Behind every mega-rich man is a powerful woman. The majority of these women aren't just trophy wives or eye-candy either; they have careers and lives all of their own. They actually do important things. Check out this list of all the brilliant wives (and future wives) of the most famous billionaires in the world today.
The number of billionaires in the world today exceeds two thousand. That's a lot. It almost feels like there should be one in every major town and city - although it's more likely you'll find them sunning themselves on their own private islands. That's their style.
Although the wealth gap between men and women is closing, a disproportionate number of those billionaires are male rather than female. We'll likely see this change as we move into the next decade of the 21st century, but right now, being super-rich is still sadly very much a man's game. That doesn't mean women can't get in on the action, though.
It's hard to imagine a more modern billionaire than Mark Zuckerberg. He may occasionally come in for some bad press, but he invented Facebook. His creation has changed the way we connect with people.
Zuckerberg has been with Priscilla Chan since they met at Harvard. They got married back in 2012 in a surprisingly low-key wedding. While he got busy on the internet, she became a pediatrician. She also manages the multi-billion-dollar Chan Zuckerberg Initiative charity, which has raised over $45bn for good causes.
Evan Spiegel is another technology billionaire. You may not know his name, but you probably use his invention. He's the man who gave the world Snapchat, and has raked in over three and a half billion dollars from the app.
His wife, Miranda Kerr, didn't need him for his money. She was once one of Victoria's Secret's top models, and her good looks and sense of style have brought her a $45m fortune of her own. She briefly dated Orlando Bloom before settling down with Spiegel, whom she's known since childhood.
While not every woman on this list is famous in her own right, Salma Hayek definitely is. The Hollywood siren has sizzled on the big screen for years, and has been one of the most bankable female film stars of the past two decades. Her acting career has made her $85m.
She could live off that money for the rest of her life, but the $17bn her husband is worth probably helps, too. Francois-Henri Pinault own's a company called Kering, who could YSL and Gucci among their in-house brands.
MacKenzie Bezos and Jeff Bezos are no longer married, but she made so much money out of their divorce settlement that she may as well still be married to his cash. She walked away with $35bn in what's believed to be the largest divorce settlement ever.
She was by her husband's side as he grew Amazon from a tiny website into a globally dominant brand - they married in 1993, and stayed together until early 2019. As she supported him for so long, she's entitled to her share of the spoils.
Being married to Larry Ellison seems to be more of a part time job than a lifelong commitment. The Oracle Corporation founder, who has an estimated worth of over $50bn, is now on his fifth wife, Nikita Khan.
Kahn is known for her philanthropy, and has a particular interest in wildlife conservation. She's raised millions for the California Wildlife Center, and also uses her talents as a filmmaker to raise awareness about environmental issues in documentaries like 'The Last Animals.'
The world went into mourning when technology pioneer and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passed away in 2011. Nobody mourned him more than his loving wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, who had been married to him for twenty years.
Jobs met his future wife at the Stanford Business School, where they shared the same passion for technology, innovation, and humanitarian causes. She's still involved in technology today, and uses her $19bn fortune to strive to be a force for good in the world.
Some of you will be using one of Michael Dell's products right now as you read this. He co-founded Dell Computers, and has been the mastermind behind their growth into one of the leading IT companies on the planet.
His wife, Susan Dell, doesn't get involved in her husband's business. Instead, she looks after the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, ensuring that some of their jointly-owned $20bn fortune goes into improving healthcare and education access for some of the world's poorest children.
Alison Pincus had already made a name for herself in business under her original name of Alison Geld long before she met Mark Pincus and married him. She's the owner and operator of the One King' Lane luxury furnishings website, which has netted her an impressive $440m.
Her husband brings a further $1.1bn to the table. That's money he's made through Zynga Inc. You might not know the company, but your kids do - they make a lot of social app games for smartphones and tablets.
Elle MacPherson is a woman so beautiful that she could stop traffic. We mean that literally - there are recorded instances of cars driven by men crashing as they drove past billboards that showed her in swimwear or lingerie during the 1990s.
