May 22, 2010

Should Elin settle for $750 million from Tiger...

... if it includes "a lifetime 'confidentiality clause' that would prevent her from writing a book or doing any interviews about the split"?

Should Elin take the money and shut up?
Yes. That's so much money!
Yes. We'll all be better off if that nasty material never sees the light of day.
Yes. Elin, you will be better off looking for the future and not dwelling on the past.
No. Tiger must pay for what he did and shouldn't get anything back in exchange.
No. You need to explore and air this all out for your own good.
No. I want to read all about it! Come on! Dish it out!
  
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: LOL.

79 comments:

Jason (the commenter) said...

It's her dirty laundry too.

Fred4Pres said...

It sometimes helps to remember there are kids involved here. If this is not going to work for them, better to move on with their lives for the sake of the children.

Roman said...

Need another choice in the poll...Who cares?

Ann Althouse said...

If you don't care, why would you take the poll?

JAL said...

What would be the point of books and interviews?

How many of us care to hear the local real estate mogul's wife chatter on about her hubby's infidelity?

Why play to the prurient?

Fred4Pres gets it right.

dwbosch said...

Other options: "NO. The dirt's already out there. Unless he can figure out a way to pay off every tabloid rag on the planet." or "No. He should let her write it, and demand 50% of the profits." or "No. If she's that crass that she'd do that to her kids..." Anyway, I guess you can guess my answer.

JAL said...

I might go for a little more money though ;-) I mean -- look at the national debt?

The left says a billion here or there is no big deal.

Shame and humiliation are pricey purchases.

Unknown said...

What about "Alimony is a form of slavery and needs to be abolished"?

Can we get that as a choice?

Jason (the commenter) said...

Althouse: If you don't care, why would you take the poll?

Don't you want this poll to be scientifically valid?

Michael said...

Yeah, I want a choice that says, Yes, because little girls need a role model who demonstrates that selling what you got for one night is much less lucrative than selling it for life.

Meade said...

Jason (the commenter) said...
It's her dirty laundry too.

Exactly. She should maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants to do with it. After all, Tiger hasn't given up any of his freedom. Why should she?

Meade said...

Michael said...
Yeah, I want a choice that says, Yes, because little girls need a role model who demonstrates that selling what you got for one night is much less lucrative than selling it for life.

...and a role model who demonstrates the integrity of taking hush money - especially if it's A LOT of hush money.

Unknown said...

'Settle for' ?

how much is Tiger worth ? shouldnt she just get 1/2 of that ? what does the pre-nup say ?

i dont think he's worth 1.5B so I don't think she should get 750M.

if I were her, i wouldn't sign a confidentiality agreement either.

Mike said...

This just isn't right. $750 million and the kids? The law is making Tiger a victim of his own success. He cheated on his wife but did not abandon or abuse her. Why would any young man get married knowing this could be his fate for infidelity? One logical conclusion is that marriage rates will begin declining among the successful -- perhaps to the point that only the unsuccessful will marry.

PS: Couldn't one conclude that the current divorce laws incentivize wives of rich men to withhold sex, with the aim of pushing their husbands into infidelity so they could cash out of the marriage?

RuyDiaz said...

"How much is Tiger Woods worth..."

Somewhere under one billion. She wants more than three quarters of his wealth.

Why are the negotiations so one-sided so far? Don't they have a pre-nuptial agreement? Is the information she has that damaging? Something else entirely I haven't though of?

Jason (the commenter) said...

Meade: She should maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants to do with it.

Freedom to drag yourself through the mud. Wish someone would offer me $750 million to do give that up.

exhelodrvr1 said...

What does she have to gain, other than publicity, from putting this information out there? And what about the kids?

Unknown said...

i really doubt she'll be dragging him through the mud. i think she's likely to protect the kids.

i'd be pretty pissed though, to have Tiger's entourage who facilitated the affairs now trying to treat his wife like just some chick he would like to control w/ his money. eff that ! he wants leverage and he shouldnt have it.

