Perelman is a legendary financier, corporate raider, and buyout king. He's equally famous for his string of failed marriages and contentious divorces.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Perelman went to work for his father's metals conglomerate after graduating Wharton and marrying his girlfriend, Faith Golding, whose father owned the tony Essex House in Manhattan. At the age of 35, Ron realized his father had no plans to retire and turn the business over to him, so he bolted, borrowing $2 million from his father-in-law to buy a jewelry company and then selling off the company's assets to make a tidy profit. It's a process Perelman has since repeated on countless occasions. Under the auspices of MacAndrews & Forbes, the candy manufacturer he acquired in 1980 for $45 million, he has spent the last three decades acquiring undervalued or distressed companies and then cutting costs, improving margins, and selling off the assets one by one to the highest bidder. One of the most aggressive—and most notorious—corporate raiders of the 1980s and '90s, Perelman is considerably less active than he used to be, but he remains a towering (and feared) figure in the buyout world.

Perelman has been married five expensive times (and has a gaggle of kids to show for it). He and his first wife, Faith Golding, who funded Perelman's wheeling and dealing in the early days, divorced in 1983 after she discovered he was having an affair with their florist. (She received $8 million as part of the settlement.) He married his second wife, gossip columnist Claudia Cohen, in 1985. She earned an $80 million pay day when they divorced in 1994. Perelman met his third wife, Patricia Duff, while he was still married to Cohen. Following Duff's quickie conversion to Judaism, the couple married in 1994, but split up 18 months later and ultimately divorced in 1997. (More on that below.) Perelman married wife No. 4, Ellen Barkin, in 2000 before calling it quits in 2006. The split was his second-nastiest: Perelman had her escorted out of his home by his security staff and she later auctioned off the jewelry Perelman had given her for more than $20 million. These days he's hitched to psychiatrist Anna Chapman.

Perelman and Duff's divorce was one of the messiest of the decade and a Post and Daily News staple for months. Naturally, the battle was about money: Perelman initially proposed a $30 million settlement, but Duff wasn't satisfied and the couple spent more than $15 million on lawyers as they battled it out in court and in the press, a process that took more than two years. Perelman was portrayed as nasty, controlling and cheap—particularly after he suggested Duff could feed their daughter on a budget of $3 a day; Duff, who argued she needed $4,400 a day to care for their daughter, was portrayed as a gold digger. Perelman eventually prevailed in court and won primary custody of Caleigh, with Duff earning weekend visitation rights. [Image via Getty]