“I was scared”: Five bombshells from Johnny Carson’s biography from toxic marriages to drinking

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.”