RuyDiaz said...

"What does she have to gain, other than publicity, from putting this information out there?"

Vengeance.

Anonymous said...

If she refuses to accept such a settlement, then I think a very good case could be made to have Florida Department of Social Services take her children away from her so that they can negotiate that settlement for the benefit of the children.

She has an obligation as a parent to the children that is separate from her own personal desires.

It would be irresponsible for her not to accept such a settlement.

She can always give the children all the money later on when they become adults and then breach her agreement with Tiger Woods at that time (once the kids safely own all the cash).

Cedarford said...

750 million is too much. Much of Woods wealth was built long before he hooked up with a modest-intelligence/accomplishment Swedish model.
Who had little to do with his success and money-earning AFTER their marriage.
I'd offer her 1/10th that at best - and that would be with a confidentialty agreement and a court order not to trash the children's father to the children.

There is little more she can do to hurt his public reputation.

She still wants to end the marriage and trash him - she gets less AND perhaps lots of dirt showing up about her days as a high-end groupie to Euro golfers and celebrity Eurotrash.

Jim O said...

Ann:
It's perfectly appropriate for Roman to say "who cares?" I think contributes to the debate about what society is and should be to note that a particular topic is utterly unintersting.
I mean, the financial details of the divorce of a man who's earned a lot of money because he's better than most people at hitting a ball into a hole and woman who's only accomplishment of note is marrying that man.
Excuse me, but I hereby proclaim, loudly and proudly, that I don't give a rat's ass, and I question why anybody who is not in the caption of the lawsuit should.

Bruce Wayne said...

Needs another option:
I dont care!

no, I didnt 'take' the poll.

I really dont care about those people. It everyone would ignore them, they would effectively disappear.

Have you noticed how nice it is since they stopped talking about Paris Hilton every day?

bagoh20 said...

My god, the good you could accomplish with that money is nearly infinite. The last thing on my mind would be some philandering golfer who betrayed me.

Imagine the organizations you could build or fund with that and the good works that would do. You could literally save thousand of lives.

I would do nearly anything for that kind of money. Hell, I'd even stay married to the dick and make his trollops breakfast or at least pay someone to for that power.

flenser said...

Perhaps she should settle for Tiger not having her thrown in jail for assault with a deadly weapon.

I'm not sure which of these people is the bigger dirtbag. Is there any way they can both lose?

The Crack Emcee said...

I agree, there should be more choices, and an obvious one is:

No, this is one of those No-Fault deceptions: he publicly said what he wanted, and all the tramps are talking, so why should the only person truly betrayed here (other than the kids) also be the only one with restrictions placed on her speech - restrictions that leave her open to to his and others comments without any recourse of her own? She's going to get paid, no matter what (she's got the facts and the world on her side) so don't go along with anything.

Unknown said...

i wonder if his neck injury had anything to do with taking time to work on this issue.

certainly the tournaments he played successfully changed the subject from his personal life back to golf.

i find it pretty shocking that she didnt expect this from Tiger. I thought it was well known that nearly all male professional athletes cheat like crazy. Usually the wives deal with it. Many eventually divorce like Michael Jordan's wive, Shaq's wife ..... and many many others.

Unknown said...

all the tramps are not talking.

there are certainly WAY more than the 20 tramps we know about. and the one w/ the most info ... Rachel? ... has definitely been paid off.

Jim O said...

I care so little that I didn't bother to proofread my post.

Mark O said...

I wonder if the book would detail his use of performance enhancing drugs and so the price of her silence would be so high.

What are Florida domestic laws? Even if this is a property settlement without any alimony to be awarded, there will still be a huge child support obligation. It seems like a great deal of money even for someone who has vast wealth. If he had no prenup, he really is poorly represented.

bagoh20 said...