She's mostly retired from modeling work now, and she's happily married to Jeffrey Soffer. He isn't a household name, but he doesn't need to be - he's made over a billion dollars through his Florida real estate company.
If you grew up during the 1980s, you'd have recognized Jami Gertz in this picture immediately. She appeared in several classic teen movies during that decade, including 'The Lost Boys.' Her stardom didn't make it through the 1990s, but she has billions of reasons not to care.
At the end of the 80s, she married Antony Ressler. Most of his money has been made through his $40bn private equity company, but he knows how to have fun with his cash. As an example, he has a majority share in the Atlanta Hawks.
Many of the current crop of billionaires owe their fortune to the internet, but perhaps none more so than Larry Page. We all use his invention every day - he created Google. Even back in 2007, when Lucinda Southworth married him, he was already financially set for life.
Southworth is a clever and capable woman - she has a Ph.D. from Stamford in Biomedical Informatics. Her interests these days appear to be more charitable, though; she runs the Carl Victor Page Memorial Foundation.
Many of us end up married to, or in long-term relationships with, people we met at work. Julie Chen is no different - she just did it on a grander scale. She started out news anchor on CBS, and went on to marry the network president, Les Mooves.
Chen's talents in front of the camera have seen her move on and gain greater recognition as the host of 'Big Brother' and 'The Talk,' while behind the scenes, her husband is coordinating the shows and ensuring their $300m fortune keeps growing.
Kate Greer is a woman who appears to have very expensive taste in men. For four years, she dated Jack Dorsey, who founded Twitter. When they split up, she moved on to Peter Fenton - one of Twitter's most prominent investors. That must have stung Dorsey!
While she dates technology guys, her own business interests are strictly offline. She has a popcorn company called Cheerie Lane, and makes enough money that way not to have to rely on Henton's fortune.
When Melinda Gates met Bill Gates, he was just an everyday nerd with a dream. By the time they married in 1994, the Windows inventor was on his way to a multi-billion-dollar fortune. He'd be the richest man in the world if he didn't give so much of his wealth away to charity.
This is another love story that started at work - during the early days of Microsoft, he employed her as head of information products. They still work together now as the co-chairs of their charity foundation.
Sonia Tudor Jones made her initial wealth and reputation as a fashion model in her native Australia. Back then, she worked under her original name of Sonia Klein. She's managed to maintain her incredible figure as she's grown older - a fact that she puts down to yoga.
She's so into yoga that she runs her own yoga studio, and she might even be giving pointers to her billionaire husband, Paul Tudor Jones. He's a highly successful hedge fund manager, and has billions of dollars in the bank.
In his younger years, many of the female actors that legendary film director Steven Spielberg worked with probably dreamed of marrying him. One of them did, and it was Kate Capshaw. If she looks familiar to you, it's probably because you saw her in 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.'
The two met on the set of the film, where Spielberg fell for her almost as soon as he laid eyes on her. Both of them still work in movies to this day, and they share a fortune of almost $4bn.
When people say, 'life is a circus,' they usually mean it as a negative observation. That's never been the case for Claudia Barilla, who's made well over one billion dollars as the chief executive officer of Cirque du Soleil.
Laliberte's wife Claudia Barilla was a swimsuit model when she met Laliberte, so it's no wonder he was so enamored with her. She's since given that profession up in favor of running the One Drop Foundation. It's a charity which combines circus art with children's education.
At the age of 89, George Soros' profile in the media has never been higher. He gives billions of dollars away to charity each year through his Open Society Foundation, but he's also the scourge of the conservative press, who believe he meddles in politics too much.
When you're as rich as Soros, your wedding isn't a one-day affair. The occasion of his marriage to Tamiko Bolton - forty years his junior - went on for a full weekend. They'd already been together for five years by that point.
We should include a disclaimer here - James Goldstein and the much, much younger Amalie Wichmann have always insisted that they're not married, because Goldstein doesn't believe in marriage. They're always together, though, and so it would be foolish not to believe they're a couple.
Goldstein is a somewhat eccentric character, known for his outlandish outfits and his love of NBA. Maybe it's his unique sense of style that drew Danish model Wichmann toward him. The fact he's a billionaire might just be a bonus.
