Trashy Divorces

In the final days of the no-good, very-bad year of 2025, the world learned that the iconic French actress Brigitte Bardot had died at the age of 91. Having achieved international stardom back in 1957 in the film And God Created Woman - a collab with her first husband, director Roger Vadim - she became a significant cultural export from France in an era where the rules that seemed to govern the con...

Comedian and actress Amy Schumer had a bit of whirlwind romance with her husband, chef Chris Fischer. They married after just four months of dating, but seven years later - after a child, a round of IVF, various health challenges, an autism diagnosis - they've announced that the marriage has come to its end. But cleanly, and apparently very amicably. Are Amy and Chris role models for a good divorc...

We live in an era where scandals often fail to make much of a dent in the reputations of the rich and famous, and today's story illustrates that this sad situation isn't really new. In 1870s Brooklyn, a famous preacher named Henry Ward Beecher had a problem in his private life. He was having affairs. Lots and lots of affairs. But it was his affair with Elizabeth Tilton, the wife of his close frien...

Happy New Year, Trash Pandas! We're back, and so much happened during our short break that we wanted to get into the highlights - and lowlights! In the dumpster this week: Mel Gibson is single again, and we wonder if that's related to Mel Gibson being able to own guns again.  Gisele Bundchen won her divorce from Tom Brady so hard that she's now married to the karate guy! Jiu-Jitsu, but you know wh...

In this encore from July of 2020, Alicia has screen legend Charlie Chaplin, who passed away on Christmas Day in 1977. His four marriages typify the line from Dazed and Confused, “I get older, they stay the same age.” Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and more? Join us at patreon.com/trashydivorces! Want a personalized message for s...

Most of the world met Paul Hogan in 1986, when he starred in the smash hit film Crocodile Dundee. A sensation, the movie remains the highest grossing Australian film ever. For Paul, global stardom was the result of an entirely unexpected series of events that led him to a career as a TV funnyman, but what happened next did a lot of damage to his reputation - and marked the final end to his first m...

This week, Alicia shines the spotlight on The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. From her turbulent childhood to her career trajectory, with a few divorces and spiderwebs thrown in too, Aretha's story really does contain multitudes.  Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and more? Join us at patreon.com/trashydivorces! Want a personalized...

In this encore mash-up, Alicia brings us the 90s-era heartbreaker split with the marriage and divorce of actors Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh. Then, Stacie continues the thread with actress Helena Bonham Carter, whose post-Branagh relationship, with director Tim Burton, began every bit as controversially as the one with Ken had. Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divor...

For a certain kind of political obsessive, the Trumpworld dispatches penned by Olivia Nuzzi in the first term were almost too on-the-nose. Still in her 20s then, her ability to paint the distorted, distorting figures that inhabited the era in prose was always interesting and often revelatory. And then, she fell in love with a subject, then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and her life...

When two visionaries meet, strange things can happen. So it was for Natalie Massenet, founder of upscale shopping site Net-a-Porter, and Swedish creative director and Frame founder Erik Torstensson. The high fashion power couple parlayed their early successes into venture capital projects - including Skims - and then shocked their world in August 2025 with a bombshell lawsuit from Natalie alleging...

In this April 2019 encore, we go deep into the turbulent love, life, and times of Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Theirs was a complicated love - but also somehow quite inspiring. Check out the art we mention in the episode at our website. Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and more? Join us at patreon.com/trashydivorc...

Since crossing into stardom with 1992's Basic Instinct, actress Sharon Stone has certainly had some adventures, both in her career and her personal life. It's actually difficult to summarize today's tale, but suffice it to say, there's a lot in here for fans of some of Hollywood's most notorious lounge lizards, as well as lizards of other sorts.  Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dive...

Everyone knows that JFK was a man of vociferous appetites when it came to women, but the secret story of a possible love child fathered with a teenage maid in the Hyannis Port compound is not commonly known. Many questions persist, but the tale of JFK's maybe-baby-mama, Alicia Corning Clark, is such a quintessentially American one - from refugee to the Kennedy's to Hollywood and beyond - that we c...