Even if I was broke, I'd get a prenup and it would specifically protect me from trollop leakage. He's couldn't be that stupid to not have that protection, could he? And are performance enhancing drugs really needed for golf? The ball is really small and you play in slacks.

bagoh20 said...

Even if I was broke, I'd get a prenup and it would specifically protect me from trollop leakage. He couldn't be that stupid to not have that protection, could he? And are performance enhancing drugs really needed for golf? The ball is really small and you play in slacks.

Mark O said...

I did modest checking on the Internet and found that the amound generally mentioned is $75 million. I wonder if this story is driven by a stray zero (in every sense).

bagoh20 said...

Being a tramp here is pretty lucrative, but not as good as being a betrayed wife, which in this case has got to be the best gig evah.

Sara (Pal2Pal) said...

She should take the money and shut up and be glad that his guilt prevents him from having her charged with assault and battery.

In a perfect world, she shouldn't get a dime. Let Tiger put the $750 million in a trust for the kids that is administered by a third party, such as a bank.

RuyDiaz said...

"And are performance enhancing drugs really needed for golf?"

They help. You get to develop all those small muscles you need in golf, and being in great shape can be everything when you need to drive the ball on the back-nine on a Sunday afternoon.

Stan said...

The poll should have a YES answer whose reason is that it is in the best interests of her children.

ricpic said...

Why should any woman, especially a young healthy woman, get more than an amount that would allow her and her kids to live decently economically, say 100 K per annum?

toadold said...

Well she could sign the agreement but not end up with the full amount of the money. I would suggest a two parter. A big wad up front and then the long term payout. Tiger may end up with a permanent case of physical damage, the yips, or another woman.
Lawyers, doctors, and sport shrinks can really go through the money.

Kirby Olson said...

Ricpic, is she still healthy? I'll bet she has at least one disease from Tiger.

save_the_rustbelt said...

The mistresses have the most interesting stories anyway, Elin was apparently clueless when the really good stuff was happening.

Let's have the mistresses write the books!

save_the_rustbelt said...

Tiger made commitments and he broke them, not just a little but with wild enthusiasm.

(probably his worst sin here is talking a huge risk of exposing his children in utero to God only knows what social diseases - being lucky does not take him off the hook)

Lots of hostility towards Elin here, who apparently kept her part of the marriage bargain.

bagoh20 said...

"Elin was apparently clueless when the really good stuff was happening."

Then either she is a dolt or he is simply an amazing liar. If true, he should do an infomercial selling a "Cheat like a Pro" program on 3 CDs with a free workbook and toll-free help line - 19.95 + Shipping and handling.

Unknown said...

The fact she wanted to take a nine iron to him says that, at some point, however much money to which she had access wasn't enough to compensate for the humiliation - not to mention the risk of disease.

I think I read someplace that the kids have already had a few run ins in the schoolyard, so I have a feeling she isn't going to do any tell alls for a while. On this, I must agree with danielle and say the no squeal clause was probably superfluous.

Fin and Feathers said...

Why bag on Elin? She's done nothing except be a good wife and mother. This divorce is 100% Tiger's fault, so she needs to take him for all she can, and have the option to sell a book.

Ralph L said...

She's done nothing except be a good wife and mother

1. We don't know this. Perhaps she had a perpetual headache.
2. If she was, she has very little to put in a book.

If she'd done his laundry herself, she would have found out sooner.

Meade said...

I have a lot to atone for, but there is one issue I really want to discuss. Some people have speculated that Elin somehow hurt or attacked me on Thanksgiving night. It angers me that people would fabricate a story like that. Elin never hit me that night or any other night. There has never been an episode of domestic violence in our marriage, ever. Elin has shown enormous grace and poise throughout this ordeal. Elin deserves praise, not blame.

The Crack Emcee said...

Bagoh20,

Dude, I wasn't going to say anything to you but you keep on with this cavalier attitude: the woman had him inside of her - and then produced the kids - she deserves better than you're claiming.

