Sarah Palin Admits Coming Across Her Husband Todd’s Divorce Filing via Email Was Like Getting ‘Shot’

Former governor of Alaska and vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin is opening up about how she learned her estranged husband, Todd Palin, filed for divorce via email. In a two-part interview with Christian author James Dobson, Palin said the discovery “was devastating” and added that it felt as if she “got shot.”

“I found out from an email from an attorney saying that she was hired and that was on June 19, I’ll never forget it,” Palin said on Tuesday. “Then, on Todd’s birthday, a week after our 31st anniversary is when he filed, yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s not easy to talk about.”

The Going Rogue author continued and spoke directly to the audience. “I’m sure so many of you, either maybe you’ve been through it or you have people whom you love, you’ve witnessed how horrible it is. But I just think, wow, maybe except for the death of a child, I don’t know what could be more [devastating],” she said.

Palin also suggested that their marriage isn’t necessarily “over, over” in the long term, as she revealed that they are “going through counseling now.”

Todd Palin, 55, filed for divorce from Sarah Palin, also 55, on Sept. 6, citing “incompatibility of temperament between the parties.” The oil field production operator also stated in his filing that difficulties in the marriage made it “impossible to live together as husband and wife.”

The couple married in August 1988 and are parents to Track, 30, Bristol, 29, Willow, 25, Piper, 18, and Trig, 11. The Anchorage Daily News reports that the couple is seeking joint custody of Trig, who was born with Down syndrome.

Palin once joked that her marriage would some day meet its demise, alluding to it in a September 2007 email while she was governor. The remark first surfaced in February 2012 after state officials released 17,000 records, which were initially obtained by The Associated Press as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. In the email, which Todd Palin and her aides Kris Perry and Frank Bailey were copied on, she joked about Todd’s work on the BP’s North Slope pipeline. “So speaking of …. If we, er, when we get a divorce, does that quell ‘conflict of interest’ accusations about BP?” she wrote.

“VERY funny,” Bailey added.

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