Spider-Man, Zendaya and the Prenup that might not save them
This is a guest post by Salomé Ashenden. Salomé is a law graduate preparing for practice at the Bar. She holds a MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London and has experience working as a paralegal and supporting litigants in person. She is particularly interested in clarity, transparency, and public understanding of the justice system.
There’s a certain inevitability to it all. A celebrity couple so gleamingly perfect that social media decides it must immediately speculate about their prenup. Zendaya and Tom Holland could simply pose for a photograph and within minutes someone will tweet, “Bet they’ve got a watertight prenup.”
If only English law were as straightforward as the internet.
Hollywood loves the idea of the iron-clad prenup. That dramatic moment when the wealthy fiancé slides a document across the marble countertop and announces that their millions are ‘off limits’. But pronouncements like that work better on Netflix than in the Family Division.
Because here, across the Atlantic, prenups are not the last word. They aren’t even the first. They are simply part of a conversation in a system where the court remains very much in charge, guided by an amorphous concept known as ‘fairness’.
And in English law, fairness is a shape-shifter. It depends on the parties’ individual circumstances.
- The Hollywood fantasy vs English reality
Let’s imagine the rumours are true: Zendaya and Holland, flush from blockbuster success, preparing for an elegant ceremony and, as every commentator delights in predicting, a prenup.
In Los Angeles, that would more or less settle the matter.
Under the law of England and Wales, however, the position is rather more complex.
Since the landmark case of Radmacher v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42), which saw a German heiress argue that the prenup her French banker husband had signed should be taken seriously, English law has since treated prenups with somewhat of a new degree of respect. They still aren’t binding. But provided the agreement is fair and freely signed, judges now tend to give it decisive weight. As the Supreme Court put it in paragraph 75 of the judgment,
“The court should give effect to a nuptial agreement that is freely entered into by each party with a full appreciation of its implications unless in the circumstances prevailing it would not be fair to hold the parties to their agreement.”
If the prenup produces an outcome that undermines that, the court will discard it in roughly the time it takes for Twitter to declare it a ‘scandal’.
So, if Zendaya and Tom split, any English judge would ask:
“Did they each understand the agreement and enter into it freely?”
“Does their agreement meet their real needs?”
“Does it provide for the children?”
- The latest reminder that fairness can be unpredictable
A recent Supreme Court case, Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26, illustrates why prenups remain attractive and yet imperfect. The sums involved were eye-watering, but the central issue was deceptively familiar: “Should assets built up outside the marriage be shared?”
Much turned on how those assets had been treated during the relationship, whether they had become part of the family’s economic life or remained separate. This uncertainty is why prenups are increasingly used: not as handcuffs, but as headlights, signalling what the couple intended before life became complicated, emotional, or extremely expensive.
Yet even the clearest prenup cannot oust judges’ discretion to do what they – not necessarily the parties – think is right.
- So, what about our fictional Zendaya–Holland split?
If they drew up a careful, lawyer-vetted agreement, with full financial disclosure and no hint of coercion, an English judge would likely give it considerable weight.
If both remained wealthy, independent and financially secure, the court might well say, “Fine, stick to your agreement.”
But if one of them stepped back from the career treadmill, or paused filming to raise children, or became dependent in any real sense, the prenup would suddenly be less persuasive.
Fairness, after all, has a long reach. Longer even than Marvel’s box office receipts.
- The only real rule: prenups help, but fairness rules the day
So, if Zendaya and Tom arrived in the RCJ (Royal Courts of Justice) prenup in hand, would it be upheld?
Probably.
Possibly.
It depends.
Not the definitive clarity the tabloids prefer, but typical of English family law: nuanced, cautious, fact-specific, and quietly resistant to rigid formulas.
What the public rarely sees is that a prenup in England is not a guarantee but a starting point, one that can meaningfully shape what fairness demands. If the agreement is valid, the court will generally only ensure that each spouse’s real needs are met, rather than the more generously interpreted needs sometimes awarded in cases without a nuptial agreement. Recent decisions, including AH v BH [2024] EWFC 125, show that where a parent (typically the mother) has primary care of the children and few assets of her own, while the other parent is wealthy, she may still receive a home outright, but its size, the duration of any provision, and the level of spousal maintenance may all be noticeably reduced because of the prenup.
In other words, the agreement has persuasive force, but only for as long as it remains fair in light of how the couple’s lives actually unfold.
- And for the rest of us?
You don’t need a Marvel contract or a multimillion-pound endorsement deal to find prenups useful. Ordinary couples increasingly use them to protect children from previous relationships, ring-fence family businesses, or simply avoid the uncertainties laid bare in cases like Standish.
In that sense, celebrity prenup chatter performs an accidental public service: it invites the rest of us to look more closely at a system built on discretion, doctrine and, above all, a very English notion of fairness.
A system where not even Spider-Man’s sling ring can guarantee how your assets will be divided.
Image of Tom Holland: thanks Gage Skidmore at flickr