Stephen Hendy's huge fortune, actress friend and brutal separation of “destroyed” ex-wife

The Snooker legend is part of the BBC comment team for the final of the 2025 World Cup

It is the final of the 2025 World Snooker Championship, with Mark Williams and Zhao Xintong standing against the title.

Welshman Williams is looking for his fourth world championship title after becoming the oldest player in the history of the tournament to reach the final after defeating Judd Trump in the semi -finals. In the meantime, ZHAO could be the first amateur to win the title in the Tiegel age, as well as the first Chinese world champion to return to sport last year after a long ban.

The finale, which started on Sunday afternoon and ends on Monday, is shown on the BBC with a group of experts and commentators who keep an eye on the action.

Among them is the Scottish snooker legend Stephen Hendry, who knows one or two things about winning the world championships, who have won seven of them in the course of his famous career and share the record with Ronnie O'Sullivan.

As one of the most successful players in the history of sport, he won a total of 36 ranking titles – including five consecutive Masters titles between 1989 and 1993 – and spent nine seasons as number one in the world.

While Hendry, as one of the snooker greats of all time, will go down in history for his appearances at the table, the 56-year-old has made his personal life headlines in recent years. From his “devastating” separation from his ex-wife to a younger actress almost 20 years old than he have to know what you need to know.

Huge fortune

Hendry was only 16 years old and spent the next 27 years at the head of sport before retiring in 2020 and was present for another four years.

In his famous, trophy -charged career, he became £ 5.6 million in prize money in the 1994/95 £ 5.6 million and won 530,000 pounds – the equivalent of around £ 1.35 today.

It is not surprising that the 56-year-old has an estimated net assets of round £ 13.5 million.

Friendship

After Hendry came into the scene as a teenager as a teenager, he saw his first manager, Ian Doyle, under his wings.

While Doyle contributed to forming a future champion, he often gave the Scottish star “The Hair -Flocker Treatment”, distributed some hard statements and even forbade him to see his girlfriend at the time.

Hendry had started to date with Amanda Tart after met at the age of 16 in Pontins, and they married 1995. In the early days of their relationship, Doyle disapproved and feared that she would distract him from his snooker career.

“I often got the hair dryers in the changing rooms,” said Hendry the Times. “He had come in and said: 'You are useless, you didn't practice this week, you are lazy.'

“In the early days, when I was with my ex-wife, she lived in the south and he said things like 'You think you will see her next month?

“It was pretty full,” he added. We followed the same form as Steve [Davis] and Barry Hearn. I didn't get in touch with other players. I was there to win. “

The relationship between Hendry and Amanda continued and they got married shortly after he won his fifth world championship before they had two sons – Blaine and Carter – together.

But the Snooker star later admitted in an interview in the Tommy Tierean show that he was not the father whom he would have liked to have been with his children because of his work.

“No, I was probably not the best, because in sports I think they are making victims to get to the top,” he said. “Family and relationships can be difficult and sacrificed because it was all about being the best in snooker and snooker.

“This makes them a very selfish person and I think this type of special person needs to get to the top in individual sport. If you look at most top athletes who have dominated sport, most of them have been divorced or were divorced.”

Brutal separation of “destroyed” ex-wife

In fact, Hendry was divorced by Amanda in 2014 after 19 years of marriage.

The Snooker -ace revealed in its autobiography, Me and the tableAs he said to his wife that her marriage was over after he had stood feelings for someone else and admitted that she was “destroyed” by the decision of the bomb.

“When I returned from a shopping spree, my wife Mandy asks me what's going on,” he wrote. “She assumes that it is connected to money. I tell her that it is not. Then she tells me that I should stop the car and say that we do not go on centimeters until I tell her what's going on.

“So I do that. I tell her that I have feelings for someone else. She is shocked and destroyed on the ground.”

Hendry then continued with the entertainer and actress of Children's entertainer Lauren Thundow, who was just 26 when they met, and the Scottish star at the age of 45 at that time.

“I met Lauren for the first time when they were sold after a Legends Snooker exhibition,” he said in his autobiography.

“She is attractive and we smile on each other, but I don't think anything about it. Gradually we say to say:” Hello “and share a little small talk.

“I would never be one who noticed a woman who noticed me – finally. I am the person who got to know my wife's parents before I have used up the courage to speak to her. Over time, we often chat. It becomes clear that we have a connection.”