With a billion-dollar fortune on the line, Dr. Dre's impending divorce with Nicole Young is disputing the validity of a prenuptial agreement they signed, but then purportedly soon discarded after they got married, reports the New York Daily News. Young took to court to file a request for a separate trial in order to challenge the agreement's "validity and enforceability," an action that could end up negating the agreement altogether.
The filing says that Dre's "net worth is estimated to be in the ballpark of $1 billion dollars, which was largely earned during the parties' approximate 24 year marriage" (a somewhat higher figure than our own calculation of Dre's net worth), and Young is claiming that their prenup doesn't actually hold legal water for two reasons. First, Young says that when she signed it in May of 1996 before marrying Dre, it was under duress:
"Andre placed undue pressure upon Nicole to sign the agreement in order to get married, leaving her no choice but to do so. She reluctantly signed it."
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Second is the more interesting wrinkle, which is Young's claim that Dre himself tore up the agreement just a couple years after that because of the alleged duress:
"Around two to three years after they were married, Andre tore up the parties' premarital agreements in Nicole's presence."
That, the filing says, was an acknowledgment from Dre that "Nicole had signed [the prenup] as a result of duress, coercion and undue influence and knew the terms of the agreement were patently unconscionable."
Now, it will be up to a judge to decide if that might actually be the case.
Nicole Young filed for divorce from Dr. Dre (whose real name is Andre Young) in June of this year, so we're still quite early in what may prove to be a lengthy process, especially given the financial stakes of the split and the now legally contested prenup.
