Stephen Hendry's huge net worth, actress girlfriend and brutal split from 'devastated' ex-wife

Wales Online

04-05-2025

Stephen Hendry's huge net worth, actress girlfriend and brutal split from 'devastated' ex-wife
The snooker legend is part of the BBC commentary team for the 2025 World Championship final
Hendry and his partner Lauren Thundow
It's the final of the 2025 World Snooker Championship, with Mark Williams and Zhao Xintong going head-to-head for the title.
Welshman Williams is in the hunt for his fourth world title, having become the oldest player in the tournament's history to reach the final after beating world number one Judd Trump in the semi-finals. Meanwhile, Zhao could become the first amateur to win the title in the Crucible era, as well as the first ever Chinese world champion, having returned to the sport last year following a lengthy ban.
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The final, which started on Sunday afternoon and will conclude on Monday, is being shown on the BBC with a panel of expert pundits and commentators casting their eye over the action.
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Among them is Scottish snooker legend Stephen Hendry, who knows a thing or two about winning World Championships having won seven of them over the course of his illustrious career, sharing the record with Ronnie O'Sullivan.
One of the most successful players in the sport's history, he won a total of 36 ranking titles - including five consecutive Masters titles between 1989 and 1993 - and spent nine seasons as world number one.
However, while Hendry will go down in history as one of the all-time snooker greats for his performances at the table, the 56-year-old has seen his personal life make headlines in recent years. From his "devastating" split from his ex-wife to moving on with an actress nearly 20 years younger than him, here's what you need to know.
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Huge net worth
Hendry turned professional aged just 16 and spent the next 27 years at the top of the sport, before coming out of retirement in 2020 and spending another four years competing.
His illustrious, trophy-laden career saw him bank £5.6 million in prize money, winning £530,000 in the 1994/95 season - the equivalent of around £1.35 million today.
Unsurprisingly then, the 56-year-old has an estimated net worth of around £13.5 million.
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Girlfriend ban
After bursting onto the scene as a teenager, Hendry saw his first manager, Ian Doyle, take him under his wing.
While Doyle helped to shape a future champion, however, he often gave the Scottish star "the hairdryer treatment", handing out some harsh telling-offs and even banning him from seeing his girlfriend at the time.
Hendry had started dating Amanda Tart after they met at Pontins when he was 16, and they went on to get married in 1995. However, in the early days of their relationship, Doyle disapproved and feared that she would distract him from his snooker career.
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'I often got the hairdryer treatment in the dressing rooms,' Hendry told The Times. 'He'd come in and say, 'You're f***ing useless, you've not practised this week, you're lazy'.
'In the early days, when I was dating my ex-wife, she lived down south and he said things like, 'You think you're going to see her next month? No you're not'.
"It was pretty full on," he added. We followed the same mould as Steve [Davis] and Barry Hearn. I didn't socialise with other players. I was there to win.'
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However, Hendry and Amanda's relationship continued and they married shortly after he won his fifth world title, before having two sons - Blaine and Carter - together.
But the snooker star later admitted in an interview on The Tommy Tiernan Show that he hasn't been the father he would have liked to have been to his children, due to the nature of his job.
'No, I probably haven't been the best, because in sport I think you make sacrifices to get to the top," he said. 'Family and relationships can be difficult and can be sacrificed because I was all about being the best in snooker and snooker was all that mattered.
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'So that makes you a very selfish person and I think it takes that sort of special person to get to the top in an individual sport. When you look at most top sportsmen who have dominated sports, most of them pretty much all are divorced or have been divorced.'
Brutal split from 'devastated' ex-wife
In fact, Hendry went on to get divorced from Amanda in 2014, following 19 years of marriage.
The snooker ace revealed in his autobiography, Me and The Table, how he told his wife their marriage was over after confessing to having feelings for someone else, admitting she was left "devastated" by the bombshell decision.
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"Driving back from a shopping trip, my wife Mandy asks me what's wrong," he wrote. "She assumes it's money-related. I tell her it isn't. Then she tells me to stop the car, saying that we're not going an inch further until I tell her what's going on.
"So I do. I tell her that I have feelings for someone else. She is shocked and devastated."
Hendry then moved on with children's entertainer and actress Lauren Thundow, who was just 26 when they met, with the Scottish star aged 45 at the time.
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"I first met Lauren when she was selling merchandise after a Legends snooker exhibition," he explained in his autobiography.
"She's attractive and we smile at each other but I think nothing of it. Gradually, we start to say, 'Hi', and share a bit of small talk.
"I would never be one to go striding over to any woman who caught my eye – after all. I'm the person who got to know my wife's parents before I plucked up the courage to talk to her. As time goes on, we chat more often. It's becoming clear we have a connection."