Al and Tipper Gore Split

[dixiedoodah 1,003]

Al and Tipper Gore Separate

Originally posted 19 minutes ago by TMZ Staff

Al Gore and his wife of 40 years, Tipper, are separating.

 

The couple wrote an email that found its way to Politico, saying, "We are announcing today that after a great deal of thought and discussion, we have decided to separate."

 

The email continues, "This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration."

 

The couple has 4 kids.

 

Roughly one year ago today -- the couple's daughter Kristin Gore filed for divorce from her husband Paul Cusack.

[annabeast 24]

Wow, didn't see that coming.

[Persiaa 0]

I'm really surprised at that.

[kappy22 1]

I'm sorry to hear this. Then again, I think it would be tough to live with any politician.

[branchop 319]

But after 40 years, couldn't you agree to live apart? I can't imagine how hard that is going to be to separate everything. At that point I would probably just live in the same house and have discreet friends over....

[Persiaa 0]

But after 40 years, couldn't you agree to live apart? I can't imagine how hard that is going to be to separate everything. At that point I would probably just live in the same house and have discreet friends over....

Good point. I wonder if it indicates one of them is serious about another person.

[akua123 0]

I don't know, I'd almost say the opposite - after all that time, maybe one (or both) just got tired of it - it could be they've been doing that for a while, and don't see the point anymore.

[Kath 153]

from the NYTIMES:

 

"WASHINGTON — In the baby-boomer psychodrama of the 1990s, Al and Tipper Gore supposedly had the enduring marriage while the union of the other half of their buddy movie — Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton — seemed not so likely to last.

 

Yet the Clinton marriage, it turns out, has outlived that of the Gores.

 

Al and Tipper Gore’s announcement Tuesday that they would be separating after 40 years together underscores, yet again, a basic truism about any marriage, particularly political ones: You just never know. The point is made as vividly by the fraught political partnerships that remain intact — the Spitzers, the Clintons — as those that do not.

 

Still, when the Gores circulated a joint e-mail message to friends announcing that “after a great deal of thought and discussion, we have decided to separate,” the news landed with some shock.

 

“We obviously have learned that the public is not always private and the private is not always public,” said Gil Troy, who teaches American history at McGill University in Montreal and has written about political marriages. “But you want to believe that there are certain marriages that will last. And the Gore marriage seemed to have become part of the national furniture in the best of ways.”

 

The Gores were a political couple whose trademark moment — a big sloppy kiss on the stage of the 2000 Democratic convention — spurred debate about the degree to which public displays of affection become excessive (“the Kiss” also became the inevitable video backdrop to the perpetual cable loop on Tuesday).

 

They were college sweethearts whose public struggles — her battles with depression, his searing loss to George W. Bush in 2000 — did nothing to suggest anything besides a stable and mutually supportive team. The Gores — he is 62, she is 61 — were never trailed by rumors or whispers, and people close to the family said Tuesday that they expected no second shoe to drop. This decision, they said, was simply about a couple that had grown apart after four decades.

 

“I know people are feeling surprised, but there’s just not a lot of drama behind this,” said a close friend and adviser to the family who declined to be identified in deference to the Gores’ wish for privacy. “They remain very close friends.”

 

In their e-mail message to friends — confirmed by a Gore spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider — the couple cited a “mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration.”

 

Mr. Gore, who has traveled extensively in recent years in support of his business ventures and climate change activism, had settled into a full post-political life. The Gores recently purchased a home in Montecito, Calif., although friends of the former vice president said he still considered Nashville to be his permanent residence.

 

“I was shocked, and I was around them an awful lot,” said Tony Coelho, a former Democratic congressman who was chairman of Mr. Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000. Mr. Coelho, who has not been in contact with the family since the campaign, noted that transitions from public to private life can be difficult.

 

“To some extent, you can say that Al moved onto a global stage while Tipper seemed to move in a more personal direction,” Mr. Coelho said. “That might have been what happened here.”

