Trashy Divorces

Actor Donald Sutherland had a storied career in television and film and received tributes from notable people around the world when he passed away last month. As central a character as he was on film and screen, his personal life in young adulthood was no less exciting - his two divorces and notorious early-70's affair with Jane Fonda wouldn't have led anyone to believe that his third walk down th...

To close out Season 22 - although we're definitely still feeling 22 - Alicia has remixed various episodes about the life and loves of Frank Sinatra, Old Blue Eyes himself - into a mamma jamma supercut of Nancy, Sr., Ava Gardner, Mia Farrow, and a ton of trashy goodness. We hope it flies you to the moon while we take our between-seasons break. See you on July 7 when we kick off Season 23! Want earl...

Trashpandas have been asking for this one for ages, and today, Stacie has the story of two couples who created some of the best pop music ever, and all that's come after the two divorces that ended - for 40 years, anyway - an incredible run by the Swedish supergroup ABBA. Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and more? Join us at patre...

In celebration of Pride month, Alicia brings out of the Trashy Divorces Classics the tale of the Queen of the Gays – Judy Garland! Her story is heartbreaking, with five marriages and four divorces that were probably a predictable outcome of the horrifying ways she was mistreated as a child. Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and mor...

It's fair to say that Janet Jackson was always destined to be a performer, even if she would have preferred a law degree. Starting life as the baby sister of The Jackson 5, she first took the stage at age seven, and by her teen years was an accomplished actress, as well. But her efforts to separate herself from her domineering father led her to an unwise first marriage, and her superstardom appear...

Alicia has the life and loves of screen legend Olivia de Havilland, with spiderweb appearances by so many legends including her sister Joan Fontaine, Errol Flynn, Howard Hughes, John Huston, and so many more! 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 someone...

Alicia has the incredible-but-true story of entertainment legend Josephine Baker, a woman who did every famous person cliche first, while also spending World War II as a spy coordinating activities for the French Resistance. Oh, does your favorite star not do that? Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and more? Join us at patreon.com/...

Phil Hartman married for a third and final time in 1987, and while the marriage was quite rocky, he and wife Brynn Omdahl had two children together. What Phil didn't know was that once they were together, they were both on a tragic countdown that would culminate in Phil's murder and Brynn's death by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the early morning hours of May 28, 1998. Phil Hartman was just 49...

Comedy legend Phil Hartman spent many, many years establishing himself as a performer before he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and became an icon. His talents weren't just visible on stage; behind the scenes, he was known as a generous colleague who was as at home in a supporting role as he was starring in a sketch. But his home life was never sanguine. In this Part One episode, Alicia int...

Shakira isn't just a global pop phenomenon - she's also the rare Trashy Divorces subject who has never actually been married. But two very long relationships, scandalous breakups, and a shadowy hacker group's revelations about tax avoidance make this story a perfect fit anyway. Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and more? Join us at...

We've got a special double-feature for you today with two listener favorite episodes - Stacie's telling of Fleetwood Mac around the time Rumours was made, and Alicia's story of the strange, sad, and short marriage of Stevie Nicks. Please wish us good car buying luck, and we'll be back this weekend with a brand new Trashy Divorces story! Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus d...

While we both hope that our ties to Alabama put us on track to be considered luminaries of the state, we'll never be in the same league as actress Tallulah Bankhead. Born into a powerful political dynasty in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1902, she won a trip to New York City at the age of just 15. She took it from there, landing movie roles and a reputation for her stage work that would take her to Lond...

In the mid-80s, New Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen was on top of the world. His album Born in the U.S.A. became the kind of chart topping achievement that even very successful artists are unlikely to ever experience. He was newly married to model and actress Julianne Phillips, and by all rights he should have been a person experiencing pure bliss, but instead, he found himself at war - with himse...

