
Stephen Hendry's huge net worth, actress girlfriend and brutal split from 'devastated' ex-wife
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.
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.
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.
Article continues below
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.
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.
'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.'
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.
'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.
"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.
Article continues below
"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."
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


BBC News
18 minutes ago
- BBC News
🎧 30 years on
Some 30 years have passed since Peter Reid took charge of Sunderland to usher in a booming time in the club's team at BBC Radio Newcastle's Total Sport have had the man himself on the show and you can listen to the special episode here.


The Herald Scotland
21 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Dor Turgeman told to make Rangers transfer by ex-Celtic flop
And Berkovic - who had a disastrous spell at Parkhead after Celtic splashed out a then-huge sum of £5.75 million for the Israeli international back in 1999 under John Barnes - reckons Rangers would be a good option for Turgeman. Berkovic said: "Rangers and Celtic are both big clubs who play in the Champions League often... but also in a very boring league. Read more: "But the big difference between going to Scotland and say somewhere like FC Copenhagen is that Rangers and Celtic are on British TV every week. "So if you are a star for them, you are watched by English Premier League clubs every week. That's the difference between Scottish and Danish football. "The problem would be to adapt. I can give you examples of dozens of our players who moved to Europe, America and Japan... and disappeared. "It's not easy for an Israeli player to play in zero degrees for six or seven months. It's not easy to live there."


BreakingNews.ie
22 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Annie Mac: ‘I still struggle sometimes being the centre of attention'
Few people are as synonymous with dance music as Annie Mac. The Irish DJ spent 17 years on the airwaves at BBC Radio 1 and this month returns once again to perform at Glastonbury Festival. But that doesn't mean she's immune to insecurity during big gigs. 'You go through so much in your head when you DJ,' says the 46-year-old. 'Depending on your state of mind, you can really go through different journeys in there – self doubt, self flagellation, a sense of overthinking everything. Advertisement 'And just being very aware of your own thoughts because you're alone in your head surrounded by thousands of people.' Back when the Dublin-born artist – real name Annie Macmanus – started on the scene, the DJ landscape was very different. 'DJing has changed quite dramatically since the Noughties, when superstar DJs came in and DJs suddenly became rock stars,' says the mum-of-two, who is married to fellow DJ Toddla T. 'When you're standing on a stage and you have 3,000 people watching you essentially press buttons, there's a sense of expectation there that I don't always feel I can fulfil in terms of me as a performer. (Annie Mac/I Came By Train, Trainline/PA) 'I always kind of struggled, and still struggle sometimes, with that aspect of being the centre of attention for thousands of people when, essentially, I'm just on the decks.' Advertisement At this year's Glastonbury, Macmanus takes on two sets, one at the Glade and a late-night slot at Arcadia – and she'll be joining a group of artists taking the train to Worthy Farm, as part of Trainline's I Came By Train campaign ('I would normally drive down and drive home, and there's just no need'). In her mid-30s, Macmanus stopped drinking when DJing and it's had a profound effect. 'You really hear your own thoughts very loudly,' she says. Compared to when she was still drinking during sets, 'in that way that drink does, [you're] completely uninhibited. 'I was way more of a performer when I drank, way more loose physically – I would throw myself into the crowd regularly, I loved to crowd surf. I would get on the microphone more. 'Whereas now, I really try and let the music do the talking as much as possible. I still get on the mic now and again, [but] I do feel like my sets are better now. They're more considered.' Advertisement It's been one of many changes made on her wellness journey of recent years. 'I think my lifestyle as a whole took its toll on my wellbeing. Ironically, that wasn't really in my 20s as much as it was in my 30s, after I had kids. I was determined to crack on and be busier than ever. (Ian West/PA) 'There was a period, you don't realise it at the time, but between 38 and 40ish, I was just spent – really, really tired and really burnt out. 'I had a lot of work going on, and a lot of pressure within that work to succeed and then alongside that, running a household and trying to bring up kids. 'My time at Radio 1 was really fast and furious and so intense in a way that I still haven't begun to process.' Advertisement Macmanus left the station in 2021, launched a podcast, Changes, and has authored two books, while still DJing at clubs and festivals. But the shift in career allowed her to focus on her family – and herself. 'I was very lucky in my position that I could make the decision to leave Radio 1 when I did and pursue a different career that could fit into a smaller group of hours that I could dictate. [There's] that psychological difference of being able to make work choices for yourself as opposed to having a boss,' says the DJ, whose shows included Future Sounds, Switch and Radio 1's Dance Party with Annie Mac. 'You get caught in the rat race, you go along with the industry standard of 'in order to succeed you must get bigger, you must sell more tickets, you must have more listeners'. 'Ducking out of that has also been huge and I realised I can succeed on my own terms, and I can redefine what success is to me. It's not so much about sales and views and how much I'm exposed to the world, how many people are seeing what I do – it's way more about how I feel in my head, and how I serve my family, my friends, my community, and how wide-reaching my interests are.' Advertisement View this post on Instagram A post shared by Annie Mac (@anniemacmanus) Since leaving radio her 'life has changed so dramatically', she says. 'The last four years have been a real opening up. I've stopped exposing myself so much in a public way, I've kind of come into myself. 'When you are somewhere like Radio 1 for that long it does form part of your identity. When you leave there's a sense of floundering, of 'who am I now if I'm not that 'new music' person?' It's been confusing at times but I'm glad it's happened because it forces you to turn the mirror on yourself a bit. 'The one thing I've learned from everyone I know who's done anything like I have is, I've never known anyone to then go, 'OK, you know what? I think I'm going to go back into the rat race now.' Fitness has played an important part in her lifestyle-shift too, having found football in her 40s ('I'm obsessed,' she says), and she now plays in a competitive league. 'What I realised upon taking up football is that I had internalised ageism, where I didn't believe I would be able to play with a competitive league team at the age of 46 – and my body has proven me wrong. That's been so cool because I've had to switch the voices off in my head and just let my body do the work. And I've never felt so grateful to be able-bodied and to be able to to play like this.' She teams it with home Peloton workouts and is 'mad into weight training'. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Annie Mac (@anniemacmanus) Plus, 'since really hitting the perimenopausal era, I've started to take supplements, I take multivitamins for over 45-year-old women. I always take magnesium at night – I think that's had quite a profound effect on my life because it's changed my sleeping entirely.' Macmanus says she's 'way more conscious' of how she needs to exercise for her mental wellbeing, as well as physical. 'There's a real revelation that happens to you when you start changing your outlook on exercise. For me, it was quite late in life. I'd always exercised to be thin and lose weight, and when you start to gain muscle and you start to feel strong, and you start getting to an age where you really notice how being strong changes your everyday, it's quite huge. I love that feeling of being able and being capable of doing things. 'I think there's a slow shift in public consciousness with regards to women and weight training, you can really feel it now, especially older women. I would really like to be weight training when I'm in my 70s.'