 

In political circles, reaction to the Gore news struck often on the Clinton connection, and the inherent irony of it.

 

“There was always a perception that the Clintons would split up the day they left the White House,” said Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chairman. “And there was never any hint or suggestion that the Gores would have.” He said he was both surprised by the news and not so surprised, given Mr. Gore’s reserve compared with his wife’s more “extroverted personality.”

 

As with many stories that involve baby boomers, there is a tendency to view the Gore separation through that generational lens. Mr. Troy sees the Clinton and Gore marriages in terms of a “psychic competition” between Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore over who was the more representative member of the demographic.

 

“It is ironic that the Gores would outdo the Clintons in getting divorced,” he said. “In a sense, getting divorced is the iconic baby boomer act.”

[annabeast 24]

I smell an affair. On his part. Like a dumbass middle-age crisis 24-year-old bimbo who "really loves him." He strikes me as entirely the type.

[growinup 0]

Thats a shock!

[branchop 319]

I smell an affair. On his part. Like a dumbass middle-age crisis 24-year-old bimbo who "really loves him." He strikes me as entirely the type.

 

Is that bimbo male or female?

[annabeast 24]

I smell an affair. On his part. Like a dumbass middle-age crisis 24-year-old bimbo who "really loves him." He strikes me as entirely the type.

 

Is that bimbo male or female?

 

 

Female for sure. And quite sincere.

[branchop 319]

I smell an affair. On his part. Like a dumbass middle-age crisis 24-year-old bimbo who "really loves him." He strikes me as entirely the type.

 

Is that bimbo male or female?

 

 

Female for sure. And quite sincere.

 

 

I don't disagree with you, except for the sex of the bimbo.....

[Kath 153]

I wouldn't be surprised if Tipper were finding solise in another woman. She never bothered me as much as many political wives, and struck me as having a strong butch streak.

[Hoyaheel 1,874]

You can be a strong woman - even "butch" (whatever the hell that means) and still want to have sex with men. Just like you can be a macho "manly" man and want to have sex with men. Have we not moved beyond these homosexual (and heterosexual) stereotypes??

 

Friends of the Gores are still saying - no skeletons in the closet, no affairs.....Though the Washington columnist from New York Social Diary had a funny bit in her column:

 

However, that said, Washington Social Diary’s Carol Joynt has filed this latest report on the news:

 

Memo to DPC: AL AND TIPPER, TIPPER AND AL

 

 

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the man who said, “I took the initiative in creating the Internet” would use email to announce the possible end of his marriage. The real surprise, for most people in Washington, was that former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, are officially separating. And, yes, the news arrived in a blast email to friends that was instantly forwarded to and re-blasted by the media.

 

“Hi,” it began. “We wanted to share this personal news with you because we care so much about you as a friend. We are announcing today that after a great deal of thought and discussion, we have decided to separate. This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration. We ask for respect for our privacy and that of our family, and we do not intend to comment further. Hope to see you soon. – Al and Tipper”

 

Here’s my version:

 

“Hi. We have more friends than we can count and so we’re using the list serve to get the word out. Phew. The lawyers have given us the go ahead. It was hours of negotiations but we’ve worked out the tough stuff. We’re both cool on everything and we’ve made enough money in the last few years to go our own ways and remain friends rather than staying stuck in this marriage and starting to hate each other. We’re not saying another word until “Oprah” or “60 Minutes” offers a platform that is fruitful for the inevitable book contracts we’ll both land due to this announcement. Hope to see you soon.”

 

 

I’m making fun but the truth is these are good people who both have a lot of friends in Washington and the general reaction here was surprise. But as the news settled in it changed to less of surprise and more of, “Well, he is married to climate change. He is on the road all the time. He is a driven man.” And Tipper? “She’s got her own life, her photography.” Close friends speculated that she would rather not wait at home alone. There did not seem to be any dark secrets, but who knows? If they exist the Gores have kept them well in the shadows.

