Trashy Divorces

Content note: Discussion of suicide. For a vanishingly brief few years in the late 80s and early 90s, America fell in love with a French actor most known for his small stature and high excitement at new arrivals. When Herve Villechaize opened Aaron Spelling's Fantasy Island with the exclamation, "The plane! The plane!" the public knew they were about to treated to another charming adventure featur...

When Bravo launched The Real Housewives of New Jersey, it couldn't have foreseen that it was launching its first Housewife inmate, but that's exactly what happened to Teresa Giudice and her husband, Joe. Their legal ordeal went on for years, and ended with the pair separated by an ocean and choosing to divorce, but Teresa - the only original cast member still present for Season 14 - seems to have...

If you were of a certain age in the 1990s, it's highly likely that Tia Mowry and her sister Tamera played a pivotal role in your development as an adolescent. The twins starred in Sister, Sister, an anchor of ABC's TGIF lineup, from 1995-1999, and became major parts of the zeitgeist of the era. Both have gone on to successful careers in entertainment, and both have married and had children of thei...

The US National Women's Soccer Team is mostly known for its dominance in the field, but lately, a cheating scandal has emerged that's rocking the sport. Not cheating at sports, mind you, but the more personal kind. Soccer power couple Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger, married since 2019, are suddenly divorcing, and it looks like it has everything to do with One Tree Hill star Sophia Bush. Want early,...

Hollywood legend Joan Bennett didn't always want to follow in her family's footsteps as an actor. The youngest of the Bennett Sisters, her siblings Constance and Barbara were already film stars by the time Joan determined to hang a shingle as an interior designer, but motherhood got in the way. After her first short marriage and divorce, she had an extra mouth to feed, which launched her on a deca...

With the publication of Walter Isaacson's Elon Musk biography, Stacie's been following up on some of the highs, lows, and general mayhem in the life and career of Elon Musk since we first covered him back in May of 2021. We really just scratch the surface on our update - a comprehensive telling of the last couple of years would easily be as long as Isaacson's entire book, and then we re-air our or...

Some stories have so much trash it's hard to know where to begin, but for scion of the Standard Oil fortune Hugh D. Auchincloss, it's hard to know even where to stop. Auchincloss, about as blue blood as you can get, was married three times, and through that particular journey, ended up being step-father to the future Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwell, from his third marriage, as well as...

Bravo's The Real Housewives franchise has lent many things to our culture: feuds, fights, memes, and a constellation of people who've come to be known as Bravolebrities. For original New Jersey cast member Dina Manzo, the experience sparked genuine conflict with her sister, also a cast member, and Dina became the first Housewife to leave a series of her own volition. But that's the beginning, not...

Content Warning: Child abuse, domestic violence Actress Christina Ricci has been entertaining us on the big and small screen since she was just ten years old. While many child stars chafe under the pressure of early stardom, for Christina, escaping to a film set was a welcome diversion from her parents' troubled marriage and eventual divorce. While her career would become a sustained success as an...

The years after Tony's second marriage were not happy ones for him. His career took a downturn as Americans' musical tastes changed, and he coped with the dislocation in extremely unhealthy ways, which crashed his marriage, too. Finding himself entirely adrift, he did the most vulnerable thing a struggling parent could do: he called his adult sons and asked for help. It was the turning point in a...

By nearly all accounts, crooner Tony Bennett was one of the greats. Not just as a singer and performer, but in the ways he treated people, the causes he chose to champion, and his endless willingness to contribute his talents to charity events. But even the greats have rough spots! There may be very few people with an unkind word to say about Tony Bennett, but his two ex-wives could surely be amon...

That an actor and a musician would be divorcing isn't really news, but in the case of Jonas Brothers frontman Joe Jonas and his recently filed divorce from wife of four years, Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner, a dumb PR move turned it into a huge story. Did Joe mean for the tabloids to run stories suggesting that Sophie is a bad mom? We may never know, but this Jonas Brother has managed to give...

Rush Limbaugh ascended to heights of conservative talk radio in the 80s and 90s, introducing a brand of discourse in America most notable for its toxicity. While there was a willing audience for his bilge, it's clear from his three divorces, substance misuse, and legal issues, that his notoriety wasn't without costs. To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to sales@advertisecast.com or visit...

