Celebrity News
Muppets Creator Jim Henson Was ‘Not Usually’ Faithful to Wife Jane Before 1986 Separation, Biographer Claims
New details are emerging about the colorful lives of The Muppets creator Jim Henson and his wife, Jane Henson.
Biographer Brian Jay Jones, who is the author of Jim Henson: The Biography, revealed that Jim was “not always — in fact, not usually — faithful to his own wife,” during a Monday, February 2 appearance on the Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia podcast.
Despite the marital infidelity, the Hensons’ bond remained remarkably strong throughout their lives together — and apart. “They just never stopped listening to each other and valuing each other,” Jones recalled on the podcast.
The couple first crossed paths as students at the University of Maryland in the 1950s, where both studied puppetry. He was a freshman and she was a senior. Jane later recalled being immediately struck by something unique about the young Jim.
“She just lights up remembering him entering the room for the first time,” Jones shared during the podcast interview. “It wasn’t one of those ‘I’m going to marry that man,’ but just what the presence he had and how he absolutely knew what he was doing and took over that classroom.”
After marrying in May 1959, the pair co-founded Muppets, Inc. and welcomed five children together. Though they separated in 1986, but divorce never followed.
“It was a handshake of a separation,” said Jones.
Their friendship endured until Jim’s unexpected death in 1990 at age 53.
