The VERY unusual love life and SIX marriages of the man who just became the richest in the world… meet his latest Chinese wife

She once described him as ‘the most charismatic man’ she’d ever met but lamented their marriage was a ‘roller coaster’ ride. And, after seven years, Adda Quinn decided to get off.

Key to their marital problems, according to newspaper reports, was his financial instability and his inability to stay in one job.

So one wonders how the first Mrs. Larry Ellison might be feeling this week after her ex overtook Elon Musk to become the world’s richest man when his already massive fortune skyrocketed by $101 billion in a single day.

No doubt, suitably sanguine one would imagine. 

Their union, after all, was many decades ago and Ellison, a two-time college drop-out, is long established as one of the most successful of all the tech bros and a billionaire playboy, philanthropist, and friend to the great and good to boot.

It was on Wednesday that the 81-year-old co-founder of Oracle, where he now serves as chairman, saw his total net worth rise to $393 billion when the computer software and database behemoth reported a 36 percent surge in shares.

Oracle’s total valuation now sits at $958 billion, according to Bloomberg, with Ellison being the company’s largest shareholder as of Wednesday.

While the bulk of Ellison’s net worth is tied up in the database software company, he is also a stakeholder in Musk’s Tesla company, which is a delicious irony given Musk’s total net worth is firmly ranked in second place at $385 billion.

Ellison is intensely private, a notable absence from Trump’s – to whom he is close – inauguration earlier this year unlike his fellow tech bros and contenders for the world’s richest man title – Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook and Meta platforms.

He rarely gives interviews and is reported to have only tweeted twice in his life, despite being a major investor in Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now X.

‘You won’t find people to talk to for this [profile],’ one journalist attempting to demystify the tycoon was told. ‘He doesn’t like to be in the public eye.’

Which is a pity, because Larry Ellison has a fascinating lifestyle. 

He’s a qualified pilot, a skilled yachtsman with his own sailing team and a tennis enthusiast who owns the second largest outdoor stadium in the world at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in California. His property folio includes the island of Lanai in Hawaii.

Politically, he was a backer of Bill Clinton before embracing Trump during his first term.

Even more intriguing, however, is Ellison’s marital history. He’s clocked up six marriages and five divorces – with a new wife, Jolin Zhu, who hails from China and is 47 years his junior (although the couple themselves have yet to confirm they are hitched).

So who are the women who’ve enjoyed the title Mrs Larry Ellison and what do we know of the current holder?

Let’s wind back to Adda Quinn. 

The couple met at an employment agency in Berkeley, California, where Ellison was reportedly looking for work as a programmer. They married in 1967 and parted in 1974. 

In a blog post, Quinn concedes that ‘if I have five minutes of fame, it is probably having been married seven years to Larry Ellison who started Oracle Corp’. 

Post-divorce, she enjoyed a successful career in the environmental sector and a long and happy second marriage.

In late 1976, Ellison met Stanford University student Nancy Wheeler, and they married shortly after. That same year in 1977, Ellison and two partners formed Software Development Laboratories Inc., the company that would become Oracle.

The marriage lasted just eighteen months, and Wheeler sold her interest in the new company back to Ellison for just $500 – a small investment that, had she retained it, would have made Wheeler one of the richest women in the world today.

Ellison’s third marriage in 1983 was to Oregon native Barbara Boothe. 

She worked as a receptionist at his company, and they had a son and a daughter who have both gone on to success in their own right as entrepreneurs. 

David Ellison is the founder and former CEO of Skydance Media and was recently appointed the CEO and Chairman of Paramount Skydance Media. 

Meanwhile, their daughter Megan Ellison is a Hollywood producer whose work includes the films American Hustle, Her, Phantom Thread and Zero Dark Thirty.

Sadly, this was another short-lived union, and Barbara and Ellison lived together at their home in Woodside, California, for just three years until their divorce in 1986, when Megan was four months old.

However, the pair have publicly maintained an amicable relationship in the years since their split – and Boothe continues to use her married last name – Barbara Boothe Ellison.

In 2001, the avid equestrian purchased a 200-acre property in Wilsonville, Oregon, for $2.995 million known as Wild Turkey Farm. 

She spent the next decade rebuilding the farm – which boasts a 10,000-square-foot main house, an indoor horse training arena, a 2,500-square-foot manager’s residence and an infinity pool – before finally moving in 2011, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

The ranch has five bedrooms, four fireplaces and six bathrooms in the main house, along with 33 pastures, five barns, 97 stalls and an outdoor vet lab. 