After Carl Sagan's first divorce, from biologist Lynn Margulis, he was to find love again. And, in a massive betrayal, yet again. Look, the guy indisputably made big contributions to science and the public's understanding of it, but his personal life was a mess! Want early, ad-free episodes, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and more? Join us at patreon.com/trashydivorces! Sponsors Go...

Astronomer Carl Sagan was an ever-present voice in American culture for several decades in the latter half of the 20th century, sometimes commenting on topics far beyond the scope of his space science training. If you think that suggests some ego, you would be right, and that attribute or character flaw (depending on your perspective) certainly impacted his ability to enjoy happy marriages. In thi...

We woke up to the sad news that Jimmy Buffett, music's "Mayor of Margaritaville," had passed peacefully on September 1. Alicia has been a Buffett superfan since childhood, and the only thing that felt right for today's episode was to bring back her 2020 Jimmy Buffett story. Enjoy a margarita, if that's your thing, and have a safe and happy long Labor Day weekend. Want early, ad-free episodes, bonu...

Content warning: Discussion of suicide Late night television's David Letterman has been a fixture in American households since the early 80s. His wry wit, top ten lists, and willingness to take his show into unexpected directions, all for laughs, made him a comedy legend, but the man himself has often been beset by insecurity. One friend describes his "demonically low self-esteem," and perhaps tha...

80's heartthrob Corey Feldman is an integral piece of film history from the decade. In movies like Gremlins, The Goonies, Stand By Me, and - alongside the second half of "The Two Coreys," Corey Haim - The Lost Boys, he was simply everywhere and seemingly in everything. Behind the scenes, however, his story was a much harder road - an abusive family, childhood sexual exploitation, and increasingly...

Alicia enjoyed Stacie's trip down memory lane with Rudy Giuliani so much that she wanted to share her OG Trashy Divorces story as well, that of King Henry VIII of England. He famously had six wives, some of whom he did not kill! Please enjoy this Trashy Divorces Classics episode, and for more like this, check out our new history podcast, Trashy Royals, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wher...

Well friends, it finally happened: Stacie's very first Trashy Divorces profile, Rudy Giuliani, has been indicted! Deservedly so, we think, and to make the case, we take a look at the four lawsuits he's currently wrapped up with. While the first three are defamation cases related to his election-stealing efforts, it's the fourth one that's really likely to scrap his reputation for the ages. Sponsor...

When the long-awaited Top Gun sequel Maverick hit theaters last year, many were left to wonder why actress Kelly McGillis wasn't tapped to reprise her role as Charlie. Well, it turns out that she wouldn't have been interested if they had asked. Kelly, you see, has been on quite a journey through trauma and self-discovery - including two divorces and a significant relationship breakup - and has mor...

In what is shaping up to be a wild summer of breakups, one story has really dominated: the apparent affair between pop icon Ariana Grande and her Wicked co-star, Ethan Slater. Both were married at the start of the year, and while the proceedings are pending as of now, both have filed to end those marriages. Tongues are wagging across the globe about this unlikely - and potentially unwise - pairing...

Alicia has the delightfully dapper - if frequently ill-timed - story of English actor Roger Moore and his four marriages. Three of them featured a surprising amount of violence directed at him; two of his wives simply refused to allow him to divorce for years after he had moved on to new relationships. In spite of the tumult, the third James Bond seems to have permanently remained a caring, deeply...

Linda Evangelista may have had one of the world's most famous faces during the 1990s Supermodel heyday, but there was more going on behind the scenes than even she knew. Her sole marriage led, decades later, to serious and disturbing allegations against her ex-husband, including from the time they were together. In more recent years, an unlikely side effect from a medical procedure has sent one of...

In today's crossover episode with Alicia's other podcast, Done & Dunne, she takes us through the surprising life and many marriages of mid-century socialite and fashion icon, Mona von Bismarck. From humble origins on a Kentucky horse farm, Mona found marriage to be a feasible path to the good life, and was the wife of the then-richest man in America for nearly three decades - but that's far from t...