships in American sport.
The settlement was reported at about $168 million, which at the time was widely described as the largest celebrity divorce payout on record. The exact breakdown was not made public, but coverage at the time indicated that Vanoy kept the family home in Highland Park, a very large property that had been listed for sale on various occasions, along with a substantial cash settlement and, reportedly, additional property. The two agreed on custody arrangements for their youngest child, and the proceedings were notably low-key given the sums involved.
Illinois law divides marital property on an equitable basis, and the court looks at how long the marriage lasted and what each spouse contributed. Jordan's fortune was overwhelmingly created during the marriage, much of it through endorsements that peaked in the 1990s, so almost the whole estate counted as marital property. Vanoy's role as the mother of the couple's three children while Jordan traveled and played also carried weight. The amount reported is generally seen as an estimate of the property and cash she received rather than a figure in a published court order.
The divorce did little damage to Jordan's commercial empire. The Jordan Brand at Nike continued to expand, and in 2010 he became majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, later renamed the Hornets, before selling a controlling stake in 2023. His income from endorsements continued to grow in the years after the divorce, and Forbes later listed him as a billionaire. Vanoy's share meant that a significant portion of the wealth earned during the Bulls years was transferred to her, but it did not interrupt the growth of the brand that made it.
At a reported $168 million, the Jordan settlement is often placed in the top tier of sports divorces, alongside Tiger Woods's reported payout to Elin Nordegren and Greg Norman's to Laura Andrassy. Its scale in the mid-2000s made it a benchmark for athlete divorces and a favorite of lists of the costliest celebrity splits. In later years larger sums changed hands among business magnates, but few other cases combine an athlete's global brand with a clean, undisputed division of a fortune earned almost entirely within the marriage.
Jordan later married Yvette Prieto in 2013, and the couple had twin daughters. His first marriage was held in Las Vegas at the Little Chapel of the West, and the couple's son Marcus later played college basketball, while Jeffrey also played at university level. The reported $168 million divorce figure appeared in many press reports, though it remains an estimate. Jordan's name remains so powerful commercially that the Jordan Brand became a separate division within Nike, generating billions of dollars each year.
Juanita Vanoy's reported settlement was about $168 million.
They married in 1989 and divorced in 2006, a marriage of roughly 17 years.
No prenuptial agreement was reported.
Yes, the family is reported to include 3 children.
Reported assets include: Highland Park estate, cash, investment portfolio.
Illinois law divides marital property on an equitable basis, and the court looks at how long the marriage lasted and what each spouse contributed. Jordan's fortune was overwhelmingly created during the marriage, much of it through endorsements that peaked in the 1990s, so almost the whole estate counted as marital property.