Hailing from Rayville, Louisiana is 'Big Cat' Ernie Ladd who was one of the first Black-American heels in professional wrestling back in the early 1960s. Surprisingly, wrestling was not Ladd's original calling as he was also a professional football player and was drafted 15th overall by the San Diego Chargers in 1961. Ladd worked as a wrestler during the offseason but on the field won the AFL title in 1963 and also played for the Houston Oilers and Kansas City Chiefs before retiring from football in 1968.
'Big Cat' Ernie Ladd's cocky interviewing style and dirty in-ring tricks helped him become a household name for wrestling fans everywhere while he held titles in the National Wrestling Federation (NWF), National Hollywood Wrestling Association (NWA) and the World Wrestling Association (WWA). Unfortunately, Big Cat lost his battle with colon cancer at the age of 68 in 2007. Ernie Ladd was and still is one of the most cherished and personable two-sport athletes in wrestling history.
In the US, the average spent on an engagement ring is $6,351 but how do these figures compare with our favorite celebrities? The answer: they don't. As the diamonds increase in size, obviously the price tag appreciates handsomely. Well, we've compiled a list of some of the most expensive celebrity engagement rings.
This list would be nothing without Kim Kardashian's rock from Kanye, which clocked in at around a cool $4 million when he presented it to her at his stadium proposal in October 2013. Unfortunately, though, the 15-carat sparkler was among the jewelry stolen during Kim's infamous Paris robbery in 2016.
Jennifer Lopez's husband Alex Rodriguez popped the question to the singer, and he really had to step it up to outshine her previous engagement rings—and wow, did he deliver. The baseball star proposed with a reported 15-20 carat emerald cut stunner set on a platinum band that was estimated at $5 million. It's getting harder and harder not to be fooled by the rocks she's got...
It should come as no surprise that Beyonce herself totes one of the world's highest-valued diamonds. Weighing in at 24 carats, Jay reportedly paid around $5 million (now worth $6,047,013) for Bey's flashy emerald-cut ring back in 2008.
Anna Kournikova's relationship Latin music artist Enrique Iglesias since the early '00s has been one of the most lowkey celebrity relationships to date. That is with the exception of her $5,400,000 engagement ring that made headlines in 2004. Now, worth a whopping $7,443,596, the giant yellow stunner was spotted on Kournikova even during her tennis matches. (Pssst! It's rumored she got two rings from Iglesias. Prior to this, she sported an equally giant pink pear-shaped ring.)
Clocking in as the most expensive celebrity engagement ring, Mariah Carey's 35-carat bling from ex-fiancé James Packer reportedly cost a cool $10 million. And the "Obsessed" singer seemed to be a bit, well, obsessed with the jewel. She continued to wear the ring over a year post-breakup, and didn't part ways with the bauble until May 2018, selling it to a Los Angeles jeweler for $2.1 million.