Sara (Pal2Pal),

She should take the money and shut up and be glad that his guilt prevents him from having her charged with assault and battery.

In a perfect world, she shouldn't get a dime."


Bullshit. In a perfect world she'd get everything. He brought it all on himself. All of it.

ricpic,

Why should any woman, especially a young healthy woman, get more than an amount that would allow her and her kids to live decently economically, say 100 K per annum?"

Because he didn't carry, and then push those watermelons through his vagina - an act that could've killed her.

All three of you seem intent on scaling down what's occurred here for the sake of mere money. That says more about you and your outlook (shallow) and your ability to grasp the situation at hand, than the reality of what's happening. Personally, I get ashamed to read such limited outlooks - are you really Americans? If so, you're the worst of us. Part of the problem.

Believe it or not, marriage means something.

AllenS said...

The only story from Elin that I'm interested in, would be the one where she takes a golf club to his head. If I were her I'd take him for every penny I could get, and then I'd stick him with the kids, too.

Unknown said...

Heck, $750 million ain't that much. Consider the coming hyper inflation. Get at least twice that much and half of Tiger's royalties if he ever profited from writing a book himself.

GMay said...

750 mil can't be right. 75 mil I can easily believe.

I don't care how many kids he had and how many women he slept with, 750 million is a cosmic number. Short of a felony conviction, no man deserves to have over half his net worth taken from him.

AllenS said...

The AllenS Poll:

How often, when you take an Althouse Poll, do you choose the last option on the list?

1. Never
2. Seldom
3. Often
4. Almost all the time

Anonymous said...

$750 million is extremely doubtful. It's a lawyer number. And the final settlement won't be made public - which will probably involve roughly $250 million.

Also, "silence" is a two-way street, and at this point Elin has more to be worried about than Tiger. Currently she's perceived as the good wife, and it wouldn't take much to tarnish that image.

There's a wild card, however, in that we don't know what motivates Elin; security, fame, and/or vengeance. Thus far she's seems a pretty cool customer, not given to extremes. But a woman betrayed often becomes the tiger.

DaLawGiver said...

Meade says,

...and a role model who demonstrates the integrity of taking hush money - especially if it's A LOT of hush money.

It's not hush money. The article says, "Nordegren has so far said no to signing a lifetime "confidentiality clause" that would prevent her from writing a book or doing any interviews about the split."

It doesn't say she couldn't tell tell her kids or family about her perceptions of what happened. It's not an integrity issue.

The Crack Emcee said...

GMay,

"I don't care how many kids he had and how many women he slept with, 750 million is a cosmic number."

How many people are aware of her humiliation? That's a "cosmic number", too.

Almost Ali,

"'Silence" is a two-way street, and at this point Elin has more to be worried about than Tiger. Currently she's perceived as the good wife, and it wouldn't take much to tarnish that image."

Yea - her word against a known liar's - I'd take those odds.

William said...

The marriage is broken, and no one disputes that the fault lies with Tiger. That said, how much compensation is she entitled to for her pain and suffering? Paraplegics have been awarded less. It seems to me that her greed is on a par with Tiger's lust....The French have a saying that to know all is to forgive all. When it comes to celebrities, to know all is to despise all. Their excellence is usually confined to one small sector of human endeavour, and the rest of their lives are small and banal.

Anonymous said...

The Crack Emcee said...
Yea - her word against a known liar's - I'd take those odds.

What could Elin reveal about Tiger that we don't already know? At this point even farm animals would be academic. More, I seriously doubt she wants to memorialize Tiger's sexual escapades for the "benefit" of their kids.

Based on what we've seen and heard of her, it appears Elin will take a substantial settlement and then go quietly into the night. Mutually silent.

I'll take the bet.

David said...

I doubt he has $750 million, and his future earnings are not going to be anything like the past 10 years.

Ed said...

