DWTS Alum Opens Up About Late Husband’s ‘Betrayal’

A “Dancing with the Stars”  alum opened up about the aftermath of her husband’s death.

Paulina Porizkova was a short-lived contestant on DWTS in 2007, when she was voted off first alongside pro dancer Alec Mazo. The 1980s supermodel’s relationship with her husband, Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, lasted much longer. The two stars were married for nearly 30 years and shared two sons, Jonathan and Oliver, before Ocasek’s sudden death in 2019.

On a December 2022 episode of Dear Media’s “The Skinny Confidential Him & Her” podcast with Lauryn and Michael Bosstick, Porizkova, 57, revealed that her husband’s death spawned a chain of events that she never saw coming.

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Paulina Porizkova Felt Betrayed by Ric Ocasek

On September 15, 2019,  Ocasek was found dead in his Manhattan townhouse by Porizkova, who was still living with him despite the couple’s separation almost two years earlier.  In a May 2018 Instagram post, Porizkova shared, “Ric and I have been peacefully separated for the past year,” but she added that they still lived together as a family and that their love would never “disappear.”

But on the “Skinny Confidential Him & Her” podcast, the former Sports Illustrated model revealed that she felt betrayed when she found that her husband of three decades had cut her out of his will.

“My husband died and that’s when my life went to s***,” she said. “There was the tragedy of his death, the trauma of finding him dead. We were best friends. We still lived in the same house, we went to dinners together and parties together, but as two single people. I thought we had found the perfect solution to the end of our marriage. And then he died and then two days later I found out he had cut me off, cut me out of his will, claiming that I had abandoned him.”

Porizkova said the back-to-back blows were too much for her to “process” all at once and that she felt like she was “drowning in pain.”

“I spent 35 years with this man, he was the most important person in my life. He was my north star, his death was the end of me as I knew me,” she said. “And then his betrayal was the end of everything I knew and believed.”

Porizkova said Ocasek never told her that anything bothered or angered him in their separated relationship. “Now it’s three years later and I will never get my answers,” she said. “I will never know why he did this. I will never know what was in his mind… if it was bad advice from his lawyers, if it was a temporary thing, if he just messed up….”

“All I can make out of it is a choice on how I’m gonna see it. And I’m choosing to see it as almost a crime of passion,” she added. Porizkova noted that being vindictive means “you still care,” so she is taking Ocasek’s betrayal that way.

According to Page Six, Ocasek’s will, which had been updated just weeks before his expected death, stated, “I have made no provision for my wife … as we are in the process of divorcing. Even if I should die before our divorce is final … Paulina is not entitled to any elective share … because she has abandoned me.”

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Paulina Porizkova Revealed That She Had a Boyfriend at the Time of Her Husband’s Death

In November 2022, Porizkova released her book, titled “No Filter: The Good, The Bad and the Beautiful,” In the preface, she stated that she will “always” love her late husband. But for the first time she also revealed, “After we had separated, I had fallen in love with someone else and was in a relationship with this man when my husband died.”

The mom of two did not name her boyfriend but added that her husband “knew” and “accepted him.” Porizkova added that the man “no longer needs a name” in the story of her life.

She also wrote that while she never expected to inherit all of Ocasek’s estate, she felt she deserved half as his wife of 30 years. Porizkova ultimately filed a lawsuit, which was settled out of court. In an October 2021 interview on “The Originals” podcast, Porizkova told host Andrew Goldman, “I am gonna be fine. … I settled last week with the estate. They were very fair. They gave me what is mine under New York state law, and we’re done.”

Of Ocasek’s betrayal, she wrote in her book, “I thought I knew him to the bones. I didn’t.” The model also revealed that she learned other secrets about her ex-husband following his death, but that they will “stay in my pockets forever.”

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