Ed Orgeron just must be living right.
Or has the music stopped?
The former national champion LSU football coach was awarded a $16.949 million buyout in October of 2021 by LSU athletic director Scott Woodward to stop coaching after he had fallen to 9-8 since a 15-0 season and national title in 2019.
He has not worked full time since the end of that 6-6 regular season, which made Orgeron 11-11 over his last two years. Hopefully, he saved his money, because he was just ordered to pay $8.13 million to his ex-wife, Kelly Orgeron, last Friday by the Louisiana Supreme Court. And Orgeron is not expected to win an appeal, according to legal analyst Franz Borghardt.
“I think a higher court would say that the Louisiana Supreme Court is in the best position to interpret Louisiana family law,” Borghardt told the Louisiana Radio Network. “I don’t know if the United States Supreme Court would even consider taking this.”
But after that 5-2 ruling against the former coach, he was captured on video dancing shirtless at a wedding over the weekend in New Orleans.
Former #LSU head coach Ed Orgeron was back in Louisiana last night to celebrate a former Tigers staffer’s wedding in New Orleans.
— Zack Nagy (@znagy20) June 29, 2025
Safe to say Coach O enjoyed himself back in the Bayou State on Saturday night. pic.twitter.com/E4NpuqgyWg
“Geaux Tigers!” Orgeron shouted during a toast at the wedding before dancing wildly to live music at a wedding reception. Next thing you know, off came his dress shirt, though his hands were covered by the sleeves clinging to his cufflinks.
DID LSU PAY ED ORGERON NEARLY $17 MILLION TO HUSH AND GO AWAY?
Orgeron filed for divorce of his wife of 22 years just 43 days after getting a contract extension and raise to $7 million a year early in 2020, shortly after winning the national championship. The extension included the $16.949 million buyout should he be fired without cause, which he was after a 5-5 season in 2020 and a 4-3 start in 2021. He stayed on to finish the regular season at 6-7 and began getting paid monthly installments from the buyout that December through June of 2023.
“The decision is grounded in a proper interpretation of Louisiana community property law,” Kelly Orgeron’s attorney Robert Lowe said after the ruling. “We are extremely pleased that Kelly Orgeron’s contribution to the couple’s success has been recognized by the Louisiana Supreme Court.”
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Jay McCallum wrote, “All of the sums Mr. Orgeron received post-community – salary, supplemental salary, incentive compensation or liquidated damages – were received by Mr. Orgeron for work he performed after the termination of the community property regime (the divorce). It is all his separate property.”
Not so fast, though. If Orgeron does indeed lose the $8.1 million of his now paid-out $16.949 million buyout to his former wife on appeal – if he gets one heard by the highest court – it may boil down to timing. Orgeron signed his extension just over a month before he filed for divorce, but the LSU Board of Supervisors did not approve it until AFTER the divorce proceedings had already started.
So the “community property regime” was likely still intact.
Oops.
Orgeron may not be able to dance around that one.
The case is pending an appeal.
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