Bill Marriott, who is the Marriott Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board, is being sued by his son John Marriott III who claims his father disowned him, forced him from the Marriott business, and wrote him out of the family’s $3B trust…all because he got a divorce. The Marriott family are Mormons and divorce is strongly discouraged by the religion. The NY Post reports that Bill Marriott also disowned his son. John Marriott III is also suing his Uncle Richard since he shares control with Bill over the trust established by their parents who started the company.
“This is really tough. To sue my dad and my uncle is the last thing I want to do, and the last thing I ever expected to do. I’ve always looked up to them, and I’ve always trusted them, and they’ve always supported me and been there for me. And I love them,” said John during an interview with Washingtonian at his Georgetown home. “Since the divorce, my dad has tried to take away everything that I’ve earned and everything that my grandparents left for me, basically to punish me for not maintaining the image of the perfect Mormon family.”
John says that when he told his parents of his plans to divorce his wife, his father told him “You’re leaving the family.”
From that point, his father unleashed “a relentless flaying,” says the lawsuit, denying John access to his trust and threatening to expose John’s history of substance abuse if he did not resign from the board of Marriott International. The complaint says Bill Marriott knew about John’s substance abuse for years and tolerated it “so long as it did not surface and cause damage to the family’s all important image of probity and rectitude.”
Very interesting full-read from the Washingtonian here.
Marriott brand history here.
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