If you've ever watched 'The Real Housewives of New York,' which we're assured is a documentary rather than a drama, you'll have seen Bethenny Frankel, and you'll have noted her track record of getting involved with incredibly rich men.
The first was Jason Hoppy, who she divorced on-screen in 2013. She followed that up by dating Warren Lichtenstein, a billionaire hedge fund manager. Now she's with Paul Bernon, who owns a film production company, and also deals in real estate.
If you can't make money from owning a casino, you're doing it wrong. If you can't make millions of dollars from owning a casino in Las Vegas, you're doing it even worse. Fortunately for Steve Wynn and his wife Andrea Hissom, he's doing it just fine.
Some of the most prominent casinos in all of Sin City, including the Bellagio, belong to Wynn. He and Hissom are now a celebrity power couple with a $3bn fortune.
Diane Von Furstenberg's elaborate name comes from the fact that she used to be a princess. She married Prince Egon of Furstenberg decades ago. They split in 1972, but she liked the name so much that she kept it, and used it during her fashion career.
Years later, she met and married businessman Barry Diller, who's made billions of dollars trying to save the rest of us money on our travel plans through his website, Expedia. They've been together since 2001.
This is one of the younger super-rich wives on our list. Katsia Zingarevich caught her husband Anton's eye through her modeling work. To say she was a prominent model would be an understatement - she was voted 'Supermodel of the World' back in 2009.
Mr. Zingarevich is yet another Russian billionaire who seems to earn his money from a variety of places, but he once owned the English soccer team Reading FC. They married in 2009. Perhaps it was to celebrate her modeling achievement.
Decades ago, Jerry Hall had a taste for rock and roll stars who lived wild lives. She spent years with Mick Jagger, although when she tried to divorce him, it transpired that they had never legally married. Perhaps seeking someone more stable and dependable, she's now with Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch is one of the most powerful media figures in the world; he owns FOX, Sky, and several conservative newspapers. Hall has always been in the tabloids, so perhaps that's where he first saw her.
This story is a little bit naughty. Joan Branson was already married when Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of the Virgin Group, walked into her antiques store. The two apparently immediately hit it off, and stayed in touch after Branson left with his purchases.
A little over a year later, she'd left her husband and moved in with Branson, who she would go on to marry and raise a family with. Was he really that charming, or was she thinking about his $4bn bank balance?
You meet all kinds of people when you work as an air steward, but working on private planes increases your chances of rubbing shoulders with the world's richest people. That's what Elizabeth Malia Andelin was doing when she met Sumner Redstone.
She was still in her 20s when MTV and Viacom founder Sumner boarded her plane. He was 82. To their credit, they're still married today, and he's reached the grand old age of 96. She handles all of his charity and philanthropy endeavors.
David Koch passed away a little earlier on in 2019, leaving behind him a $40bn fortune he'd made working in plastics and chemical production alongside his brother. The bulk of that money will now be in the hands of his widow, Julia Koch.
The two had a lasting marriage; they tied the knot in the late 1990s. They had several charitable and philanthropic interests between them, which she will most likely continue to operate in his name.
The name 'Bloomberg' will be familiar to the majority of people reading this. Michael Bloomberg has done it all, from business to politics, and he's racked up a phenomenal amount of money in the process. He's believed to be worth $40bn.
Perhaps because he's been married once before, Bloomberg has a less formal arrangement with Diana Taylor. They've been together since 2000, but both are apparently happy to remain as partners rather than husband and wife. Whatever works for them!
One of the biggest clichés in business is the idea of a rich business owner running off with his secretary. Sometimes, though, even a cliché can have a happy ending. Flora Marcote was Amancio Ortega's secretary when they met, but they're still married today.
Ortega owns Inditex, an umbrella business that counts Zara and Berksha among its many brands. Marcote is probably just happy she doesn't have to deal with his correspondence or his calendar anymore, and gets to see the business from the top end instead!
There are two ways you may have heard of Roman Abramovich; either because you know a thing or two about oil, or you know a thing or two about sport. The Russian billionaire is an oligarch, and also owns the English Premier League soccer team Chelsea FC.
