by then i had given the billion dollars to the u.n. time warner executives restructured the company. ted was shut out. they offered me an extension on my contract. at $1 million a year and i said, what are my duties going to be. they said, you won t have any duties. ted got shafted, and it hurt. the idea that the guy who built all of it was no longer responsible for overseeing it, mind boggling. you were quoted as saying, for the first time in my life, i had been fired. that s right. none of us in our wildest dreams in that moment knew it could end like it did. it s been very painful experience obviously. because i really loved the company. to make matters worse, during the tumultuous merger, ted had been dealing with even more pain. the death of his marriage. jane fonda says to you, i want a divorce. yeah. oh, yeah. it was a with everything
history of journalism. to this day. to this day. ten years after launching, cnn had become the most trusted news outlet in the world. this is cnn. and ted was time magazine s man of the year. and i was only one of two people whose ever been on the cover of time magazine for one thing, and on the cover of sports illustrated for another. did it ever enter your mind that you would have this enormous success? i m sure i must have thought about it. dreamed about it. becoming a billionaire? certainly before it happened, i knew it was going to, because momentum was there. the momentum was there. in 1996, ted sold his media empire for $8 billion. and became the largest shareholder of time warner, the biggest communications company in the world.
get money for the u.n. he shot to fame in the charity world 21 years ago when he made a shocking and historic billion dollar pledge to the united nations, creating the u.n. foundation. came in the dining room and ted was way over in the other corner and he yells out, hey, worth, you want to run this foundation? ted immediately had in mind that he wanted to focus on at least two issues, women s reproductive health and population. in 2001 dead created the nuclear threat initiative. he thinks everybody s his responsibility. he enlisted senator sam nunn to join him in the weapons of mass destruction. making sure we have everything in place to secure nuclear materials. and over the years his own turner foundation has awarded countless grants. ted has allowed us to give over $363 million in order to
his solution buy a baseball team. if we can t do it, nobody can the braves broadcast nationwide on tbs became america s team. come see the big league team with little league spirit. hey, we re in atlanta. we didn t see the future like ted did. innovative businessmen create markets. soup station tbs. he created one by putting us on tv. he knew eventually we would play better baseball but we need to get this product out there and play that market. when we bought them in 1976, they were terrible. we finished last many more times than finishing first in baseball. but ted could even make the best even out after bad situation. ted came into the clubhouse and why you would across the room, murph, don t worry about that slump you re in. you re saving me hundreds of
he told me that he had just heard that jane fonda was getting a divorce from her husband and he was thinking of asking her for a date. though the ink was barely dry on her divorce papers, ted made a move. i heard this booming voice, is it true? i said, is what true? you and hayden, are you divorcing? yes. he said, you want to go out? she said, i m devastated and i don t want to talk about going out. i said, i m in the middle of a nervous breakdown. call me in six months. i thought, this guy is crazy. this is not what i want to hear right now. i called her six months to the day. she agreed to have dinner with me. it was love at first sight. the love birds tied the knot at avalon plantation, ted s property outside monticello,