Like many other celebrity marriages before, they just don’t last. So this recent celebrity split between Madonna and Guy Ritchie is another notch in the celebrity divorce rate belt.

The star is said to have hired Fiona Shackleton, the lawyer who represented Sir Paul McCartney in his recent divorce battle.

As the McCartney case demonstrated, Miss Shackleton is adept at protecting the fortunes of her star clients, with the former Beatle giving up only £24.3 million of his £825m fortune to ex-wife Heather Mills.

Madonna’s wealth is estimated at £300 million and she is not believed to have signed a pre-nuptial agreement before her wedding to Ritchie in December 2000.

Ritchie, the film director whose previous credits include Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, could walk away from a divorce with up to £50 million, according to legal experts.

While he remained behind closed doors at the couple’s Wiltshire mansion this week, a grim-faced Madonna, 49, was spotted alone in New York without her wedding ring.

She was pictured driving away from her Manhattan apartment in her SUV, eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

The rumour mill swung into action several months ago, with claims that the couple effectively live separate lives.

Their last joint public appearance was at the Cannes Film Festival last month, where Madonna was promoting her documentary, I Am Because We Are. Ritchie, 39, appeared deeply uncomfortable as they posed together on the red carpet, and they barely exchanged a word.

The pair had been expected to delay the announcement of their separation until the end of Madonna’s forthcoming Sticky & Sweet Tour, which begins in October.

But the disclosure that lawyers have been consulted has led to worldwide speculation about the split, and the couple are likely to make a formal statement sooner rather than later.

According to the Daily Mirror, Ritchie has reluctantly agreed to the divorce.

The couple have spent most of their married life in London, sharing a £7 million home close to Oxford Street with their children - Lourdes, 11, Rocco, seven, and David, two. Madonna adopted David from a Malawian orphanage in 2006, and was granted permanent custody of the little boy only last month. Lourdes is the singer’s daughter by Carlos Leon, her former fitness instructor.

A spokesman for Madonna refused to comment.

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