By the time of his death at just 33, singer Sam Cooke had become a bona fide superstar, as well as being an effective activist in the movement for Black equality in America. He had also been married twice, and it's in the story of his second wife, Barbara Campbell Cooke, where things get very complicated, very fast. Because Barbara did not attend Sam Cooke's funeral alone. She was escorted by his...

This week, we're taking the opportunity to catch up on some recent splits that may not have generated enough coverage to produce a full episode on their own. Alicia walks us through the recent divorce of country music stars Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd, Stacie explains how piano man Ben Folds has fulfilled the prophecy, and Alicia closes us out with the six year marriage of Pose actor Billy Porter a...

Today, Alicia takes us back to the Real Housewives universe with the story of a two-season cast member from the Miami edition, Joanna Krupa. And seriously, you're not ready for all the very many places this story goes. There's an oft-postponed wedding, TMI comments to tabloids, and a defamation lawsuit featuring none other than TD alum Brandi Glanville. Buckle up, Trash Pandas. This one is a lot ....

Alex Kingston's career really took off in the mid-1990s, first portraying Dr. Elizabeth Corday on NBC's ER, and then in the late 2000s, as River Song, the mysterious friend who knew Doctor Who's future on the hit BBC series. Spoilers! All of it followed a devastating split from her partner of 12 years, and husband of two years, Ralph Fiennes. While playing Hamlet, Fiennes fell in love with the act...

Media mogul William Randolph Hearst can be cast as a hero or a villain of the 20th century, and plenty of writers have taken a stab at pinning down his legacy definitively. But one of the lesser remembered aspects of Hearst's life was his abandonment, in 1917, of his wife, Millicent, and their five sons, to spend the rest of his life with actress Marion Davies. One quirk of this arrangement is tha...

Baseball legend Babe Ruth, nicknamed "The Sultan of Swat" during his 22-season career, is a treasured piece of Yankees history, but not exactly a family guy! Turns out, he might even have gone to great lengths to limit the financial damage a divorce from his first wife could have inflicted. Want early, ad-free episodes, regular Dumpster Dives, bonus divorces, limited series, Zoom hangouts, and mor...

It's a big week for Tortured Poets, so we decided to take a long look at history's most famous one: William Shakespeare himself. Alicia explores the mystery around the true identity of the author of some of the world's most famous pieces of literature. Was it really the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon penning Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and all the sonnets, or was that a co...

Beverly Hills 90210 alum Brian Austin Green has grown up in the public eye. His first serious relationship was with Tiffani Amber Thiessen, who eventually became his co-star on the hit series, and then became his ex-girlfriend. Then, he moved on with another castmate, Vanessa Marcil, and while they got engaged and had a baby, they never married. It was with the 13-year-younger Megan Fox that Brian...

We think of him as Hollywood royalty, a star born of a star, but the truth is that Michael Douglas's father, Kirk Douglas, wasn't famous when Michael was young, and by the time Kirk was a box office winner, he was actively panning his son's college theater efforts to try to dissuade him from the biz. Obviously, Michael didn't heed that advice, and along the way, has managed to enjoy (or not) a ver...

And we're back, with a brand new episode of Sassy Divorces! Americans are almost certainly familiar with Judge Judy, the no-nonsense jurist who's hosted history's most successful reality TV courtroom since way back in the 1990s. And if you think the TV version of Judy Sheindlin is tough, wait 'till you hear about her in real life. When her first husband didn't take her career seriously, she chose...

Mary J. Blige has been on top for so long that it's entirely proper to refer to her as the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, but for all of her astonishing professional success in music and beyond, her personal life has featured more than her fair share of obstacles. After a mixed bag of relationships in her 20s, she thought she had finally found the one when she married her manager in 2003 - only to find he...

Friends, we were delighted to discover that one of our favorite podcasts had returned to production last year, and couldn't wait to have Allie and Sam from I'm Horrified! join us to talk about some of the relationship red flags that horrify them. It's quite a list, from two of our favorite people in podcasting. Be sure to check out I'm Horrified! wherever you listen to podcasts! Want early, ad-fre...