Trashy Divorces

Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Edith Wharton came by her subject matter the old fashioned way: she was born into a prominent New York City family, and was subjected to the mores of the city's high society circle from birth. This did not suit the plain, brainy young Edith even a little bit, much to her mother's horror, but Edith did eventually submit to an extremely unhappy marriage to a diagnosed megalomaniac (!), which ended in, you guessed it, a trashy divorce.

We are taking our mid-season break and will be back with you January 10! Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year to all!

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Rascal Flatts is one of the most celebrated country music acts of the 21st century, but when the band announced that it would break up after a farewell tour in January 2020, the story took a bunch of unexpected turns. Obviously, the pandemic hit and the tour wasn't in the cards, but then it appears that guitarist Joe Don Rooney's life fell all the way apart in the ensuing months. The farewell tour is still TBD at best, but his 15-year-long marriage is all the way over, and it's anyone's guess what comes next for the man and the band.

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2023 has been a monster year for breakups, with celebrities (Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas, anyone?), politicians (Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau!), musicians (almost too many to choose: Cardi B and Offset are done; Kacey Musgraves broke up with her longtime boyfriend), all hitting the escape hatch. Breakups are hard, but we are here to say: We're for it! If your relationship isn't giving you what you need, there's no shame in deciding to leave and go live your best life. That's exactly what Alicia wishes that Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, wife of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, had done in their doomed marriage a century ago. This is a reprise of a Season One episode, rewritten and re-recorded.

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In the 1980s, filmmaker John Hughes was the king of a certain kind of cinema, and his very favorite leading lady was teen idol Molly Ringwald. With a zest for the parts Hughes had written for her and a refreshing atypical beauty, Molly became one of the most famous faces of the era, and the performer of generation-defining characters. Her path departed from Hughes's after Pretty in Pink, and the years since have taken her places she never expected going - including through a tough divorce.

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Sponsors

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Some stories contain great seeds of trash that bloom instead into a resilient forest, and that's our story today. Actor Robert Downey Jr., Marvel's Iron Man, famously had a rough start to his career. For years, he was in and out of rehab, in and out of jail, and keeping the Los Angeles Police Department plenty busy with various drug-fueled bad decisions. Talented though he obviously was, he was all but written off by Hollywood in the early 2000s, when he finally found the strength to sit with his demons and chose not to let them control him any longer. There was also a long relationship with Sarah Jessica Parker and a doomed - for obvious reasons - first marriage along the way.

Here's Robert Downey Jr. performing a snippet of Joni Mitchell's 'River' on Ally McBeal: 2006 Robert Downey Jr. - Joni Mitchell's 'River' (YouTube link)

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When The Sopranos premiered on HBO in 1999, no one knew how thoroughly it would change television for a generation. Mob boss Tony Soprano, portrayed so ably by actor James Gandolfini, was a complex anti-hero who was capable of both shocking violence and everyman confusion and ambivalence about his role as a father, husband, son, mobster, and human being. Gandolfini himself may have been the perfect actor for the role, but becoming Tony Soprano was harder than the public knew. He battled his own demons throughout the series run, including during his divorce from his first wife, while the few years he had remaining post-Sopranos at least seem to have represented a fresh start.

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When the powerful and influential pass, we always like to take a look at their personal stories, and wow is Henry Kissinger's time in the limelight as Secretary of State to Richard Nixon a shocking document of weirdness. Hailed as "Washington's Greatest Swinger" (which meant something a bit more tame than it does these days), the bookish foreign policy expert became an unlikely sex symbol during a time of real tumult. Stacie has the unexpected, but apparently true, story.

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Sample Headlines

Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies (rollingstone.com)

Why Henry Kissinger Was “the Ultimate Starf—er” (hollywoodreporter.com)

Henry Kissinger and the surprising dating life of a West Wing ‘playboy’ - The Washington Post

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Hollywood heartthrob Rock Hudson was everywhere on American screens in the 1950s and 1960s. He was the man every woman wanted, and every man wanted to be, but what Hollywood knew and the public didn't was that Rock Hudson was a fabrication, a character in and of himself. Roy Harold Scherer, later Roy Fitzgerald, was turned into Rock Hudson by one of Hollywood's most notorious talent agents, Henry Willson, known as much for taking sexual advantage of the young men he made stars as for the stars themselves. Rock Hudson navigated the difficult waters of being a gay star in a time when that would have destroyed his career; when he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984, he made the complicated choice to go public with the news. While he was abandoned by friends Ronald and Nancy Reagan, he became the face of an emerging pandemic so enmeshed with social issues that his candor arguably changed the course not only of the fight against AIDS, but of the gay rights movement in America and worldwide.

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Sponsors

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/trashy today to get 10% off your first month.

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Loretta Young's decades-long career, starting in 1917, was lauded in Hollywood. She's the winner of an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as the recipient of two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was married three times, but it's the affair with - or sexual assault by - Clark Gable, and the resulting child that became her "adopted daughter" that really tells the tale of the moral force that was Loretta Young.

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Actress Carolyn Jones had been prominent in Hollywood for a decade and a half before her turn as Morticia Addams made her a cultural touchstone. She also married four times - and divorced three - including to TV producer and unintentional season theme Aaron Spelling. This October 2020 episode originally appeared on Patreon, so it's a bit looser and a bit sillier than most. Happy Thanksgiving, Trash Pandas! We are eternally thankful for you!

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Sponsors

Lume Deodorant. New customers get $5 off Lume's Starter Pack, and returning customers get $5 off their next purchase of $30 or more, with code TRASHY at LumeDeodorant.com.

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