Larry King Divorcing 7th Wife Shawn King, Ending 22-Year Marriage

Larry King and his wife, Shawn King, are splitting up. The CNN host reportedly filed for divorce on Tuesday, ending his seventh marriage. King and Shawn have been together for 22 years.

King is no stranger to divorce, having been through it a few times. The talk show host filed for divorce on Tuesday in Los Angeles County court, according to a report by The Blast. So far, there is no word on what has caused the breakup.

King married Shawn Southwick in 1997, his seventh wife. Shawn is a singer, actress and TV host as well, though she is about 26 years younger than King. The couple had two children together — Chance, born in 1999 and Cannon, born in 2000. Shawn also had a son from a previous marriage, Danny Southwick, while king has three other children himself.

So far, little is known about this shake-up, though it has happened once before. In April of 2010, King and Shawn both filed for divorce. However, they eventually reconciled that issue and carried on with their marriage.

The same could happen this time around, as it is still early in the process. Since both are public figures, King and Shawn’s marriage has often played out on the world stage. In a 2008 interview with The Daily News, Shawn joked that she was “the only [wife] to have lasted into the two digits,” referencing King’s many other marriages.

King first married in 1952, at the age of 19. At the time, he tied the knot with his high school sweetheart, Freda Miller. However, the couple’s parents agreed that they were too young for such a commitment, and had the marriage annulled.

King’s second wife was Annette Kaye. Their marriage was short-lived, but it resulted in the birth of Larry Jr. in November of 1961. In a 2009 interview with Anderson Cooper, King revealed that he had not actually met Larry Jr. until the 1990s.

Meanwhile, King married his third wife, Alene Akins in 1961. At the time Akins was a model for Playboy, working at one of the magazine’s nightclubs. The marriage lasted just one year, but, in that time, King adopted her son, Andy.

King’s fourth marriage came the very next year. In 1964, he married Mary Francis Stuphin. She filed for divorce before long, and King returned to Akins, marrying again.They had a child together in 1969, then got divorced again in 1972.

King married his fifth wife in 1976. Sharon Lepore was a production assistant on TV, but also a math teacher. That marriage lasted until 1983, when they divorced. In 1989, he married Julie Alexander, reportedly proposing to her on their very first date. However, the two spent much of their marriage living and working apart, so it came as no surprise when they separated in 1990 and divorced in 1992.

This made Shawn King’s seventh wife and eighth marriage, and the longest-lasting by far. Stay tuned for details on their split as they begin to emerge.