Law&Crime Sidebar - 'Richest Man in Hollywood' Accused of Grooming Feuds with Estranged Ex

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Entertainment mogul David Geffen's messy divorce from Donovan Michaels is once again making headlines, largely due to an apparent battle over Geffen's nearly $600 million superyacht, the "Rising Sun." Michaels claims Geffen promised him the yacht, but Geffen’s attorney denied that, saying Geffen’s financial managers can prove that never happened. Celebrity divorce attorney Randy Kessler joins Law&Crime's Jesse Weber to discuss the most shocking details in the very public spat.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A legend in the entertainment industry and one of the richest men in the world is facing a brand new challenge, a seemingly very messy divorce from his much younger husband. And what was once a face-off that took place behind closed doors has now been thrust into the world's stage for everyone to see. details about the one multi-million dollar item that is allegedly at the center of all this drama, and we're talking about it all with divorce attorney Randy Kessler. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Instead of spending his retirement, enjoying all

the pleasures that life has to offer, spending the millions that he made in the entertainment industry over the last several decades, 82-year-old David Geffen is instead embroiled in a legal battle with his estranged husband, David Armstrong, also known as Donovan Michaels. This is a man more than 50 years his junior, 32 years old. According to a recent write-up in the Wall Street Journal, quote, family members, business associates, and longtime friends of both men say they are astounded to watch this unfold. Now Geffen worked in the music and movie business for years. He served as an executive for multiple record labels. He produced blockbuster films like Beetlejuice and Risky Business.

He backed Broadway musicals like Dreamgirls and Cats. He has donated millions of dollars to universities and arts programs with multiple schools like UCLA and Yale naming entire departments after him. Now, Michael's, on the other hand, comes from a much more humble background. He was part of the foster care system growing up, struggled in his early adulthood, apparently he turned to sex work to make money, and he says he had dreams of becoming a model. But Michael's claims, once he met David Geffen, that dream came to a screeching halt. So the couple's private lives exploded in July when details about the relationship and their separation started to pour out.

And that is because Michaels filed a bombshell lawsuit, claiming that Geffen had exploited him, using the promise of a relationship and marriage and financial stability to lure Michaels into being a sexual play thing. That's the basic allegation in this 33-page suit. From the complaint, quote, Michaels is a 32-year survivor of the foster care system who was pulled into the orbit of an exploiter masquerading as a white knight while hiding behind wealth, philanthropy, and fame. Michaels did not meet Geffen in a boardroom at a gala or through mutual friends, he met him on Seekingarrangements.com, a website where men like Geffen shop for the vulnerable. Now, the site, which has gone simply by Seeking.com, this is a dating platform for essentially the rich and famous. On its homepage, it states, Seeking is the premier dating site

for success-minded singles. Those who possess the mindset tailored for success in life also possess the same mindset necessary for success in love. Our platform is designed to foster your genuine and authentic connections between our members leading to the good life, lasting partnerships, and love. But here's the thing. This is important to note. The site also expressly states that, quote, sugar daddy situations paying for sex, that's forbidden. Michael's claims that didn't stop David Geffen from finding him on the site and offering him

$10,000 for one night, which eventually, according to him, turned into monthly payments for sex work. According to Michael's legal complaint, Geffen used a toxic mix of seduction, control, promises of love and lavish displays of wealth to entrap Michaels in a cycle of dependency, submission, and humiliation. Behind the glittering facade of their relationship was a calculated pattern of abuse and commodification. Now, we actually did a full breakdown of Michael's lawsuit against David Geffen. You can check it out on Long Crimes YouTube page. But one of the most shocking details to come out is that Geffen and Michaels didn't sign a pre-nup. They didn't sign a prenuptial agreement before marrying in 2023.