Boothe Ellison listed the farm in August 2021 for $19.5 million, but the sale seemingly didn’t go through as she is still listed as the owner on Wild Turkey Farm’s website.

She continues to be ‘actively involved in every aspect of the farm’, the website states, and is ‘fueled by her strong passion for horses and a commitment to producing quality athletes with especially great minds.’

Wife No. 4, Melanie Craft, a graduate of Oberlin College, Ohio, and future romantic novelist, first crossed paths with Ellison at a restaurant in San Francisco. At the time, she was engaged to her first boyfriend of nine years.

Initially it was a friendship before love blossomed, and Craft called off her engagement. She was Ellison’s girlfriend for eight years before they finally tied the knot in 2003. 

She was 34 years old to Ellison’s 59.

Their star-studded wedding took place at Ellison’s estate in Woodside, California, where Apple co-founder Steve Jobs served as the wedding photographer.

The Ellisons were regulars at public events and galas throughout their relationship but called time on their relationship after six years of marriage, divorcing in 2010. 

Their parting is believed to have been amicable as Craft continued to accompany Ellison on public outings, including Oracle’s annual Open World conference, amid their divorce proceedings.

Shortly after finalizing his divorce from Craft in 2010, the billionaire embarked on his next high-profile relationship with Ukrainian model, actress and animal rights advocate Nikita Kahn.

Kahn was only 19 years old when she reportedly met Ellison, then 66, after she moved from Ukraine to California. 

She made her acting debut as Bruce Willis’ girlfriend in the 2011 action-thriller Catch .44. In 2013, Ellison opened the Malibu restaurant ‘Nikita,’ named after his girlfriend, though it closed just 17 months later.

The couple were pictured at many high-profile events together over the years, including at a White House state dinner in September 2015 in honor of China’s President Xi.

However, their decade-long relationship came crashing down eventually. And while Ellison and Kahn never publicly confirmed their marriage, a previous report from the Daily Mail revealed that she had split from the billionaire in December 2016 following a marriage that lasted less than 18 months.

Divorce records obtained by the Daily Mail stated the split was uncontested and that Kahn was provided with a settlement, but the full details have been kept private.

Ellison filed for divorce in November 2019, and their legal proceedings concluded in May 2020.

In December last year, Khan briefly sparked romance rumors herself when she was spotted at an airport on the Greek island of Mykonos kissing luxury real estate agent and reality TV star Mauricio Umansky.

She is still acting – most recently starred in the 2024 film Crescent City with Alec Baldwin – and is a prolific sharer of snaps of her glamorous photoshoots and luxury travels on Instagram, where she has 6,560 followers.

The actress/model also uses her social media platform to be an outspoken advocate for animals. She’s supported wildlife conservation through the San Diego Zoo’s Nikita Kahn Rhino Rescue Center, as well as the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Khan is also the founder of interior design company Solagio and has a master’s degree in interior design and architecture from UCLA.

And the current Mrs. Ellison? After he was named the richest man in the world on Wednesday, all eyes turned to Ellison’s mystery new love, Chinese native Jolin Zhu.

The 34-year-old arrived in the United States in 2010 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in international studies at the University of Michigan.

She has known Ellison since at least 2018, when he was still legally married to Kahn. Zhu was pictured sitting with Ellison on consecutive days at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament at Indian Wells in March of that year.

In fact, Zhu has been photographed in public with her now-husband on just three occasions – all taken during the BNP Paribas Tennis Open in Indian Wells, California, in 2018 and 2019.

She was thrust firmly into the spotlight in December last year when it was revealed that she played a role in the multi-million-dollar deal that saw star quarterback Bryce Underwood, 17, ditch Louisiana State University for Zhu’s alma mater, the Michigan Wolverines.

The news of Ellison’s sixth marriage was – perhaps inadvertently – disclosed by Champions Circle, a University of Michigan alumni organization that focuses on supporting student athletes.

The statement, signed off by chairman Nate Forbes, said: ‘We are very excited to keep Bryce home in Michigan as he continues to build his legacy.’

Forbes added: ‘I want to personally thank Larry and his wife Jolin who were instrumental in making this happen by providing Champions Circle with invaluable guidance and financial resources.

The statement also included a note from Zhu herself, which read: ‘I am a big fan of the University of Michigan and Michigan Athletics.

‘We are excited to support our student-athletes, so they can go compete at the highest level in college sports.’

It’s a fair bet that Michigan students can expect more largesse in the years to come if the latest spouse of the world’s wealthiest man has her way.