John Schneider is married again – sort of. The Dancing With the Stars alum wed his long time girlfriend Alicia Allain in a ceremony on his Louisiana property, while the acrimonious divorce with his former wife of 21 years, Elvira, now in its fifth year, continues.
“Happy is too small of a word,” Schneider told PEOPLE, adding that he considered the couple married “before God.”
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“This has been a wonderful celebration, a sanctuary of love,” said Allain. “Just a perfect day of celebrating with friends and family.”
Schneider and Allain plan to make their union legal once his divorce is finalized from Elvira, but that might be a while. The Dukes of Hazzard star previously spent time in jail over failure to pay the more than $150,000 he owed to her in alimony, which was set at almost $19,000 a month. Because Schneider insists he does not have the money, he is anticipating a return to jail at some point.
“Well, you can hope for no more jail time, but I think there’s more jail time, and that’s okay,” Schneider told PopCulture.com. “It’s like hoping not to die. Guess what, it’s going to happen. There’s jail time. I don’t know how long. It could be as long as 15 days.”
Elvira originally filed for divorce at the end of 2014, with the former couple unable to come to any type of compromise since then.
“The only thing that’s happened is I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of which was mine, some of which was borrowed,” said the actor. “She has spent everything she had, lawyers made money, we’re still not divorced, and I’ve been to jail and I’m probably going back. Where’s the justice in that? Come on.”
The 59-year-old ultimately lost his Louisiana estate, although it thankfully was bought by someone who was willing to let Schneider continue to use it.
“There are people that we really like who are willing to work this out with us, that I feel great about that we were planting,” Schneider said. “Plant, I mean I love the garden. We’re planting. I just planted six shrubs yesterday. I wouldn’t have done that a year ago because I’d be afraid someone’s going to take them. I don’t feel that way anymore. Tremendous, tremendous relief.
“This will be a year of, I’m not going to say reaping,” he continued. “We’re going to be able to see it. I think the following year is going to be the reaping year. This is going to be where we start seeing the fruits of our labor come up out of the devastation.”
Photo Credit: Getty images / Jason Wise