Instead, Michael's claims the two had an oral agreement, where Geffen agreed to keep Michael's in the lap of luxury for the rest of his life in exchange for Michael's companionship as he traveled the world. And in an answer to Michael's lawsuit, Geffen's attorney called the allegations, quote, ludicrous and contrived. writing plaintiff cannot embarrass Geffen and extort a settlement with petty gossip and salacious lies. And according to that court filing, the marriage imploded because Michaels abused Geffen's generosity, despite being, quote, treated like a king. Geffen's attorneys claim that Michaels had his assistants charged hundreds of thousands of dollars to Geffen's accounts for luxury clothing, cosmetic procedures, gifts for his friends. Geffen also claims that Michael spent heavily on only-fan subscriptions and male escorts.

And Michael's alleged drug use is also provided as a reason why the marriage fell apart. According to the Wall Street Journal, Geffen's staff reportedly found drugs in his room after Geffen had paid for Michael's rehab. Okay, so I want to talk all about this, and I want to bring on an expert. I want to bring on Randy Kessler, who is a prominent divorce and family law attorney out of Atlanta. He has represented a number of different celebrities. This is also, by the way, a professor at Emory Law School teaches jury trials. Randy, thank you so much for coming on. I mean, can I first start and say, you know, we're talking about what?

One of the richest men on the planet believed to be worth, I don't know, around $9 billion. That is a level of wealth and power that we can only dream of. And yet, no pre-up? Really? You know, I'm having flashbacks to the Prince situation, right? You remember Prince died without a will. And really, what people that don't have pre-ups or wills do is they make a lot of money for people like me, right? You know, that's what an insurance policy is.

That's what a prenuptial agreement is. It's sort of pre-decides the divorce and shocking, although he can afford good lawyers and he's got the best that there is. Laura Wasser is really the absolute best in the country. So who knows? Maybe he's a romantic. Maybe he just said, I don't want to sit and think about the legalities because everyone's going to tell me he's too young for me

and I should be worried about a divorce. Who knows? But, yeah, I'm not as shocked as most people. There are a lot of people that don't get prenupts that really, really should. Just to be clear, though, his fortune could be mostly protected because it matters if he earned it before getting married? Exactly right, especially in California. Earnings during the marriage are a community property divided in 50-50, earnings before the marriage, and what those earnings generate, the passive income.

So if he's got $9 million in the bank and a certificate of deposit and it pays interest during the marriage, that's still his. Plus, whatever he earned during the marriage, they don't split it unless, they saved it. So maybe whatever they earned during the marriage they saved. So yes, if they go to court without a pre-no, you know, Michaels is getting half of whatever he can prove. Giffin earned at age 80, you know? Does it matter the length of the marriage? So just what, just over two years? Does the length of the partnership make a difference in this calculation and this analysis? Not in that analysis. It might in some cases where they're seeking alimary. Let's say that somebody didn't have nine million or even 900,000.

All they had was a good income. Well, then if you're married for a long time, it's not fair that someone has a good income to keep going that they created during the marriage. And the other one was a housewife or house fed and stayed home and raised the kids. Then the length of marriage would matter really for the alimony, but not for division of property.

Now, talking the law here, we're talking a lot about it. You know who are experts in the law? Morgan and Morgan, okay, our amazing sponsor, are America's largest injury law firm. This is a firm with over 1,000 attorneys. You know why they have so many? Because they win a lot.

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Another client in Pennsylvania received $29 million. million dollars. That's after being offered only $500,000. Now look, even if you don't think your case is worth millions of dollars, why not just start a claim and fight for what you deserve? Morgan and Morgan makes it so simple. You can start a claim from your phone in just eight clicks. So if you're injured, you can easily start a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar by clicking the link below or scanning the QR code on screen. And let me just be clear about what he claims he might be entitled to. Or, you know, general, let me try to articulate this if I, if this would be making sense.

Could he make an argument, hey listen, you know, I abandoned a lot of what I was hoping to do by going into this marriage. I can kind of chart for you what my success would have been. I'm not even saying in this case, I'm saying generally speaking, I should be entitled to more than the community property. I should be entitled to more because of what I gave up by entering into this marriage, lost earnings in a way. Is that ever an argument? Is that a successful argument? Not in California, and not in most places, because that's a very typical argument.

