Larry King Divorce Day 2: Really? No Prenup?

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Yeah, you read that right. TMZ reported a jaw-dropping development this afternoon. Larry King, who’s worth a reported $144 million (according to TMZ), does not have a prenuptual agreement in his marriage to Shawn Southwick King. Which means that in the community property state of California, assets are split 50/50.

Gawker wonders: “Is it dementia or just plain old-fashioned stupidity?”

It does raise the question of what a man who’s been married eight times (albeit twice to the same woman, but if it’s good enough for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, it’s gotta be good enough for King) has learned from his romantic travails. King clearly believes in love — hell, I’d even call him a romantic.  Maybe it seemed like this one — number eight for him, number four for her — would go the distance

However, E! Online points out that “King married Southwick from a hospital bed in 1997 while he was recovering from surgery to clear a blocked blood vessel.”

Which could surely account for some light-headedness. But what were his lawyers doing while this was going on? It sure wasn’t advising him, at least at that point. Even if the magic moment passed, there’s such a thing as a post-nup. And if you know you have no prenup and you live in California, mightn’t that serve as some kind of deterrent not to misbehave — or at least provide millions of incentives to stay married?

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TMZ also reported some other gems today, including that Shawn Southwick King allegedly discovered that the expensive gifts that her husband said he stopped giving her sister were continuing; and that Mrs. King met with a second divorce lawyer.

You have to give them this, though. The Kings reportedly shared a nice moment at their son’s little league game, and you have to give them props for keeping it civil in public. There are apparently ways of handling a nasty situation without coating yourself in Ed Hardy and hitting the swag suite with your college-age girlfriend at Sundance or piling on reality TV gigs. Are you listening, Gosselins?

And in the “better late than never” category, CNN finally gets on board with a link on its home page to an in-house written story.

Below the fold.