Robert L. Johnson and Sheila Johnson divorced after 33 years of marriage. The settlement was reportedly about $400M. Full timeline and prenup facts inside.
Figures are reported estimates. Last updated Oct 2026.
The BET founder's split was one of the largest among African-American couples.
Robert L. Johnson and Sheila Crump Johnson met at the University of Illinois, where Sheila, a classically trained violinist, was a student, and they married in 1969. Bob, one of ten children raised in Freeport, Illinois, and Sheila would become one of the most prominent business couples in Black America. They had two children, Paige and Brett. Sheila gave up a teaching career to work full time at the company they founded together, and the partnership that built Black Entertainment Television also shaped the way their eventual divorce was understood: as the unwinding of a joint enterprise as much as a marriage.
The couple's wealth came from Black Entertainment Television, which launched in 1980 as a small cable network after Bob Johnson secured a loan and backing from cable executive John Malone. Sheila led community relations and worked on the network's public initiatives. BET grew into the leading cable channel aimed at Black audiences, and in 1991 it became the first Black-owned company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The Johnsons sold BET to Viacom in a deal valued at roughly $3 billion in stock and assumed debt, a transaction that made Bob widely known as the first Black American billionaire.
The Johnsons married in 1969 and spent more than three decades together, building BET from its launch in 1980 to its sale to Viacom around 2000 to 2001. The marriage ended in 2002 after 33 years, according to BlackPast, although some listings date the divorce to 2001. Sheila remarried on 24 September 2005, to Judge William T. Newman Jr., and the year of her remarriage was also the year she began a second career as a hospitality owner and sports investor.
Published estimates put Sheila Johnson's divorce settlement at about $400 million, a figure repeated in lists of the most expensive divorces and attributed to press reporting rather than to a disclosed court order. The full terms have not been published. What is clear is the timing: the divorce followed closely on the sale of BET, which had turned a privately controlled media company into cash and Viacom stock, making the marital estate far easier to value and divide than a business still operating.
The settlement reflected the fact that BET was a joint creation. Sheila had worked at the network from its early years, and the fortune it produced accumulated entirely within a marriage that lasted more than three decades. In most US jurisdictions wealth created during a marriage is subject to division, and a business sale that converted equity into cash and stock shortly before the divorce left little room to argue that Bob's fortune was separate from the marital estate.
Both Johnsons built new ventures after the sale. Bob founded RLJ Companies, and in 2004 he became the first Black majority owner of a major American professional sports franchise when his group was awarded the Charlotte Bobcats; he sold control of the team to Michael Jordan in 2010. Sheila founded Salamander Hospitality, which owns and manages resorts, and became majority owner of the WNBA's Washington Mystics in 2005. She also holds minority stakes in the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals, which made her the first Black woman with ownership interests in three professional sports teams.
At an estimated $400 million, the Johnson settlement sits in the same bracket as Craig McCaw's roughly $460 million settlement with Wendy McCaw in 1997, another case in which a spouse shared in the proceeds of a sale of a company built within the marriage. It is far below the billion-dollar settlements of Rupert Murdoch or Harold Hamm, but it is regularly cited as one of the largest divorce settlements involving a Black couple and as a landmark of its era.
Bob Johnson is widely credited as the first Black American billionaire, and Sheila Johnson holds the distinction of being the first Black woman with a stake in three professional sports franchises. Sheila's musical training, as a violinist and a music teacher, was her first career, and she left teaching to work at BET. Her second marriage, to Judge William Newman, took place the same year she acquired the Mystics and launched Salamander. The figure of $400 million is an estimate and should be treated as such.
Sheila Johnson's reported settlement was about $400 million.
They married in 1969 and divorced in 2002, a marriage of roughly 33 years.
No prenuptial agreement was reported.
Yes, the family is reported to include 2 children.
Reported assets include: BET stake proceeds, real estate, cash.
The settlement reflected the fact that BET was a joint creation. Sheila had worked at the network from its early years, and the fortune it produced accumulated entirely within a marriage that lasted more than three decades.