Hi °C | Lo °C 
With lurid revelations involving internet porn addiction and affairs with teenage girls, supermodel Christie Brinkley's divorce from ex-husband Peter Cook has proved yet again that nobody can do messy breakups and custody battles like celebrities.
Brinkley's case comes hot on the heels of actor Bill Murray's divorce from Jennifer Butler, amidst claims of abuse and drug addiction on the Ghostbusters star's part.
Meanwhile, the media are gearing up for another rancorous court battle between American baseball star Alex Rodriguez and his wife Cynthia, following allegations that he is having an affair with married pop queen Madonna, who herself could soon be fighting it out in court with husband Guy Ritchie.
The past few years have seen some of the nastiest celebrity divorces ever.
The most recent case was that of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, who split in 2006 after four years of marriage.
Their divorce proceedings last year were dogged by all manner of sleazy allegations, with Mills claiming that the former Beatle had been physically and emotionally abusive towards her and that he held back her career as a human rights campaigner.
The media and the public, however, overwhelmingly sided with McCartney, and Mills was vilified from every corner, leading to her notorious to-camera rant on GMTV morning television in which she hit out at the tabloids and claimed she was receiving death threats.
Mills initially demanded £125m from McCartney, but in the end settled for £25m, in addition to separate provisions for their daughter.
Baywatch legend David Hasselhoff also went through a spectacularly nasty divorce two years ago from his wife of seven years, Pamela Bach.
A detailed file lodged by Hasselhoff 's lawyers was accidentally leaked by a Californian court, revealing the Knight Rider star's allegations that Bach had tested positive for cocaine, and that she was drunk at their daughter Taylor Ann's 16th birthday party in May 2005.
On Bach's side, she claimed that Hasselhoff had committed numerous acts of infidelity, and that he was addicted to drugs and alcohol.
Hasselhoff won custody of his two daughters last year, some months after his visitation rights were suspended following the emergence of a home video showing a visibly incapacitated Hasselhoff being chastised by one of his clearly upset children.
One of the bitterest Hollywood divorce cases in recent times has been that of Oscar winner Kim Basinger and actor Alec Baldwin.
The couple split in 2000, and have been locked in an acrimonious custody battle over their 12-year-old daughter Ireland ever since.
The pair had agreed to share custody of the girl, but Basinger soon landed in trouble for violating the conditions of Baldwin's visiting rights.
Then, in April of last year, Ireland missed one of Baldwin's prearranged phone calls, and he responded by leaving a furious voice mail for the girl, in which he called her a “rude, thoughtless, little pig”.
The message was leaked to the TMZ website, and Baldwin appeared on American TV to publicly atone for his behaviour. His lawyers accused Basinger's team of leaking the message, ensuring that their already-nasty break-up can only get worse from here.
Actors Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards also stooped to unimaginable lows in their divorce hearings and custody fight over their daughters Samantha and Lola. The pair split in 2005 after three years of marriage, and very quickly descended into mudslinging acrimony.
Wild Things star Richards sought a restraining order from her ex, claiming that Sheen's behaviour had become increasingly erratic, and that he suffered paranoid delusions about everything from their daughter's milk formula to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Richards also alleged that he had threatened to have her killed, and that the Two and a Half Men star regularly visited prostitutes, and was addicted to drugs, pornography and online gambling.
Sheen fought back against what he called Richards' “smear campaign”, and the level of hostility between the two burst into the open late last year when voicemails and emails between the warring couple were leaked to a gossip website.
In one email, Sheen called Richards a “sad, jobless pig” and even appeared to mock her mother, who was fighting breast cancer at the time. Be that as it may, the pair have since come to an amicable custody arrangement for their daughters.
One would assume that such a bitter experience would turn anyone off the idea of marriage for life. Not in Hollywood, however: Sheen married for the third time inMay.
Showbiz legend Liza Minnelli, meanwhile, underwent an even more horrible split from her fourth husband David Gest.
Dubbed ‘Hollywood's dirtiest divorce’, the couple initiated proceedings in 2003 after just one year of marriage. Soon all manner of allegations were flying about, including claims from Minnelli that concert promoter (and subsequent reality TV superstar) Gest had tried to poison her, and that he controlled her by keeping her in a drug-induced stupor.
He then shot back that the Cabaret star had repeatedly attacked him, bit a security guard and sexually harassed a chauffeur.
Gest claimed that Minnelli's abuse left him with “virtually constant, unrelenting pain in the head”, as well as vertigo, nausea, hypertension, scalp tenderness, insomnia and photosensitivity, conditions that required 11 types of medication every day.
Their divorce was finalised last year, and Gest's lawsuit against Minnelli was dismissed.
