Larry King, who died on Saturday at the age of 87, was almost as well known for his multiple marriages and divorces as an icon of broadcasting. He has been married eight times to seven different women. He was only 18. The first time, one was a math teacher, another a Playboy bunny. He once said that he had never cheated on one of them, although some of his ex disagreed – and at least one even walked out on him several times.
“I got very married,” he once said. ‘But in my head I’m not a married man. When I was growing up, no one lived together. If you fell in love, you got married. And so I married those I loved. But what I loved at 20 was not what I loved at 30, and what I loved at 30 was not what I loved at 40. ”
Shawn Southwick
(married 1997; divorced 2019)
King’s longest marriage was also his last – and the only one that lasted. Although King applied for a divorce from Southwick, 61, in 2019, they were allegedly still married at the time of King’s death. They have two sons, Chance, 21, and Cannon, 20.
The two were married in a hospital in 1997 just before undergoing surgery to clear a clogged blood vessel. Southwick, a program science veterinarian with a background in acting and singing in TV shows in the 1970s and ’80s, was the daughter of a longtime music manager.
Although the marriage was rocky, in part because of their age difference of 26 years and the rumored infidelity of Southwick (including a reported failure with her son’s baseball coach), Southwick looked devastated when she learned King had filed for divorce. ‘I was devastated, I had no idea it was coming, it hurt. I was completely blinded. ”
Julie Alexander
(married 1989; divorced 1992)
King meets businesswoman Julie Alexander and falls head over heels. He married her later that year in Washington, but it was almost as fast as it started. They divorced in 1990 and divorced two years later. Alexander told Inside Edition in 2010 that she suspected King had cheated on her.
Sharon Lepore
(married 1976; divorced in 1983)
Lepore, a former maths teacher and TV production assistant, was one of King’s women with the lowest profile. It was King’s second longest marriage, but also the most private. They were both mothers about why they divorced.
Mickey Sutphin
(married 1963; divorced 1967)
The two apparently met while working at a radio station in Miami and had a daughter, Kelly, who was apparently adopted by Sutphin’s second husband.
Akins alone
(married 1961; divorced 1963. remarried 1967; divorced 1972)
Akins, a former Playboy Bunny, has been married to King twice – with his marriage to Mickey Sutphin in between. They had a daughter, Chaia, and King adopted her son, Andy. Akins died in 2017, and King calls her a ‘grand lady’ in a tweet. Both, then 51, and Andy, then 65, died in 2020. Chaia died of lung cancer and Andy of a heart attack.
Annette Kaye
(married 1961; divorced 1961)
Their marriage lasted only one year, but a son, Larry Jr., is now 59 years old. Larry King Jr. was in his thirties when he met his father. Kaye told King about their joint child in 1994 when she died of lung cancer.
Freda Miller
(married 1952; annulled 1953)
King married his beloved high school Freda Miller when he was only 18 years old. The marriage was annulled, apparently at the request of her parents because they did not approve the union.