Judge Judy Speaks on Her Divorce From Jerry Sheindlin

The couple divorced and remarried within months.

By Brenda Alexander

Judge Judy first divorced Jerry Sheindlin over 30 years, but it doesn't mean she didn't learn lifelong lessons from the split. "That's a long story, but the end of the story is: I found … that most men were alike," the beloved TV judge said while appearing on Who's Talking to Chris Wallace? of why they remarried. They wed in 1978, separated 12 years later and remarried in 1991. "They have basic needs that are different from women's," she added. "They like to be fed. They like to be cuddled. They like to have their alone time that you take out the alone box and leave [them] alone. And if you feed 'em and love 'em up a little bit and don't get in their way too much, they're happy."

She says despite their ups and downs, there's a secret to their lasting romance: she's still attracted to her hubby. "He takes wonderful care of himself," she gushed. "And I sort of like it, because he maintains that physique that I fell in love with 48 years ago."

Judy, 81, says the former New York Supreme Court trial judge, 90, "still has a sense of humor" and is "still really smart and sharp," noting, "We're together a lot. Jerry retired about 20 years ago, but he has his own thing." But this isn't her first marriage.

She was first married to prosecutor Ronald Levy from 1964 to 1976. They had two children together: a daughter Jamie Hartwright; and a son Adam Levy, 56.

Related:

When she married Jerry, she became a stepmother to his three kids from a previous marriage: sons Gregory Sheindlin, and Jonathan Sheindlin, and a daughter Nicole Sheindlin. Judy says she first divorced because of the stress she endured from the death of her father, Murray Blum. but they re-married months later.

"I missed her presence the very first week that we were separated," Jerry told Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue's 2020 book, What Makes a Marriage Last. "It was the first time in years that we didn't get to see each other every single day," he continued. "It was such a strange experience."

Trending Now: