I could’ve sworn I heard that Howard stern got divorced from his wife of 21 years a few months ago. Then the other day I caught a few minutes of him on the air talking about what he was doing with his “wife.” What gives?
Maybe they reconsiled.
Hard to believe, but it’s said he’s a completely different person off-air. I guess the hair just throws me; reminds me of my first brother-in-law that cheated on my sister.
I was up in DC on travel on Friday, and they were playing the “Best of”, Howard’s was on vaca, so it could have been an old taping.
well the last time i listened in was last monday, and it was a best of. but before, when it was a new show, i did hear him joking about seeing other women, and even marrying one. but he say stuff like this when he was happily married too.
methinks they did divorce, or at least separate.
Yes, he was on vacation last week. You were hearing “The Best of…”
Also, he and his wife are legally separated, not divorced. Now if someone would only explain the difference to me!!
I know this is not the whole answer, but one ground for divorce is abandonment. A legal separation (particularly involving lawyers and contractual wording and so forth), protects both parties from claims of “abandonment” since it is clear that both sides were party (even if reluctantly) to the separation.
The “separation” period can be used either to work out the details of the divorce or to attempt to reconcile before the finality of the divorce is issued.
When it comes to divorce laws, New York State is the anti-California. California, and many other jurisdictions, are “no fault” states-- that is, either party may procure a divorce without attributing any bad conduct towards the other spouse. Celebrities love it because you can get divorced simply because you have “irreconcilable differences,” and you don’t need to detail any ugly acts of cruelty.
New York, however, only allows divorces upon a showing of fault. That is, the party seeking the divorce has to allege (and if challenged, prove) specific acts of misconduct by the other spouse. Mostly, these cases are “cruel and inhumane treatment,” which covers everything from physical abuse to emotional harm. But a “cruel and inhumane” divorce does require the spouse seeking the divorce to detail particular acts in the pleadings, and any mope with an hour to spend in the County Clerk’s office can peruse those filings to their heart’s content. Obviously, you can see why celebrities and others in the public eye aren’t too keen to split up that way.
Fortunately, New York has a pseudo no-fault provision. A party can obtain a divorce without detailing specific harmful acts by entering into a written separation agreement, and living separate and apart for a full year pursuant to the terms of that agreement. Living separately for a year pursuant to a written agreement is a specific grounds for entering a decree of divorce in N.Y., and thus, neither side has to air out icky private transgressions in public court documents.
In all likelihood, that’s what Howard’s deal is. He and Allison drafted a separation agreement (which normally divides up the property, but in Howard’s case, probably refers to another document since the separation agreement is usually attached to the complaint for divorce as Exhibit A), and now spend the next year living in separate homes. If memory serves me correctly, he announced their separation in October or November of 1999, so the year is almost up. He (or she) will quietly file a simple complaint in New York Supreme Court, alleging that they have lived apart under the agreement for the past year, the other one will either admit those allegations or simply not answer the complaint and default, and the divorce will be granted as soon as one side submits an order for the judge to sign.