Patrick Dempsey revealed why he married 44-year-old woman when he was just 18
Patrick Dempsey’s first marriage ended in a lawsuit, but there was a reason he married a woman 26 years his senior at just 18.
You’ll have all heard of a relationship seeming to be fine until turning 'rocky', but it doesn't normally involve an age gap like this, secrecy that lasted years, or a dynamic that was more motherly than wife-material.
When it came to Dempsey’s first marriage to Rochelle 'Rocky' Parker lasted only but a few years, with the pair having met and dated in 1984 before getting divorced in 1994.
Parker was 26 years older than 18-year-old Dempsey, and was a widowed mother-of-three, with a second-oldest son who was one year senior to the young actor.
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The two actors met when they were cast as aunt and nephew in the play, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and according to Men's Journal, sparks were instant.
The pair began dating, and she moved on to become his manager as they kept their relationship a secret from everyone around them.
They then married in 1987 when Dempsey was 21 and again chose to keep it to themselves for two years.
However, in 1994, Parker filed for divorce.
The shock split came on 26 April, 1994, when Parker claimed ‘irreconcilable differences.’
But considering how the pair came to be, what could have caused them to turn around and want to leave something they tried so hard to protect?
For Dempsey, he said he needed something at that time.
Dempsey addressed his relationship in a 2006 interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, where he called it a ‘Freudian nightmare that is public knowledge.’
"I think I needed a mother," he said. "There were a lot of negative things that I'm still undoing from it. She had a son one year older than me."
As for Parker, it was a time of conflict, as she had alleged the actor left her for another woman – something he has denied.
According to The Sun, she also claims he previously harmed her, recalling: “While we were on the set of his (1987) movie Can’t Buy Me Love, he beat me up because he claimed he ‘wanted to see what it was like to beat up a woman!’ I now suffer from arthritis in my hand from where Respondent injured me.”
She added: “The physical abuse included Respondent breaking my finger when he rushed me to a van and closed the door on my finger.”
However, she later took her words back, claiming she was ‘advised’ to accuse her ex of assault.
She said, per the outlet: “In the heat of a divorce, sometimes people say things they normally wouldn’t. But the statements of physical and mental abuse, as well as alcoholism and drug use, are false.”
Sadly, Parker died in 2014 of throat cancer at the age of 74, while Dempsey went on to have a life and family with hairdresser Jillian Fink which began over 20 years ago.
Topics: Celebrity, Sex and Relationships, Film
Britt Jones