He is as billionaire as he is stingy, a consummate egotist, a champion of conspicuous consumption, and one of the big names in entertainment. We are talking about David Geffen (83), the founder of DreamWorks who, with a fortune of 9 billion dollars according to Forbes, has been scrimping on his ex-husband for a year during the divorce process.
The magnate met the dancer Donovan Michaels (32) - also known as David Armstrong - in 2016 on a sugar daddies website, who later became his lover and personal trainer. The five-decade age gap between them seemed surmountable, so they decided to get married in 2023 without a prenuptial agreement, which has been causing Geffen a lot of trouble.
After almost two years of marriage, the millionairefiled for divorce in May 2025 citing "irreconcilable differences," prompting Donovan to act swiftly. He counterattacked with a civil lawsuit accusing Geffen of manipulation, emotional abuse, and forced financial dependence.
In particular, the toy boy claimed that his ex used a "toxic mix of seduction, control, promises of love, and displays of luxurious wealth to trap him" in "a cycle of dependence, submission, and humiliation."
Apparently, the mature millionaire got him hooked on drugs to subjugate him, demanded sex as it suited him, sometimes in degrading acts, forced him to shave, psychologically controlled him, claimed he had stopped modeling because his husband had promised to support him for life, and finally, cut off his income and kicked him out of their New York apartment. As expected, Geffen's lawyers dismissed all these claims as "a work of fiction."
According to the latest court documents obtained by TMZ, the businessman claims to have reached a divorce settlement with Michael, although the exact figures have not been made public.
Accustomed to spending three million dollars a month, Donovan Michaels demanded from his ex-husband a generous enough alimony to maintain his minimum standard of living. Geffen refused, arguing that since the separation, he had already given him 500,000 dollars, allowed him to live in his New York residence worth 15,000 dollars a month, and even paid his lawyers' fees amounting to 50,000 dollars.
Despite having lived like a king, Michaels justified that he only had just over 7,500 dollars in his bank account.
David Geffen's story is worthy of a Hollywood script, as he started working in 1964 in the mailroom of the talent agency William Morris, soon became an agent, and seven years later had the skill to found the record label Asylum Records, which signed Linda Ronstadt and Joni Mitchell.
In 1980, he founded Geffen Records, producing the last album of John Lennon and various works of Cher - with whom he was romantically linked - Nirvana, Bob Dylan, and Donna Summer, among others.
With unparalleled business acumen, in 1994 he co-founded with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg the production company DreamWorks, responsible for the Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda franchises, among many others.
His enormous profits have allowed him to amass a real estate portfolio of over 1 billion dollars, as well as one of the most astonishing yachts in the world, the Rising Sun, a 138-meter vessel valued at around 500 million dollars.