I mean, there are a lot of responses to it. Number one, that kind of stuff doesn't really matter. It's what did they earn. It's automatic sort of in California. The other thing is, you know, he gave all that up, but he probably got a lot in exchange, right? Look at his wardrobe. Look at the amount of money he got. Look at the trips he took.

Look at the life he led. There are a lot of people in this world. that would say, you know what, I'll get up two years of my life to be able to travel the world on a $400 million yacht and whatever it is. So those arguments are really not going to play in front of this judge. It's 50-50 of whatever was earned during the marriage. By the way, the people might be averse to signing pre-ups or at least introducing the idea of a pre-up to their partner because why they're concerned that it'll create bad blood, they'll break up, they'll get into a fight. Is that the reason why you see a pre-up not part of the conversation?

I don't think so. I think it's more on adverseness or hesitance to go see lawyers and make it into a legal process instead of a romantic process. Because truthfully, if you think about it for more than a few seconds, having a pre-up means you don't have to worry about the financials. You don't have to worry about disputes because that's already pre-decided. You can focus on your love and affection and do that kind of stuff. And if it doesn't work, you're not worried that somebody is going to do something

to try to cheat you out of money because you've already. pre-agreed on what's fair. So pre-ups actually make it easier to focus on your relationship instead of these ulterior motives of, well, is he just doing this so that he can get more money in front of a judge? So I think it's just the hesitance to walk into a lawyer's office and make this love romantic process into a legal process. And we are learning more, by the way, about the assets that Michael's thinks he's entitled to, and that includes Geffen's luxury super yacht. So Geffen bought the rising sun. for almost $600 million.

We are talking about an absolutely massive vessel here. This is according to CBS News. It has 82 rooms, 82 rooms, a wine cellar, a movie theater, a basketball court. It has a crew of more than 40 people. The super yacht reportedly became a second home for Geffen and Michaels as they travel the world. And according to the Daily Mail, Michaels believes that he is entitled to The Rising Sun, in the divorce. And he claims that Geffen promised it to him when they were still married, says that Geffen referred to the yacht as a money suck. Now, Daily Mail reports that an unidentified

source told the Wall Street Journal that a conversation about the yacht did occur and that when Michaels found out that Geffen wasn't planning to leave him the boat, he became irate. But Geffen's attorneys told the journal that Geffen never promised Michael's any assets, said Geffen's financial managers could testify that he never mentioned giving Michaels his yacht. So Randy, what do we make of this? How much does a conversation matter in terms of whether or not you were relinquishing assets to your former significant other? It's a money grab. I've got two answers, the legal and the practical. Legally, promises get made all the time during marriages. I'm sure that, you know, Geffen can respond and say, well, he promised me that he wasn't going to cheat or that he wasn't

going to use drugs or whatever we're hearing in the news that he found. that, you know, Michael was doing it with other people and hanging out. So, yeah, maybe one broker promise, another broker promise. That's called a marriage. Just because you promise your spouse something, doesn't make it legally bonding unless you can put it in writing and it's a contract, and there's some consideration for it. You know, and I'm sure Guffman would say the consideration, as we all know as lawyers means, you get something for it.

Well, what he would have wanted was loyalty, fidelity, you know, affection, stuff that he is going to say that he wasn't getting. Now, the practical answer is, why would he want a $600 million yacht? Because not only is it a $600 million yacht, it's got cost. Like you said, all the employees, all the staff, all the maintenance, he's going to then require money to take care of it. The only reason he wants it is so he can sell it. Yeah, you could sell it, right? He could sell it.

And why don't just say, listen, I think I'm entitled to the out, but I'll tell you what, I'll take 10% of the value of the yacht and we can be done with it, and he should be fine. He probably doesn't want to even give that up considering it, right? But it sounds like you've got money to fight. He's got nothing to lose. Let me ask you this. What is it, you see that in a divorce battle that it sometimes it can come down to one big asset house.