The ACE Family channel on YouTube blew up in a big way in 2016, taking two young parents into realms of wealth and fame they couldn't possibly have planned for - and were clearly unequipped to handle. While the channel grew to some 18 million followers, brand partnerships soured into litigation and the marriage of Catherine Paiz and Austin McBroom eventually collapsed. If you've ever wondered, "Wh...

We welcome back journalist and author Andrew Morton to spill some tea, past and present, on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson. The former Duke and Duchess of York are not the only Windsor family members in the lens - also included are Prince Phillip, King Charles III, Diana, Princess of Wales, Prince William and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie too. Want early, ad-free episodes, regular...

Today, Alicia revisits a first season episode where... well, we were sweet summer children and there was much that would be revealed. This week, we revisit the "happiest divorced couple in the world", the no-longer-prince Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson. Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and more? Join us...

On the occasion of what would have been her 111th birthday, today we revisit Alicia's 2020 story of the incredible life of Hollywood icon Hedy Lamarr. Yes, she was an outstanding and hugely popular actress, but the lesser known part of the story is that Hedy Lamarr was a passionate and gifted inventor. She and composer and pianist George Antheil developed and patented a way to encrypt messages dur...

Chris Hansen became a household name by confronting child predators who'd been lured out of hiding by undercover officers posing as children online on Dateline NBC's To Catch a Predator. But it was his choices in his personal life that sent him careening off into other directions - dumped by NBC, marriage on the rocks, and even sporting a mugshot or two to his name. Want early, ad-free episodes, r...

America's business culture in the mid-century was decidedly drab: men in dark suits with close-cropped hair ruled the day, and in many ways were perfectly primed for disruption. So it was that the youngest division head ever to grace the C-suite at General Motors built a maverick reputation and, upon leaving (or being pushed! Accounts differ) set about to start a car company from scratch. John DeL...

We don't often go to breaking news, but over the last few days, English singer and actress Lily Allen opted to nuke her ex, Stranger Things actor David Harbour, from orbit by dropping a new album all about their very messy split. To hear Lily tell it, David is a sex addict who crossed all the boundaries they ever collectively drew, and it's pretty clear that Lily is processing a lot of betrayal ou...

In this part two of our 2019 Elizabeth Taylor story, we pick up with her tumultuous two marriages to Richard Burton, her attempt to find something like a normal life with Virginia Senator John Warner, and her last marriage and divorce from Larry Fortensky, whom she remained close to for the rest of her life. It's hard to imagine a more iconic figure, or a more perfect subject for this podcast.   U...

As we proceed with this week's Elizabeth Taylor takeover, we're revisiting one of our favorite episodes ever: 2019's story of the screen legend's life and many, many loves, joined by Erica Kelley from Southern Fried True Crime. This edition takes us through her first marriage - arranged by her studio, naturally - through the tragic loss of Mike Todd, and onto the married Eddie Fisher, husband of h...

Alicia's taking over *all* the podcasts this week, with the stories and spiderwebs of screen goddess Elizabeth Taylor. In this week's musically-themed episode, Alicia breaks down some of the lyrics in Taylor Swift's new track, Elizabeth Taylor, from her album The Life of a Showgirl. From Portofino to the very best table at Musso & Frank's, certain themes resonate across these two titanic figures i...

In an exciting crossover episode today, Alicia was delighted to speak with author and biographer Andrew Morton about his new release Winston and the Windsors: How Churchill Shaped a Royal Dynasty. Our conversation explores the influence of Winston’s mother Jennie Jerome on his early days, as well as Winston’s relationship with each of the Windsor monarchs including Edward VII, George V, Edward VII...

It's been a wild few weeks for a number of TD alums. In the Dumpster this week:  Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, following the shock divorce filing in Nashville on September 30. Is Keith stepping out with a member of his touring band, and should we be concerned that he's currently on a tour he titled HIGH AND ALIVE after his well-documented troubles with substance misuse? Ariana Grande and Ethan Sl...