We don't know how he and Dasha Zhukova met, but she's a woman with a keen eye for style. She designs clothes, edits a fashion magazine, and runs her own art gallery in Moscow. The two separated in 2017.
It's a good job that Flavia Sampaio has money and a career of her own. Her rich husband, Eike Batista, doesn't find it as easy to lay his hands upon his cash as he used to. Once the richest man in Brazil, he's currently serving prison time for money laundering.
Since his incarceration, Sampaio has been gradually distancing herself from Batista. That's understandable - she's a lawyer, and so being associated with a felon is very bad for her career.
Most of the women we've looked at so far met their husbands before they were rich, or came into contact with them naturally. The majority of them are of a similar age to their husbands, too. Fabiana Flosi isn't.
We may never know what first attracted 39-year-old Brazilian model Fabiana Flosi to 86-year-old billionaire Bernie Ecclestone. It might have been the sparkle in his eye and his quick wit, but it also might have been the $4bn he's made through Formula 1 racing.
If there was ever a surefire way to live a life of riches and luxury, it's getting married to a Prince. In the past two decades, Princes haven't come much more sought-after than William, who is second in line to the throne of the United Kingdom behind his father, Prince Charles.
Middleton and her royal husband while the two were at university together, and the British press were fascinated by their on/off relationship. As they matured, they settled down, and their son George will one day become King.
We'll take this pair of royal inductions on our list back to back. Once upon a time, Princess Charlene of Monaco was known by the humbler name of Charlene Wittstock, although there was nothing humble about her sporting achievements. She swam for South Africa in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Prince Albert of Monaco, who's known to be a sports fan, encountered her at a swimming competition in 2006. As Grace Kelly's son, he knows a thing or two about elegance and class, and so he married Charlene five years later.
With the incredible Hollywood career she's had, Jane Fonda definitely doesn't need a very rich husband. Nevertheless, she had one for ten years in the shape of CNN founder and billionaire Ted Turner.
Fonda was a huge star throughout the 1960s, 1970, and 1980s. She still very occasionally appears in front of the camera now. Turner is just one of a number of rich men she's been involved with through the years, but she split from him after a decade of marriage in 2001.
Blessed with beauty, brains, and a scientific mind, when Anne Wojcicki met Sergey Brinn it probably felt like a union of equals for both of them. She's a biologist, and runs a genetics company. He's one of Google's co-founders.
Despite seemingly being perfect for one another, their marriage didn't work out for the long term. We don't know how much of his $29bn fortune she received as part of the divorce settlement, but we bet she never has to work again if she doesn't want to.
Mariah Carey is yet another big showbiz name who knows a thing or two about what it's like to be in a relationship with a very rich man. The legendary musical diva was married to Nick Cannon for a time, but met James Packer after her divorce.
Packer, a billionaire Australian casino owner, was so enamored with the star that he spent $10m on an engagement ring for her. We wonder whether he got it back when they canceled their wedding in 2016?
The 1990s were the last decade in which supermodels ruled the world. There are still prominent models today, but they don't have anything like the profile that the 90s models did. Among the pack, Stephanie Seymour's star shone brighter than most.
At the peak of her fame, she married billionaire industrialist Peter Brant in 1995. They filed for divorce back in 2009, but managed to turn things around and decided to stay together. They're parents to two children.
The wine cellar in the home of Bernard Arnault and Helene Mercier must be incredible, and we bet their home smells amazing, too. He's the man behind Moet, as well as Dior, Dom Perignon, and Givenchy. That makes him worth in excess of $30bn.
As well as their wine and perfume supply, Mercier is a very gifted pianist. We bet they can throw dinner parties like nobody else in the world. They also have charitable interests, though; they recently pledged over $200m to the repair work needed at Notre Dame Cathedral.
This happily married couple is truly a partnership. Ben Lerer is an entrepreneur from New York. When he met his wife Emily, they decided to work together, and try to make the world a better place.
The two own an equal share in Lerer Ventures, which focuses its attention on helping deprived children living in inner-city areas. One of the company's arms is 'Project Tutor,' which reaches out to struggling families in their own homes to provide one to one education services.
