She never chased fame. She never gave interviews. And yet, Barbara Boothe’s fingerprints are on two of the most influential careers in modern Hollywood, one of Silicon Valley’s greatest success stories, and a 200-acre equestrian estate that sold for nearly $20 million. Not bad for someone most people couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
Barbara Boothe is best known as the third ex-wife of Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle Corporation and one of the wealthiest men on the planet. But reducing her to that label misses the fuller picture: she’s also the mother of Skydance CEO David Ellison and Annapurna Pictures founder Megan Ellison, and she built an independent life in Oregon’s horse country that has nothing to do with Silicon Valley money or Hollywood awards shows.
Who Is Barbara Boothe?
Barbara Boothe is an American businesswoman and equestrian entrepreneur best known as the former wife of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and as the mother of Hollywood producers David Ellison and Megan Ellison. Her exact birth date has never been confirmed publicly, a deliberate act of privacy that reflects her broader philosophy about personal boundaries and public life. Most estimates, based on publicly available context, put her in her early-to-mid 60s as of 2026.
She went to Lincoln High School for her early studies, then got accepted into Stanford University, one of the top colleges in the country, and completed her degree there. After graduating, she took a job that would change everything.
How Barbara Boothe Met Larry Ellison
Barbara met Larry Ellison while working as a receptionist at Relational Software Inc., the company that later became Oracle. It wasn’t a glamorous entry point into one of tech’s great love stories, but it was real. The two started a relationship while Oracle was still in its formative years, long before Ellison became a household name.
In January 1983, she gave birth to Ellison’s son, David. Sources indicate that she was already pregnant when she and Ellison got married. One account notes that she pressed Ellison to marry her before the baby turned one. The couple married later in 1983.
Three years after David’s birth, she had a second child: a daughter, Megan, born on January 31, 1986.
The Marriage and Divorce
Boothe’s tenure as Ellison’s wife, 1983 to 1986, coincided with a period of rapid change in Ellison’s career. As he was building his company into a tech powerhouse, Barbara Boothe was raising their two small children.
Just a few months after Megan was born, Barbara filed for divorce in April 1986. Their marriage lasted around three years.
Barbara was Ellison’s third wife, a fact that tends to get lost given his more headline-grabbing later relationships. After the marriage ended, Barbara Boothe chose a more private path. Rather than staying in celebrity conversations, she focused on family and equestrian interests.
Raising David and Megan Ellison
This is arguably Barbara Boothe’s most remarkable chapter, even if she’d never frame it that way herself. Barbara Boothe is the mother of David and Megan Ellison, both born during her marriage to Larry Ellison and raised primarily by her after the divorce.
David Ellison, born January 9, 1983, is an American film producer and the founder and CEO of Skydance Media. He studied film at the University of Southern California, and often talks about how he and his sister grew up going to the movies together. Under his leadership at Skydance, he helped finance major franchise reboots including the Mission: Impossible series and Top Gun: Maverick, and emerged triumphant in the $111 billion fight for Warner Bros. Discovery less than a year after merging his studio Skydance with Paramount.
Megan Ellison took a different route. She founded Annapurna Pictures in 2011. She burst onto the indie filmmaking scene in the mid-2010s with Annapurna, quickly amassing films from Kathryn Bigelow, Barry Jenkins and Paul Thomas Anderson. In 2014, Megan made history as the first woman to receive two Academy Award nominations for Best Picture for her hit films Her and American Hustle.
Two kids, two billion-dollar empires, two opposite ends of the Hollywood spectrum. Barbara raised both of them, mostly out of the public eye, on a horse ranch in California and later Oregon.
Wild Turkey Farm: Her Own Empire
This is where Barbara Boothe’s story gets genuinely interesting on its own terms, separate from anyone else’s biography.
She bought the farm in 2001 for $2.995 million and spent a decade rebuilding it before moving in 2011. Wild Turkey Farm was formerly a tree orchard when she purchased it. What she turned it into was something else entirely.
The 200-acre property known as Wild Turkey Farm boasts a 10,000-square-foot main house, an indoor horse training arena, a 2,500-square-foot manager’s residence and an infinity pool. The farm in Wilsonville, Oregon, is also a breeding and training facility. It features 33 pastures, 5 barns and a vet lab, with 97 stalls across a retirement barn, a training barn, a mare and foal barn and a stallion barn.
During the years of her active management, nearly 90 horses lived on the property with over 100 foals born there. These aren’t hobby numbers. This is a serious professional operation.
In 2021, Barbara’s extensive horse farm made headlines when the property was listed for sale at approximately $19.5 million through Christie’s International Real Estate.
Barbara Boothe’s Age and Net Worth
Barbara Boothe’s exact age remains unconfirmed publicly. As of 2026, she is approximately 60 to 65 years old.
As for her finances, estimates vary. As of 2026, Barbara Boothe’s net worth is estimated to be between $40 million and $50 million. That figure accounts for her divorce settlement from Ellison (the specific terms of which were never disclosed), the value built into Wild Turkey Farm over two decades of development, and her own equestrian business. It’s worth noting that precise figures like these are never publicly verified when it comes to intensely private individuals, so treat them as estimates rather than confirmed fact.
Why Barbara Boothe Matters
There’s something worth paying attention to here. Barbara Boothe met a man in the early 1980s before he was famous, married him at a complicated moment, had two children with him, divorced him when those children were babies, and then quietly got on with building something of her own.
She didn’t write a tell-all. She didn’t appear on reality television. She didn’t leverage her proximity to one of the world’s wealthiest people for personal brand-building. She built a farm, raised her kids, and let the horses do the talking.
What is reliably known is that Boothe played a significant role as Larry Ellison’s spouse during Oracle’s formative years, raised their two children, who later became major Hollywood names, and established her own respected career in horse breeding and sport.
That’s a pretty solid legacy by any measure.
FAQ: Barbara Boothe
How long was Barbara Boothe married to Larry Ellison? Barbara Boothe married Ellison in 1983 and divorced him in 1986, making their marriage approximately three years long.
Was Barbara Boothe Larry Ellison’s first wife? No. She was his third wife. Ellison has been married several times in total.
What is Wild Turkey Farm? Wild Turkey Farm is a sprawling 200-acre equestrian estate in Wilsonville, Oregon, founded by Barbara Boothe. It gained significant attention when it was listed for sale at approximately $19.5 million in 2021.
What are Barbara Boothe’s children doing now? David Ellison is recognized for commercial productions and entertainment leadership, while Megan Ellison is celebrated for backing ambitious, acclaimed films. David now leads Paramount after its merger with Skydance, and Megan continues building Annapurna Pictures back up with new executive hires as of early 2026.
Where does Barbara Boothe live now? As of 2026, Barbara Boothe continues to live in Wilsonville, Oregon, maintaining her private lifestyle.
Barbara Boothe is one of those figures who tells you something interesting about how success actually works. She isn’t famous. She isn’t trying to be. She did the work, raised two people who changed an industry, built a world-class equestrian operation from scratch, and kept her private life genuinely private. In an era where everyone is a brand, that’s actually worth something.
