No matter how much fame or money they might’ve had, it didn’t make these women’s awful marriages any easier to leave, but they somehow managed to do it anyway.
Trouble behind the music
Singer Aretha Franklin married Ted White in 1961 when she was only 19. This was long before she became mega-famous, and White went on to become her manager, too. But the marriage soon turned sour. TIME magazine reported in 1968 that White had roughed Franklin up in public at an Atlanta hotel.
People around Franklin also said he was abusive, so it wasn’t just magazine gossip. Franklin eventually separated from him that year. Her brother, Cecil, took over management duties, and the divorce was finalized in 1969. It had been a very nasty eight years.
The contract behind the marriage
The trouble Cher faced when leaving her marriage was more than mere emotions. She had a business tied to her marriage with Sonny Bono, and he owned 95 percent of the company behind their work. His lawyer owned the other five percent. Yes, that meant she was an employee in the whole thing, despite being the most recognizable face.
Cher later said that Sonny had been abusive towards her. That’s not hard to see, really, when you think about how the company was arranged. She eventually left and filed for divorce in 1974, with the marriage officially ending on June 26, 1975.
One phone call changed everything
The end of Pamela Anderson’s marriage to Tommy Lee was something that came very fast in February 1998. Anderson actually called 911 after an incident at their Malibu home. She said that Lee had assaulted her. The police eventually arrived, and they recorded that her hand was bleeding. That’s not all, though. They also documented redness and soreness on her back.
They took Lee into custody, and two days later, Anderson filed for divorce. He pleaded no contest to felony spousal abuse. He was sentenced to six months in Los Angeles County Jail. Anderson had managed to escape horrible abuse, although some people today treat their marriage as nothing more than a series of disagreements.
Getting out meant crossing a border
It was supposed to be a short trip. But for Betty Mahmoody, her 1984 ‘trip’ to Iran with her husband, Sayyed Bozorg “Moody” Mahmoody, ended up being a lot worse. He refused to let Betty and their daughter, Mahtob, leave, and the law in Iran allowed him to stop her from going.
Betty later described suffering beatings and threats from him. She was also tightly restricted in where she could go. Eventually, though, she escaped in 1986 with her daughter by crossing the mountains into Turkey. The pair then returned to the United States.
A 3 a.m. departure
The way that Iyanla Vanzant left her husband was almost ordinary, in a way. She just left in the middle of the night. But that decision to leave came after her husband had abused her for nine years. He beat her, shouted at her, and threatened her. She finally decided she couldn’t take it.
One night at around 3 a.m., she got herself dressed and woke her three children. Vanzant packed what they could carry and walked with them through Brooklyn to the train station. She later went on to divorce her husband and become an inspirational speaker.
Divorce didn’t stop him
You’d think divorce would solve the issue. But no, not for Francine Hughes. She’d already divorced James Hughes, but he kept returning to her home and abusing her. He was involved in a serious car crash, and Francine took him back while he recovered. It didn’t take long for things to become violent again.
Hughes said Mickey beat her and destroyed her schoolbooks. He also threatened her and forced her to engage in physical abuse. Then, one night, Francine decided she’d had enough, and she set fire to the bed where he was sleeping. Yes, really. Francine drove away and surrendered to police, although she was found not guilty due to temporary insanity.
The restaurant cost far more than expected
Actress Dorothy Dandridge married Jack Denison in 1959 during a time when she was already dealing with a ton of career pressure. The marriage only made it worse. Denison verbally abused Dandridge, and he was also reckless with their finances.
In fact, Dandridge poured tons of money into his restaurant to support him, even though her own Hollywood opportunities were shrinking. It got to the point where, in 1962, the marriage ended. Dandridge had to deal with the fallout of both a failed marriage and ruined finances.
Domestic life became another restriction
Lena Horne’s first marriage was a little different from some of the others. She said hers wasn’t physically violent. But still, the actress’s marriage had problems of its own, such as the fact that her husband, Louis Jordan Jones, wanted her to be a housewife.
Horne wanted to keep working. Jones didn’t want that. She actually said he held her back professionally and wouldn’t let her attend a screening of one of her own films. It was that bad. The pair married in 1937 and divorced in 1944. Later, Horne said it was the biggest mistake she had ever made, and really, it’s not hard to see why.
A marriage ended on mental-cruelty grounds
In 1960, singer Eartha Kitt married businessman Bill McDonald, and their daughter was born the next year. Their marriage didn’t last very long. Kitt was granted a divorce in March 1964 after she alleged that he’d been mentally cruel toward her.
McDonald had previously fought during the Korean War and struggled with an addiction to pain medication. That’s no excuse, though. Kitt refused to stay in the marriage with the hope of things settling down, and chose instead to get divorced. She raised their daughter herself.
She painted behind locked doors
Painter Margaret Keane had spent years making paintings. The problem was, her husband, Walter Keane, claimed them as his own, and he would isolate her so she had nobody to tell. Margaret was forced to paint behind locked doors and closed curtains.
It gets worse, though, as he also threatened to have her killed if she ever told people the truth. So she kept quiet. She eventually decided to leave him, and they were divorced in 1965. But she continued keeping the secret to herself. It wasn’t until 1970 that she actually told the truth about who had really been behind those famous paintings.
She made the entire family disappear
Karen Palmer stopped looking for a fresh start. No, by 1989, she was looking for a place where her ex-husband couldn’t find her, as she’d already left Gil after 14 years of marriage. He had abused her numerous times during their marriage. One of the worst incidents involved him pointing a loaded gun at her while she was pregnant.
He also abducted their three-year-old daughter Amy and dyed her hair before driving her 60 miles away from Karen. Thankfully, Amy was found. It was then that Palmer decided to leave Los Angeles with her daughters and new husband. She changed their identities, and completely vanished from the public eye.
The violence began almost immediately
There was a time before Doris Day smiled through Hollywood musicals. That was when she married trombonist Al Jorden. She was a teenager at the time, and Day later said he beat her when he saw her kiss another musician on the cheek.
Day also said he abused her while she was pregnant with their son, Terry. He was born in February 1942, and for a while, things seemed to quiet down. But then the abuse began again. Day then began divorce proceedings, and the marriage was over in 1943.
Fifteen years finally came to an end
Whitney Houston stayed married to Bobby Brown for nearly 15 years. But there wasn’t much holding the pair together by the mid-2000s. He allegedly struck Houston in the face and was charged with domestic abuse in 2003. She claimed he didn’t regularly beat her, though.
As if that makes it better. Houston described the relationship as emotionally abusive. And she filed for divorce in September 2006. It became final in April 2007, and Houston received sole custody of their daughter, Bobbi Kristina.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
14 opportunists who changed their lives through one marriage
Sometimes the quickest route to wealth, power or a prestigious title wasn’t through hard work; it was through marriage.
14 opportunists who changed their lives through one marriage