I'd add two more options to the poll. First, as Roman said "who cares?". Second, "It's nobody's business but Tiger and Elin".

Seriously. Why was this ever news at all? Was Tiger the first celebrity ever to get caught in an affair?

The wall-to-wall coverage of Tiger just happened to start on the day after the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file showed up, demolishing the credibility of the AGW science on the eve of the Copenhagen summit. All of a sudden all the networks were focused on Tiger. I'm sure that's merely a coincidence.

The Crack Emcee said...

Ed,

"Seriously. Why was this ever news at all? Was Tiger the first celebrity ever to get caught in an affair?"

Dumbshit crashed his car. Sorry but the topic of unintended consequences should've been one he visited before he did adulterous. Don't try to make it our fault, now, because (I love this) we were concerned about the scumbag - it's nobodies fault but his.

Considering the folks who are so concerned about him, they all must love the phrase "the ends justifies the means" as well, because their reasoning fits in right along with that bullshit. Let him screw up - BIG TIME - and all you can do is try toi protect poor Tiger and trash the only person in the entire story (even counting the 120 women we know about) who didn't do anything wrong. And we wonder why the world looks like such a cesspool:

Too many shit-for-brains.

campy said...

She can get Tiger to pay her extra for a "No Tell-All" promise, then write a "novel" with characters whose resemblance is purely coincidental.

VW: alikedi A woman who resembles the late Princess of Wales.

GMay said...

"How many people are aware of her humiliation? That's a "cosmic number", too."

I get that she's been humiliated. Lots of people have been humiliated.

I'm not sure where to draw the line, but I'm damn sure that 750 million is way past it. Anything over half his assets is past it. He deserves to lose half, but nothing more.

Considering I see very few (if any) posters here showing much concern for him and trashing her, I'd say you need to take a deep breath.

Trooper York said...

It's like the old joke. He is just paying her to go away.

Cheap at any price if she is going to wake him up by hitting him in the nogin with a golf club.

Ken Pidcock said...

The key is to take into account what she can get without a confidentiality agreement, along with a realistically anticipated value, to her, of the story of her marriage. If that's less than what she can get with a confidentiality agreement, she should take it.

Kensington said...

What kind of book can she write, anyway?

"I had no idea my husband was cheating on me, and then one day I found out he was cheating on me. Boy was I mad, and then I left him.

The End."

Meade said...

Some people have made up things that never happened. They said I used performance-enhancing drugs. This is completely and utterly false.

Mr. Smarterthanyou said...

This is asinine. He made the money because he is an amazing golfer. She would not deserve $750M if her husband was a plumber, so why does she deserve it now?

Any woman who gets anything close to this much money in a divorce ought to publicly claim that she is a whore, and she should how how the $$value is divided over the number of "throws".

Synova said...

If the nondisclosure agreement includes him as well, then she ought to take it. She probably should anyway, but not because it's so much money, but because they have children.

I mean...

Ew...

Unknown said...

if in 30 years, when Elin's kids are grown, she decides she wants to write about Tiger's infidelity in her memoir, she should be free to do so. He has already taken so much from her -- he shouldn't be allowed to take her freedom to speak as well. Its clear that she loved him and had some expectation that he'd be faithful. I bet if she knew what was coming, she wouldnt have gotten involved, despite the money.

Freeman Hunt said...

If the nondisclosure agreement includes him as well, then she ought to take it. She probably should anyway, but not because it's so much money, but because they have children.

I was going to write the same thing. You don't need dad going into some kind of confessional mood down the road and the kids having to read about what a huge slut dad was while he was married to mom. Take it as long as he has to sign it too.

Synova said...

How much money is too much? You know, our president said that at some point people don't need more money.

And if 750K is more than she needs.

How much is more than he needs?

Does anyone think this would make him a pauper? If he has enough money, isn't that enough money?

Does this 750K encompass all future child support payments as well?