Maybe not a yacht, but something of that nature, piece of land, piece of property of some kind, maybe a car. Do you usually see a fight get nasty when it's about one piece of property or one piece of one asset, I should say? Every single day, Jesse, you know, it's what makes it complicated to get a divorce. It's not about business. It's not a business transaction. You know, how do we just divide it up and do the math? Somebody's usually attached to something, and they really want it. And the flip side is not, it's not often that both sides are attached to the car or the yacht.

What I always find interesting is that they don't want him to have it because they want it, or they're angry about the relationship or the way the relationship bandied. So they find what the other ask, what the asset is, that their partner wants and they don't give it to them. And they think that's going to show them or prove them or vindicate them. And, you know, we spend a lot of our times trying to convince people, make it a business decision, figure out what makes sense so you can put it behind you. You know, people get angry. And it's sort of like a death, right? You've got to grieve it.

You've got to get through it. And each one has to handle it their own way. And, you know, David Geffen is pretty damn successful. And I'm sure when he says this is what I want to do, he's going to persevere until he gets what he wants because he has his whole life and he's been able to do what he wants. And I think Michael's saying he wants the yacht. He's basically telling Geffen, okay. Now I know what to not give him, if anything. There's something interesting about this, that Michael's what made,

what would usually be behind the scenes drama, very public with this lawsuit. Does Geffen have any recourse there, you know, damage to his reputation, you're putting this out in the public, or does Michaels have a right to a legal right to make these claims? So I can say whatever he wants, you know, and it's got to be true or else it's defamation, right? Unless you put it in the pleadings and it's got some basis for truth.

But you can't go out and badmouth somebody and tell lies if he knows their lies. And Geffen has the money to pursue a Johnny Depp kind of, you know, defamation case if we wanted to. But what's really striking to me, and again, you mentioned we represent some high profile folks, not guys as wealthy as David Geffen. If I was in his shoes, if I was Michael's lawyer, I'd say you get much more out of being nice at David Geffen than you do by taking him on. You can take him on and you can fight. But whatever you get, that's it. You're going to make enemies, not just David Geffen, but anybody that knows him, anybody in the business. if you want to be a model or an actor or whatever else,

you know, do it behind the scenes, be polite. To your marriage for a 30-year-old guy, I mean, the whole world is now drawing an opinion of Michaels and didn't really know who he was before now. David Geffen's already got his reputation. He's already set. He knows what his legacy is going to be. He really doesn't have a lot to lose is the way I would answer your question.

How is this going to shake up? What do he think is going to happen? It's going to get, I think it's going to get resolved. But again, I don't know the personalities. And again, it's driven by the clients. If David Giffin says, you know what, I'll be darned if this guy is going to make a mockery of me and make a fool of me and make these allegations, I'm now going to see this all the way through to the end. It could take years. Remember, Schwarzenegger case took years and years and years to get resolved.

Things can get tied up in California for a long time. The one thing is, David Giffin, I'm sure, even though he didn't get a pre-up, I'm pretty darn sure he's got his estate planning and his will prepared. Because if he dies without a will, guess who gets it? right? So maybe a reason he went in and filed the divorce to get it out of the way, make sure, you know, before his health deteriorate, before he gets too old. And the mere filing of that, that would be sufficient, right, in terms of a will? Well, I think, no, I think if there, you know, we've had people that have died during a divorce and the will still govern. So David Geffen, I'm sure, has his well revised already. He's got great

lawyers. I'm sure as soon as the marriage wasn't going well, probably even before he filed for divorce, he changed his will. But if he has not changed his will, and it leaves everything to his husband, or if he doesn't have a will, then everything goes to his husband, even if the divorce is pending, he's got to be divorced and separated from that person legally before the will or the intestate laws would govern and give the money to the spouse. Yeah, he's got to, if he didn't get a pre-up, I hope he's got a will. Randy Kessler, thank you so much. Appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks, Jesse. And that is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.