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In the words of the normally sombre Economist magazine, it could go down as “the most expensive shag in history”. Following Nvidia boss Jensen Huang’s admission of an affair with a suspected Chinese spy, some $US500 billion ($738 billion) has been wiped from the value of his AI firm. Speculation is also growing that his wife, Lori, may file for divorce following claims he had a second affair with a married employee. If she does so, she could be in line for a $75 billion payout – making her one of the world’s richest women and leaving Huang to rue some of the costliest infidelity ever. Yet a glance at history shows that he is not alone – as business leaders, politicians, sportsmen and kings have all learnt the hard way …
In terms of sheer, eye-watering expense, the costliest affair in history was conducted by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Then the world’s richest man, Bezos began a secret romance with Lauren Sanchez, a married former Fox News presenter, in early 2018. It didn’t stay secret for long. The following year the National Enquirer published lurid details of his romance with Sanchez, including private text messages. Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Scott, divorced six months later, with her receiving 4 per cent of Amazon stock, valued then at $56 billion. It remains one of the largest divorce settlements in history.
In 2009, golfer Tiger Woods seemingly had the world at his feet – both on and off the course. With 14 major championships under his belt and a string of lucrative sponsorships, he had become the first sportsman ever to earn more than $US1 billon. Meanwhile, his marriage to his Swedish wife, Elin Nordegren, seemed the very picture of domestic bliss. Then, that November, reports emerged of an affair with a former New York nightclub hostess, Rachel Uchitel. Two days later, after a late-night confrontation with his wife, a shoeless, dishevelled Woods drove off at speed from his house, only to crash into a tree in a neighbour’s garden. Numerous other women came forward claiming infidelity with the golfer, whose subsequent divorce settlement was said to be worth hundreds of millions. The scandal also cost him vast amounts in cancelled sponsorship deals and affected his game. It was not until 2019 that he won another major trophy.
Few affairs have been exposed in such toe-curlingly embarrassing fashion as the one between US tech-firm boss Andy Byron and his employee Kristin Cabot. Last year the pair went to a Coldplay concert near Boston, enjoying complimentary VIP balcony seats. Unfortunately, a live feed of the concert on a big screen then panned to the happy couple just as they enjoyed a romantic clinch. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” remarked Coldplay’s Chris Martin as Cabot tried to cover her face while Byron ducked out of sight. Footage of the clip quickly went viral, and while the pair later denied that it was technically an affair – both were separating from their partners at the time – each quit the tech firm, Astronomer, shortly afterwards. As the company’s HR director at the time of the incident, Cabot should perhaps have known better than to mix business with pleasure. Yet as a result of “Coldplaygate” she received a stream of online abuse calling her a “home-wrecker” and later complained of being rendered unemployable. “I became a meme, I was the most maligned HR manager in HR history,” she said.
During America’s 20-year War on Terror, General David Petraeus was the man the White House turned to at the (not infrequent) moments it all went pear-shaped. Venerated for his thoughtful hearts-and-minds policies, the “Warrior Monk” masterminded two successful “troop surges”, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in 2011 was appointed director of the CIA. Then, just as he was being tipped as a future Republican presidential candidate, news broke of an extramarital affair between him and his biographer, Paula Broadwell. He promptly resigned, and in 2015 was also fined $US100,000 ($148,000) for passing Broadwell classified information. His rumoured presidential bid never happened. Instead, the 2016 Republican candidate was one Donald J. Trump.
In the 1980s, Colorado senator Gary Hart was considered one of the Democrats’ best prospects since John F. Kennedy. Charismatic, Yale-educated and handsome, he quickly emerged as the frontrunner for the party’s nomination for 1988’s presidential election. Yet despite being hailed as the leader of a new generation, he expected the United States’ media to observe old-school rules about not reporting politicians’ private indiscretions. Times, however, had changed, and in May that year the National Enquirer published pictures of Hart on a yacht with Donna Rice, a woman 20 years his junior, sitting on his lap. It didn’t help that Hart was wearing a T-shirt named after the vessel, which was called Monkey Business. He then withdrew from the presidential race, which was won by Republican George H. W. Bush.
What was arguably the most notorious fling in modern Britain began in 1961, when John Profumo, the Harrow-educated secretary of state for war in Harold Macmillan’s administration, met 19-year-old model Christine Keeler at a society party at Cliveden House, the seat of Viscount Astor. Profumo – a friend of Queen Elizabeth II – then embarked on an affair with Keeler, yet denied any impropriety in a statement in the House of Commons two years later.
A police investigation then proved he had lied, while Keeler later claimed to have also been sleeping with Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attache at Moscow’s London embassy. Profumo resigned in disgrace, living the rest of his life in near-anonymity as a charity worker in the East End. But the real damage done was to the ruling class that he embodied. The scandal not only torpedoed the credibility of the conservative government under Macmillan, it hastened the end of traditional “deference” towards “establishment” authority.
Unhappy in her loveless, sexless arranged marriage to grand duke Peter of Russia, the future Catherine the Great embarked on a passionate affair with Stanisław Poniatowski – a tall, handsome Polish nobleman. With tongues wagging in the Moscow court, he was eventually banished, while Peter ascended the throne as emperor. The two lovers, however, stayed in touch, and when Catherine then became empress after her husband’s death, she helped install Poniatowski as king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania. Her support was more about geopolitics than a gesture of affection, however, and quickly backfired. Far from being a compliant Moscow pawn, Poniatowski then tried to shift his kingdom away from Russia’s influence, forcing Catherine to send in Russian troops. After a series of occupations and partitions, Poniatowski was forced to abdicate his throne in 1795, and the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom ceased to exist.
In medieval times the British royal family did not generally have to worry much about media scandal: newspapers hadn’t been invented, and gossipy courtiers could quickly be hauled off to the Tower. Henry VIII, however, did have to suffer Pope Clement VII, in Rome, who refused to sanction his marriage to Anne Boleyn after his previous one to Catherine of Aragon failed to produce an heir. Facing excommunication, Henry secretly married Boleyn in 1533 anyway while still legally married to Aragon – an act of bigamy in Rome’s eyes. He then severed ties with the Catholic Church. It put Britain on the path to Protestantism, scientific advance and prosperity but also led to bloody internal conflict with Catholics and the English Civil War. Poor Boleyn was also later executed.
In the global league table of sought-after women, nobody comes close to Helen of Troy. Said to be the daughter of no less a figure than Zeus, the king of the gods, she was considered the most beautiful female on the planet and a deity in her own right. Yet the gods were also mischievous and, after Helen was duly hitched to Sparta’s king Menelaus, the goddess Aphrodite decided to meddle – persuading prince Paris of Troy that Helen would prefer him. Paris then seduced Helen while Menelaus was absent from Sparta, leading the cuckolded Menelaus to launch the Trojan War. In the famous siege that followed, Paris was killed while Menelaus and Helen then got back together. But the war – one of the defining conflicts of the times – left Troy in ruins and plunged Ancient Greece into a dark age.
