John Schneider married longtime girlfriend Alicia Allain on July 2, even though he is technically still married to his former wife, Elvira. Schneider and Elvira split in 2014, with their contentious divorce going on for more than five years.
Still, the Dukes of Hazzard star decided not to wait until he is legally split from Elvira before tying the knot with Allain, who has been dating Schneider since 2015. So while doing Christmas cards last year, Schneider’s friend, professional stuntman Gary Baxley, asked Schneider when he planned on marrying Allain, prompting the plans to tie the knot.
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“I thought, ‘Well, hell. Soon,’” Schneider recalled to The Nashville Soundbite. “And I said [to Alicia], ‘Do you wanna get married? And she said, ‘Well, sure.’ And I said, ‘Do you still have a pastor who will do it?’ We can get married in the eyes of God. We can’t get married officially and legally in the state, because the divorce is still dragging on. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world.”
The couple went on to talk about other things, before Schneider realized the magnitude of what they had just decided.
“After the conversation was done, we went on talking about something else, and I said to Alicia, ‘Did we just get engaged?’ and she said, ‘Yeah,’” Schneider recounted. “It’s odd but it’s funny that, kind of like everything else we do, we decided to get married in between making two other decisions about completely unrelated things. And there you go.”
Schneider and Allain chose July 2 so they would have time to fully appreciate the celebration.
“I said, ‘I do not want to rush from somewhere so that we can get married in a short amount of time, because we have to go somewhere else,’” said the actor, adding that they decided to prioritize the spiritual union over the legal one. “I think we both agree that the important ceremony is the one where God blesses the union.”
The 59-year-old previously spent time in jail over failure to pay alimony to his former wife, and is already planning a return to life behind bars, at least for a few days.
“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.”
Schneider is understandably frustrated by the lengthy divorce, but feels his hands are tied until Elvira decides enough is enough.
“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 Schneider. “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.”
Photo Credit: Getty images / Jason Wise
