Most people are aware that Patrick Dempsey is married to—and almost divorced—Jillian Fink. But, did you know that he was married once before that?
Patrick Dempsey married his first wife, actress Rocky Parker, in 1987. At the time, Dempsey was 21-years-old and Parker was 47-years-old. The marriage was short-lasted and apparently sour; the pair divorced with irreconcilable differences in 1994 and at the time, Parker accused Dempsey of breaking her finger in a car door, causing her to have arthritis. She also accused Dempsey of beating her on the set of Can’t Buy Me Love.
It’s important to note that Parker later recanted these claims, saying that her lawyers convinced her to make accusations.
Dempsey married Fink in 1999. She had previously been his hairstylist. Both had career success quickly, with Dempsey taking his turn as “McDreamy” on Grey’s Anatomy, and Fink taking on A-List clients and creating her own makeup line.
They went on to have three children, Tallula Fyfe, and twins Sullivan and Darby.
Fink filed from divorce from Dempsey in 2014, again citing irreconcilable differences. However, in a profile done by Bustle, he credited his and Fink’s decision to begin therapy to saving their relationship.
“What I have learned is that I will hear things differently in a therapist’s office just because we have a little bit of an emotional detachment. There’s room and space to come in and go, ‘Oh, OK. Now I understand where you’re coming from. OK, that’s what you’re feeling. I don’t want you to feel like that’ and then you try to work on it.”
He went on to describe how therapy has changed him as a person.“You’re going to have different wants and different desires as you get older, right? You’re changing, you’re evolving. Then you have to give each other space to be able to go off and do that, with the commitment to come back and continue to strive, and to become a better person as a man or as a woman, as a father, as a mother, as a son, as a daughter, all these things. We’re here to become a better person.”
Sources:
Was McDreamy’s first marriage a nightmare? (today.com)
Who Is Patrick Dempsey’s Wife? He & Jillian Fink Saved Their Marriage With Therapy (bustle.com)