And really... if the kids were the kids of a plumber there is NO WAY they'd get enough child support to pay for a whole three bed apartment, expenses, food and clothes... so why do the kids of a rich guy think they ought to get to live in a mansion?

recluserecluse said...

I, like Roman, don't care; not about Elin or Tiger or their marital problems or their finances. But I would like to be able to use the poll to register my rejection of the public's and media's obsession with the faults, failings and transgressions of those whose talents (or, in other cases, whose talent for self-promotion) places them in the media spotlight. An option permitting me to do so would serve a purpose something like that of a "None of the Above" election option.

bagoh20 said...

"Believe it or not, marriage means something."

That's a tough argument in our, or most any, society. It's a promise, a contract. They get broken as often as not. I never made that promise because I take it too serious to make with anyone I ever met. The idea that we all take it serious is pretty much a fantasy. When the society in general has little respect for an institution, I don't hold people to much of a standard in it, even if I would expect it of myself.

Cheating is so common that any unbiased observer would think it's an integral part of the thing. There are exceptions, but self control is rare among those with easy access to alternatives. In other words, the institution stops few who need stopped. This is not new. It has been so throughout history and will continue as such. If you bet on a 50/50 proposition, don't get angry at others when it does not happen. It might, but it's not reasonable to expect it to the point of great anger at those who fail to live up to it.

One thing that makes a successful marriage so impressive is that it is so difficult to accomplish. A failure is no surprise. It's simply humans making promises. Many people cannot be trusted, especially to resist their nature. I'm not saying it's alright to cheat, just that it's crazy to get angry about someone else's broken promise.

Synova said...

The thing about the anger is... if you have been faithful, how is it possible to accept the excuse that faithfulness is just too difficult?

It's not difficult at all. It's easy.

It's easy not to tell lies. It's easy to follow simple rules. It's easy not to *accidentally* fuck someone.

I was having a discussion about basic training of all things, and how I never understood why so many of the other girls couldn't do trivially easy things... like not taking food into the barracks because it's Texas and the cockroaches are three inches long. This isn't *difficult*. There were lots of things that were difficult, that a person could try really hard at and fail anyway. But there was so very much that was trivial, that was easy, and a certain number of people seemed compelled to break those easy rules.

And it's for the same damn reason that people cheat.

They think the rule is stupid.

And if you think that the rule is stupid it's pretty lame to pretend that well, you would have followed that rule but it was *hard* and you should be excused because no one should be expected to keep their promises.

We expect people to keep a whole lot of promises at work and to be trustworthy, but we don't expect them to be trustworthy with their family?

Yes, being a judgmental bitch makes life difficult sometimes, but I don't see any favorable way to view a person who doesn't have the balls to get a divorce before they go looking. If you're not going to keep your vows and promises, at least be honest about that.

Synova said...

Take, for an example, teenaged girls.

Biology is such that it's simply a fact that a 15 year old or so is utterly prime, as far as sexual desirability goes.

Adult men are not compelled to develop relationships with 15 or 17 year old girls simply because they are attractive. No one would make an excuse about how it's so damn hard not to have sex with teenagers that we ought to excuse anyone who does.

Why? Because people agree that the rule about no sex with teenagers is a good rule. Because it's a good rule, it's not too difficult to follow.

It's no more difficult to follow any other rule about who you have sex with, it's only all about which rules people think are good ones and which rules are stupid.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

I'm not justifying Tiger's behavior, just saying that it is quite common and it's just not smart to expect otherwise, regardless of what is right, hard or easy. It's pretty hard to argue infidelity is totally unexpected. Like leaving your keys in your car in a bad part of town. Sure, nobody should steal it, but it's kind of silly to get all mad about it when they do. It's easy to resist stealing, it's still not wise to trust that people will not steal, especially in a bad neighborhood. When it comes to marriage, fame and wealth are bad neighborhoods, even if some good people do live there.

Synova said...

Okay. I'll agree with that, as far as it goes.