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 Holyfield files for divorce
Posted: Tuesday March 30, 1999 10:07 AM
FAYETTEVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- Heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield has filed for divorce, six months after a public admission that he fathered two children out of wedlock. Holyfield filed papers Friday in Fayette County Superior Court to dissolve his 2 1/2-year marriage with Janice Holyfield. The filing comes two weeks after Holyfield's boxing stature was tainted in a disputed draw with Lennox Lewis in a title unification bout. The court document said the marriage is irretrievably broken and there exists no possibility of reconciliation. The boxer seeks joint custody of the couple's 6-month-old son, Elijah, and a judgment that would allow him to keep "all of his separate property" and "an equitable portion of the marital property." Holyfield has nine children, including three with his first wife, Paulette, and five others with four women out of wedlock. Paulette Holyfield received a divorce settlement of about $4 million in 1991 after six years of marriage. Infidelity was the basis of that divorce. Holyfield has grossed $205 million in ring purses during his professional career, including $92 million for his past five fights during his marriage to the former Dr. Janice Itson, whom he met at a religious crusade in Philadelphia in 1994. The couple also built a $15 million, 54,000-square-foot mansion in Fayette County south of Atlanta. Holyfield has been living in the mansion while his wife and the baby have lived in the boxer's older home next door since his public admission of infidelity last year.
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