This divorce battle is so contentious, hundreds of millions is considered a diss.
John Paulson offered his ex, Jenny Paulson, hundreds of millions in cash in their divorce — but Jenny previously called the offer to her “humiliating and demeaning,” Page Six has learned.
According to an email seen by Page Six, Jenny said of the dispute with her billionaire ex, “The idea that I should receive less than the children is humiliating and demeaning because this is the message that it gives to the world and to my own daughters.”
She added that the message was, “YOU DON’T GIVE THE PERSON DIGNITY OF BEING YOUR PARTNER.”
Jenny also wrote in the 2022 email that Paulson’s offers to her of hundreds of millions — while giving the kids trusts worth billions — “is just disrespectful, shameful and humiliating to me.”
She also wrote that Paulson’s offer after 21 years of marriage was, “too demeaning for me.” “In my heart and my spirit I feel I deserve a 50/50 split” she wrote, or, “60/40 is OK because there have been other similar divorce arrangements.”
She alleged that Paulson was offering her just 5% of the wealth accumulated during their marriage.
His offer would continue to make her “one of the one of the richest women in America,” according to his side, while keeping the trusts in place for their daughters.
Sources said that Paulson’s offer to Jenny involved giving her the hundreds of millions up front, plus many millions more annually over the course of her life — making for an additional sum in the hundreds of millions. They would then split their property and assets in the divorce, a source said, including their vast residential holdings.
But Jenny’s side has fired back that Paulson has offered her an “allowance.” And in the 2022 email, she calls the trusts, “a gimmick” that Paulson “created to control me.”
She further wrote in the email that Paulson would “stay in control of the trusts and the money. It’s demeaning, and I feel sick to my stomach with humiliation.”
In 2022 we reported that Jenny had terminated all private settlement discussions with Paulson, and chosen to go back to court to fight her ex for more money and marital property.
She also writes in the email of rejecting Paulson’s “disrespectful, shameful and humiliating” offers that, “A litigation might take years and be very expensive, but I’m doing this for my daughters, who look up to me, and one day they will be wives and mothers just like me.”
Paulson had told Page Six back in 2022, “I have been trying to meet in person with Jenny and her lawyers to discuss a settlement for the last eight months. She has rejected all offers of arbitration or mediation.”
In 2022, Jenny also accused the billionaire of setting up a “secretive web of trusts” to hide money from her, according to court documents.
Her lawyers have also previously alleged to Page Six that Paulson set up the trusts “over many years behind her back.”
Paulson’s side has said that the trusts were set up over 20 years ago together to protect their kids, and that Jenny was trying to get the assets for herself.
They added in a new statement to Page Six in the never-ending battle that breaking the trusts will cost the Paulson kids a whopping $1 billion in taxes.
James T. Smith, counsel for Paulson, told us: “Mrs. Paulson’s attempt to break the trusts will cost her daughters about $1 billion in future taxes and rob them of their inheritance, just to increase her divorce settlement. For someone who will be one of the richest women in America regardless of how this case ends, her greed is unconscionable.”
The legal eagle added: “Jenny was not only offered hundreds of millions of dollars in a divorce settlement, but John previously offered to request that the trustees remove future spouses and children as trust beneficiaries. She outright rejected the offer. Thus, her argument that she is opening the trusts to protect her children is absolutely false.”
But Robert S. Cohen, Jenny’s attorney, fired back when reached for comment that, “This is typical of Mr. Paulson. He appears to prefer using the children in the media, with false accusations against Mrs. Paulson, as a weapon to bully her to give up her right to her day in court under the rule of law. He knows that New York State law provides Mrs. Paulson to a right to equitable distribution of the assets accumulated during their marriage. Yet, in fact, all Mr. Paulson has offered Mrs. Paulson is an ‘allowance.’ That is a fact.”
Cohen also cracked, “Perhaps he is short on cash as a result of his staking so much of his money on expensive parties and big donations to help Mr. Trump’s presidential ambitions.”
The dig was seemingly a reference to a recent fundraiser that Paulson hosted at his Palm Beach, Fla., estate for Donald Trump that raised a record-breaking $50 million. He’s also reportedly hosting another Trump fundraiser in NYC.
Cohen further said, “The man is worth billions of dollars, the law of NY and most other states requires an ‘equitable’ division of all assets accurate during the marriage, and Mr. Paulson offered Mrs. Paulson only a monthly ‘allowance’ — and then attacks her personally for insisting that she have her day in court, applying the rule of law. And also, Mr. Paulson knows a monthly ‘allowance’ may not be worth much if, as an older man, he passes and his young wife with a new family has other plans. That’s called chutzpah — or in English, hypocrisy!”
Yet another top attorney for Paulson, Marilyn Chinitz of Blank Rome, then responded, “In what universe is hundreds of millions in upfront cash, plus annual eight-figure distributions for the rest of her life – all tax free – considered an ‘allowance?’ Jenny knows it’s much more than that but, sadly, she is hellbent on breaking trusts that were created for the girls for her own benefit.”
Cohen then fired back that Paulson has “disrespect for his wife and the rule of law.”
The former spouses have also been at war over estates in the Hamptons and Aspen, Colo., and they do not have a prenup. The battle is as acrimonious as ever, with both sides hunkering down.
Paulson famously made billions betting against the housing market before the 2008 crash, and he’s reported to be worth about $4.7 billion.
Last month we reported that Paulson got engaged to his girlfriend, Alina de Almeida, 35, while still embroiled in a bitter divorce battle with his ex.
He and Jenny split in 2021.
Jenny has previously, repeatedly alleged she only found out about the divorce from reading about it in Page Six. Sources close to Paulson have insisted that the couple was well on the rocks long before that.