Former Playboy centerfold Eloise Broady has come a long way since she made her money in front of the camera. She's a powerful businesswoman, who has opened the Arbor Behavioral Healthcare Center and Renew Logic.
A shared interest in beauty and beautiful things might be what connected her with her husband, John Paul Dejoria, who is a completely self-made billionaire. Most of his fortune has come from his success in the field of hair products; he co-founded the popular Paul Mitchell range.
Kristy Hinze is another former Victoria's Secret model who's done well for herself. As well as working with the iconic brand, the Australian model has also appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and crossed over from modeling to work as a television presenter. These days, you're likely to find her racing yachts!
Such is her beauty that Silicon Valley billionaire James H. Clark married her in 2009, even though he'd recently been through a divorce that had cost him more than $125m. They've now been together for a decade.
Suzanne Ircha sounds like a woman who once planned on making millions of dollars all on her own. She gained an impressive degree from Cornell, and went onto work on Wall Street. Although she could probably have traded her way into riches, she didn't need to.
Ircha has looks to go with her talents, and she turned the head of Woody Johnson. As a member of the famous Johnson & Johnson medical family, he's worth $4.2bn. One of his more extravagant purchases was the New York Jets, which cost him $635m.
It's a strange sensation to feel sympathy for someone who's richer than you can possibly imagine, but it's impossible not to feel bad for Georgina Chapman. The British actor and designer thought she was living the dream when she married big-time Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Unfortunately, her world fell apart two years ago when Weinstein was charged with multiple heinous crimes against young aspiring actors. She didn't stand by his side, and filed for divorce in 2017. We hope she got a large settlement.
Kirsty Bertarelli is a woman who has it all. She's a former Miss UK, has long been considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, and is even an accomplished singer and songwriter. It's no wonder Ernesto Bertarelli was head over heels for her from the moment they met.
Swiss businessman Bertarelli used to own the biotech company Serono until he sold it in 2007 to pursue yachting instead. His team Alinghi have won the Americas Cup twice, and he and his wife now share a fortune of almost $10bn.
It's impossible not to be drawn to Talulah Riley. The striking-looking British actor was born into wealth - her father was once the head of the country's National Crime Squad - but her interest in the arts saw her seek a career on the big screen.
Presumably, that's where eccentric Tesla founder and billionaire Elon Musk first saw her. Life with the unpredictable Musk probably isn't easy, which might be why they've married and divorced twice - most recently in 2016.
The whole world knows who Janet Jackson is. She's the most prominent living member of the Jackson family, carrying on her brother Michael's legacy by singing and dancing all over the world. Just this year, she played a spectacular set at the internationally-famous Glastonbury Festival.
Her love life has been the subject of intense speculation for decades, but she finally seemed to have settled down when she married Qatari billionaire Wasim Al Mana in 2012, going on to have a child with him. It wasn't to be, and they split in 2017.
Warren Buffet is so famously rich that his name has almost become a by-word for fabulous wealth or opulence. You probably expect that he met his wife Astrid Menks at a high-society ball, or some exclusive party that regular people would never be invited to. He didn't, though.
When Menks met Buffet, she was his waitress at a restaurant he was eating in. That was back in the 1970s. Buffet, 16 years older than his wife, was rich even back then - but not the multi-billionaire he is today.
When it comes to super-rich couples, one or both of the people involved tend to be famous. That makes Carolyn Persson and her husband Stefan exceptions to the rule. They have all the wealth they could ever want, but they stay out of the limelight.
Mr. Persson has made more than $20bn through his fashion label H&M, and his wife probably gets first pick from any of their new ranges. Both of them try to keep a low profile, and try to give their three children as normal a childhood as is possible.
You might have seen quite a lot of this woman on the news recently. Melania Trump's story began when she was a model in her native Slovenia. She was successful in her profession, and soon began traveling the world.
In 2005, she met and married a New York-based hotel and casino billionaire by the name of Donald Trump. He's a shy and retiring man, and so we're sadly unaware of what happened after that. We are, of course, joking. She's now the First Lady of the United States of America.
