JB Lacroix/WireImageWho stands to walk away with the most money in the Katy Perry-Russell Brand divorce? I assume they had a prenup?
—Team Katy, via the inbox
You would assume wrong.
There was no prenup in this celebrity insta-marriage, at least, if you believe what Russell Brand has said. (Go ahead and ask me if I believe anything a celebrity says.)
As for who might get real poor real fast in the next few weeks...
Here's what I can tell you. According to our own crack news team and Forbes magazine, Katy Perry made roughly $45 million during the 14-month marriage.
"The vast majority of her money is coming from touring," the magazine's Dorothy Pomerantz told our news team. "She's also really smart, she makes a ton of money from her endorsements and she's even launched a perfume line [called Purr] and that's all a great source of money too, but most of her money comes from being on tour."
Brand, meanwhile, made much less.
"If you look in the last year," Pomerantz says, "his biggest film was Arthur, he's got books and other performances.
"I would give a generous estimate that he made between $6 million to $8 million the past year, which is a drop in the bucket."
So what does that all add up to in divorce dollars? The two married in a lavish ceremony in India, but they reportedly had a $6.5 million mansion here in Los Angeles.
Ergo, prominent divorce attorney Laura Zwicker of Greenberg Glusker tells me, "I imagine even if they got married in India, they have a California marriage license."
And that means that California laws probably apply to that marriage. And what does that mean? Means that Brand is entitled to half of what Perry made from work done while married: perhaps half of $45 million.
Perry wouldn't be alone if she were stripped of that much of her earnings. Mel Gibson reportedly lost half of his $850 million fortune in his recent divorce from longtime wife Robyn.
All that said, don't be shocked if Perry and Brand keep the details of their divorce a secret. After all, if there's one way to keep divorcees from yapping, it's to pay each other off—maybe to the tune of $22.5 million.
—Additional reporting by the Baker Machado