During the ’50s and ’60s, Carson was married to Jody Wolcott, with whom he had three children. According to the biography, the pair reportedly had a very volatile relationship. An excerpt published from Page Six reveals that Carson and Wolcott’s marriage was littered with infidelities.
“There would be boozy rows aplenty — some in front of other couples — or long silent stews of resentment or recrimination or shame,” wrote Zehme. “Alcohol (while hardly a constant in their early years) was a friend to neither man nor wife; whenever lit, they would both act out, very badly.”
Zehme explained that if Carson was under the influence, he would go on a “rampage, and whomever he had been only moments prior would be instantly displaced by an unrecognizable hellion . . . Occasionally he would wake the next day to discover that some such havoc had bruised the flesh of his sons’ mother.”