Why Stephen King’s wife threatened to divorce him

In a new interview, Stephen King has revealed that his wife once threatened to divorce him. And her reason has nothing to do with horror.

Stephen King is doing the promotion rounds for his new novel Holly, which hit shelves yesterday, with a synopsis as follows: “When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

“Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

“Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.”

During a conversation about the book, King revealed a passion of his that has royally ticked off his wife, Tabitha.

Why Stephen King’s wife threatened to divorce him

In a wide-ranging interview about new book Holly, and his writing process, Stephen King reveals that his wife nearly divorced him over his love of the song ‘Mambo No. 5,’ by Lou Bega.

When asked about his affection for the song, King tells Rolling Stone: “Oh, yeah. Big time. My wife threatened to divorce me. I played that a lot. I had the dance mix. I loved those extended play things, and I played both sides of it. And one of them was just total instrumental. And I played that thing until my wife just said, ‘One more time, and I’m going to f**king leave you.’

It turns out King was listening to the ear-worm while writing a book about the Kennedy assassination, as when asked what he was working on during that phase, King says: “I think probably 11/22/63. But when I write, there are things that I can listen to a lot. And a lot of it is techno stuff or disco stuff, but techno in particular, there’s this group called LCD Soundsystem, and I love that. Fat Boy Slim is somebody else. I can just listen to that stuff.

“If you tried to write and listen to Leonard Cohen, how the f**k would you do that? Because you’d have to listen to the words and you’d have to listen to what he’s saying. But with some of the techno stuff, or KC and the Sunshine Band, Gloria Gaynor, it’s all good.”

Holly by Stephen King is out now, while for more horror, head here.