Al Gore, the Nobel peace prize winner and former US Vice President, and his wife Tipper, have announced that the couple are separating after 40 years of marriage.
The pair met at Al Gore’s high school senior prom in 1965, and were married in May 1970 at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. The Gores lived together in Nashville, Tenn., and have four adult children and three grandchildren.
The Gores, in an e-mail message confirmed by their office, said the decision was made “after a great deal of thought and discussion.”
“This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration,” they said. “We ask for respect for our privacy and that of our family, and we do not intend to comment further.”
After serving for eight years as Bill Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore was nominated as the Democratic party’s presidential candidate in 2000. During the party’s national convention in Los Angeles that year, the couple engaged in a famously passionate kiss on stage. The couple also cowrote a book on family life, published in 2002, entitled “Joined At The Heart.” For years, the Gores had publicly portrayed their marriage as strong.
Al Gore Tipper Gore kiss
The image of their warm relationship stood in sharp contrast to the Clinton marriage rocked by Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, a scandal that hung over Gore’s own presidential campaign. Al Gore at the time said his wife was “someone I’ve loved with my whole heart since the night of my high school senior prom.”
After his years in Washington and unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2000, Mr. Gore became a climate change campaigner and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his efforts. He is the cofounder of chairman of Generation Investment Management, a sustainable investment firm, and Current TV, a network based on viewer-created content.
Tipper Gore was a co-founder in 1985 of the Parents Music Resource Center, which pushed for parental warning labels on music with violent or sexually explicit lyrics. The group drew the ire of musicians ranging from Dee Snider of Twisted Sister to Frank Zappa, who said warning labels were unnecessary and a danger to freedom.
Tipper Gore later became friends with the late Zappa’s wife, Gail, and played drums and sang backup on daughter Diva Zappa’s album in 1999.
It was reported that the Gores recently purchased a multimillion dollar mansion in Montecito, Calif. Real estate records showed that the approximately 6,500 sq. foot home has 6 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, a large pool house, and 6 fireplaces.