A rumored agreement between Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas has been central to prenup folklore ever since it was reported in a New York Daily News article around the time of the couple’s New York City wedding in 2000. In the event of divorce, the story claimed, Douglas would pay Zeta-Jones $2.8 million for every year of marriage plus an additional $5 million if Douglas were to be unfaithful.
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In reality, top U.S. lawyers say, infidelity clauses in prenups are vanishingly rare. But their close cousins – ‘lifestyle clauses’ – are becoming increasingly common. And, in some cases, increasingly idiosyncratic.
Lois Liberman, a New York matrimonial lawyer who has worked on hundreds of prenups in a decades-long career, says she has only ever seen ‘a handful’ of infidelity clauses. She recalls one case in which a penalty could have been triggered but never was; the agreement required a very specific standard of proof in order to be enforced. Infidelity is not always black and white, after all.
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"Conditional Love: Inside the Rise of Lifestyle Clauses in Modern Prenups," by Livia Giannotti was published in Spear's Magazine on June 23, 2026.