 

“I’ve traveled with him dozens of times,” said a friend. “Believe me, he doesn’t have the time. He’s on a mission and that’s what consumes him.”

 

So, it seems, even the icons of a perfect marriage can fall to earth. Maybe it’s a jinx for a Presidential candidate to give his wife a big wet one on national television, as Gore did at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in 2000, when he won his party’s nomination for president. In fact, who would have thought when the Clintons and Gores joined up in 1993 that the couple to separate would be Al and Tipper and not Bill and Hillary?

 

At a party Tuesday night I cornered Washington “wise man” Vernon Jordan and asked, “Are you surprised?” In perfect wise man fashion he replied, “There’s nothing that surprises me.”

Edited June 3, 2010 by Hoyaheel

[Baby Doll 77]

I'm sooo not surprised by this. It has struck me as a marriage of convenience for many years. I can't imagine that he's been faithful to her all this time, but I doubt she minded. My guess is he found someone else that he wants to develop a relationship with, and in 6 months he'll emerge with the new girlfriend.

[annabeast 24]

I'm sooo not surprised by this. It has struck me as a marriage of convenience for many years. I can't imagine that he's been faithful to her all this time, but I doubt she minded. My guess is he found someone else that he wants to develop a relationship with, and in 6 months he'll emerge with the new girlfriend.

 

I'm thinking that Tipper is one step ahead of a Tiger/Jesse tabloid furor. Will she divorce him, or won't she? Oh, she already has.

[Kath 153]

I know that strong women can be hetero. But Tipper, who I don't find especially strong but whom I like fine, gave me a butch vibe that felt quite lesbian. Just my personal opinion; you don't have to share it : )

[bittermuch? 0]

I'm not sure why everyone is sooooo sure there has been infidelity or that it was a "marriage of convenience." Just because they are prominent Democrats? Please. People grow apart, particularly when one or both has an all-consuming career.

[Hoyaheel 1,874]

I'm not sure why everyone is sooooo sure there has been infidelity or that it was a "marriage of convenience." Just because they are prominent Democrats? Please. People grow apart, particularly when one or both has an all-consuming career.

Yeah, I never assumed it was a marriage of convenience, thought they genuinely loved each other, had passion for each other, etc. I hate to see 40 years of marriage ending, but I'm sure they have their reasons. I'm sad for them....

[akua123 0]

and maybe I'm being overly sensitive , but just because somebody doesn't "ping" or appear to be lesbian/gay/bi really doesn't mean they're not. There are plenty that don't fit the stereotypes (including myself, in the interest of full disclosure) , and especially if you don't know them personally, you'd never know.

 

This isn't directed at anyone in particular, or intended to be negative/offensive/attacking/etc in any way, just wanted to point that out . . .

Edited June 5, 2010 by akua123

[annabeast 24]

Well for the record, I think they are both hetero and his ego is out of control. This has the earmarks of a husband pushed the cheating too far. Just my two cents.

[Persiaa 0]

Guess, we'll have to wait for the National Enquirer. :4biggrin:

[Baby Doll 77]

They just never seemed to have any chemistry to me, so I assumed it was a marriage of convenience, at least in the last decade or so. Easier to keep 'er and all that. I'm still betting that in 6 months he'll be strutting around a new girlfriend who may have actually been in the picture for a while.

[MC 1]

I'm not sure why everyone is sooooo sure there has been infidelity or that it was a "marriage of convenience." Just because they are prominent Democrats? Please. People grow apart, particularly when one or both has an all-consuming career.

And when one of them achieved so much on a lie. The evidence is clear and I doubt that Tipper hasn't read about it. HE is obviously totally in denial and out of control. I wouldn't stay with that either. He must be going CRAZY trying to maintain his (false) image. At least she won't be a broke divorcee!