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TV personality Judy Sheindlin, 81, has been a household name for over two decades. Many know her from her hit reality court show, Judge Judy, which first premiered in Sept. 1996. The New York native graduated from New York Law School in 1965, however, she did not become a TV sensation until she was 54 years old! These days, fans can catch Judy on her new show, Judy Justice, which premiered in Nov. 2021, after Judge Judy ended that July. Amid her continued success, below is a closer look at Judy’s three marriages, two of them being to her longtime love, Jerry Sheindlin, 90.
Judy Sheindlin’s Husband, Jerry Sheindlin
The family court judge has been married to her current husband, Jerry, for over 40 years, as they first got married in 1977. Although neither of them have social media accounts, Judy has spoken about her hubby during a few interview over her career. Notably, her time on Judge Judy took place nearly two decades after she and Jerry got married for the first time.
Judy told E! News in January 2024 how she keeps her longstanding marriage to Jerry exciting after all these years. “You don’t spend 24 hours together because that’s deadly. Jerry just celebrated his 90th birthday and I still like to look at him when he walks in the room—that’s a key,” she said.
In a 2020 interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Judy revealed what she got Jerry for his 85th birthday. “I didn’t know what to get him for his 85th birthday,” she told Ellen DeGeneres at the time. “And I figured, what greater gift could there be for somebody at 85 than a motorcycle?” Jerry, who was notably in the audience, confirmed that his wife gifted him a Harley Davidson tricycle. The gift, as Judy explained, was worth a whopping $40K, which she hilariously called the price “not bad.”
Their Divorce
Judy and Jerry’s marriage was not always perfect though, as the couple actually divorced in 1990, soon after the death of Judy’s father, per E! News. Jerry explained what occurred to their calling it quits in the 2020 book, What Makes a Marriage Last. “She said to me, ‘If you can’t maneuver this, I’m going to divorce you,’” he told authors Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue at the time. “And I said, ‘Oh, yeah? I dare you.’ And the next day I got divorce papers. The next day. So, that was the end of that.”
Jerry, a retired New York Supreme Court justice, and his wife were only divorced for one year and remarried in 1991. He also quipped about how they met in a bar during a 1999 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I just finished trying a murder case as a defense lawyer,” Jerry said. “She was a prosecutor. There was a reporter from the New York Post there at the bar, and I was speaking to him about the case. Judy came walking in and put her finger in my face and said, ‘And who is this?’ I said, ‘Lady, get your finger out of my face.’ We’ve been together ever since.”
Her First Husband, Ronald Levy
Before Jerry, Judy was married to prosecutor Ronald Levy for 12 years. The former couple got married in 1964, however, they called it quits by 1976. Judy even opened up to Fox News in 2017 about her first husband. “My first husband is a lovely, lovely man but he always viewed my job as a hobby and there came a time where I resented that,” she said to the outlet, via The US Sun. “I was 20, almost 21. So I became a mom … All my friends were getting married, there was still those pressures even in those years.”
Judy’s Children
As Judy revealed during that interview, she became a mom at 20 years old when she and Ronald welcomed their first child, Jamie, in 1966, and later, the ex couple welcomed a son, Jamie, in 1968. Once they divorced and Judy married Jerry, she officially became a stepmother to his three kids: Nicole, 56, Jonathan, 57, and Gregory, 60. Nicole and Gregory both attended law school, whereas, Jonathan paved his own path and went on to become a doctor. Judy is a proud grandmother to 13 grandchildren.
