Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones have revealed they have separated to ‘evaluate and work on their marriage’ but will a permanent split lead to a bitter battle over money?

The 68-year-old actor and his Welsh wife confirmed on Wednesday they have separated after months of living separate lives.

Whilst the couple are yet to file for divorce, their rumoured multi-million dollar pre-nup and division of assets accumulated within their 13-year union cannot be far from either star's mind.

Whilst the couple have not moved towards a legal separation, if the split does lead to a divorce Catherine is set to be well looked after, with the pair signing a pre-nup ahead of their wedding in 2000.

According to the 2013 Sunday Times Rich List 2013 the couple are said to be jointly worth $185 million.

Whilst Welsh actress Catherine has amassed a generous fortune in her own right through hits like The Mask Of Zorro and Ocean’s Twelve, it is Douglas who’s the higher earner with his movies grossing more than £1.5 billion over his 40 year career.

The Basic Instinct star's personal fortune is said to be £115 million, compared to his wife's £70 million.

The actor's assets also include houses in Bermuda, New York, Canada, Spain and the Turks and Caicos Islands, at least one of which Catherine could lay claim to with reports suggesting she would also be in line for around £1 million for every year of marriage.

Douglas has learnt his lesson the hard way when it comes to shelling out the cash after messy splits. After his first marriage to Diandra Luker ended in 1995, a bitter divorce battle saw the actor pay out $45 million to his wife of 23 years.

And the fight didn’t end there as Dianda tried unsuccessfully, to sue Michael for half of his earnings from the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 2011.

Michael recently spoke about his divorce, admitting: ‘I have nothing against her and in fact I’m very fond of my first wife. But we should have ended that marriage eight or 10 years earlier.’

'It took me too long to realise that if you go to a marriage counselor to resolve problems, it’s in his interest to keep the marriage going. Because if I end the marriage he’s got no business.'

Whilst reports that Zeta Jones has been preparing for her own £300m divorce against her husband have been denied, the actress has previously admitted how thankful she is for her pre-nup with Douglas.

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