World’s Most Expensive Engagement Rings

Chances are, if you are looking to buy a diamond engagement ring, you have some money set aside for what is going to be one of the most important jewelry purchases of you life. Chances are, though, that you haven’t set aside the same kind of money that Jay-Z did when he set out to buy his secret fiancée Beyonce what he called “the most expensive engagement ring in the world.” That ring, an 8-carat flawless diamond set in a diamond-embellished platinum setting, is rumored to be worth a cool $5 million. It’s such an expensive engagement ring that people wondered if they were really even engaged, because Beyonce could not leave the house with that ring without a security guard! But is that R&B duo’s giant engagement ring really the most expensive engagement ring of all time? Let’s see how Beyonce’s ring stacks up against some other extremely expensive rings:

8. Perhaps he was trying to erase the memory of his first marriage from the mind of the public, but when Prince Charles proposed to his second wife, Camilla Parker, he popped the question with an expensive engagement ring worthy of his station. With an emerald cut center stone and a total of six diamond baguettes, the heirloom Art Deco ring is valued at $1 million.

7. They may have broken up hours before they were supposed to wed in September 2003, but celebrity couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were known for one of the most whirlwind romances (and worst movies) that Hollywood has ever seen. J-Lo had to sell her expensive engagement ring, a 6.1 carat radiant-cut pink diamond from Harry Winston that is said to be worth between $1.5 and $2 million.

6. Bad boy movie star turned devout Scientologist Tom Cruise may not have known that his fiancee Katie Holmes used to daydream about marrying him when she was a teenager, but he must have known that the expensive engagement ring he chose for her, an Edwardian style oval diamond, was worth a cool one-and-a-half million.

5. Eyebrows may have raised around the world when Michael Douglas proposed to Catherine Zeta Jones, who is exactly 25 years his junior. But those eyebrows probably raised even higher when people caught sight of the 10-carat marquise cut, antique diamond ring, one of the most expensive engagement rings in the world at the time at $2 million. (Although if those eyebrows are still raised now, 13 years later, those people may want to talk to their Botox technicians.)

4. When Former First Lady Jackie Kennedy accepted shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis’ marriage proposal in 1968, she also accepted a small gift of the world’s most expensive engagement ring (at the time)—a $2.6 million diamond ring with a whopping 40 carats of diamonds.

3. Anyone who knows anything about Donald Trump knows that he doesn’t do anything halfway, so it should come as no surprise that when The Donald popped the question to his third wife, Melania Krauss, he brought the goods in the form of a 15-carat emerald-cut diamond engagement ring—the most expensive engagement ring of its time at the low price of $3 million.

2. Although the relationship fizzled out after only five months, there was a point in 2005 when Paris Hilton and her fiancé (also named Paris!) were the talk of the town. But when everyone got tired of talking about the two Paris’, they could always speculate about who the next owner of the famed 24-carat emerald cut engagement ring would be. After all, when the engagement was called off, Paris (Hilton) auctioned it off for charity, where it sold for a record-breaking $4.7 million.

1. So does Beyonce get to claim the title of holder of the world’s most expensive engagement ring? In the literal sense—yes. Unless some billionaires are carrying on secret engagements with giant expensive engagement rings behind closed doors, those are the most expensive rings that have been actually used as engagement rings. But there are even pricier diamond rings that have sold at auction—for that, stay tuned for World’s Most Expensive, Part Two.