John Cleese Wife History: Jennifer Wade and His Three Previous Marriages Explained

If you searched John Cleese wife, you’re probably trying to untangle a timeline that gets muddled online: who he’s married to now, who he was married to before, and how those relationships fit around a career that’s lasted for decades. The clean version is simple—John Cleese has been married four times, and his current wife is Jennifer Wade. The fuller version is more interesting, because each marriage lines up with a different chapter of his life, his work, and the way he’s chosen to live in public.

Who is John Cleese?

John Cleese is an English comedian, actor, writer, and producer best known for Monty Python and Fawlty Towers. He became famous for a sharp, physical, highly intelligent style of comedy—funny because it’s absurd, but also funny because it feels painfully human. Over the years, he’s worked across film, television, stage, and voice acting, and he’s remained a public figure long after many of his peers stepped away from the spotlight.

That longevity is part of why his personal life stays a topic of curiosity. When someone’s been famous for half a century, people don’t just search for their best roles—they search for the “life context” around those roles. And with Cleese, that often turns into one big question: who has he been married to, and who is he married to now?

Who is John Cleese’s wife now?

John Cleese’s current wife is Jennifer Wade, a jewelry designer. They married in August 2012 in a private ceremony on the Caribbean island of Mustique. This is Cleese’s fourth marriage, and it’s the relationship most people mean when they ask the present-day version of the question.

What stands out about this marriage isn’t constant public exposure—if anything, it’s the opposite. Cleese and Wade aren’t a couple that tries to live their relationship as a daily headline. You’ll see them at events and in occasional interviews, but much of their life together stays intentionally low-key, which is exactly why people keep looking them up.

Who is Jennifer Wade?

Jennifer Wade is known publicly as Cleese’s fourth wife, but she has her own professional identity. She’s widely described as a jewelry designer, and her public profile tends to stay focused on that work rather than celebrity drama. In the “celebrity spouse” universe, there are people who build their entire brand around the marriage. Wade’s presence reads differently: she’s visible enough to be identifiable, but not so visible that you feel like you’re watching a curated reality show.

There’s also a practical reason her name is searched so often: Cleese has spoken openly (in his characteristically blunt, comedic way) about the financial impact of his third divorce and how it affected his lifestyle and work plans. That makes readers curious about what came next. Jennifer Wade is part of that “next chapter,” the later-life partnership that arrived after the most publicly discussed divorce period.

How John Cleese and Jennifer Wade met

Most widely repeated profiles describe Cleese and Wade meeting through mutual connections and then marrying a few years later. That quiet origin story fits the tone of the relationship overall. They didn’t build a “big reveal” brand around it. They simply got together, and then—when they were ready—got married.

If you’re writing about them, it helps to keep the tone realistic. This isn’t a relationship that’s been marketed as spectacle. It’s more like: two adults met, liked each other, and chose to make it official without turning it into a public performance.

John Cleese’s marriages, explained in a clean timeline

When people get confused about John Cleese’s wife, it’s usually because they remember one marriage strongly (often the first or the third) and forget the middle chapters. The easiest way to keep it straight is to think of his life in four relationship eras.

First wife: Connie Booth

John Cleese’s first wife was Connie Booth. They married in 1968 and divorced in 1978. This marriage remains one of the most talked-about, not because of gossip, but because Booth wasn’t simply “a spouse.” She was also a major creative collaborator.

Booth co-wrote and co-created Fawlty Towers with Cleese, which means her name is permanently tied to one of the most respected sitcoms in British television history. Even if you never look up Cleese’s personal life, you’ll still run into Connie Booth’s name because their professional work together became cultural history.

That’s why this marriage stays especially memorable in summaries: it’s not just a relationship chapter—it’s a creative chapter too. And for people who love Fawlty Towers, the Booth connection often feels like a key piece of understanding how the show existed at all.

Second wife: Barbara Trentham

Cleese’s second wife was Barbara Trentham. They married in 1981 and divorced in 1990. This period is usually described more quietly in public biographies, largely because it wasn’t tied to a cultural lightning bolt in the same way the Booth era was.

Still, it matters for a very clear reason: it’s part of Cleese’s family story. Trentham is also linked to one of his two children. So even when people don’t recognize the name, it remains a stable part of the relationship timeline and helps explain how Cleese’s private life developed alongside his ongoing career.

Third wife: Alyce Faye Eichelberger

Cleese’s third wife was Alyce Faye Eichelberger, a psychotherapist. They married in 1992 and divorced in 2008. This is the marriage most associated with the public “Cleese divorce” conversation, because Cleese has referenced the financial and emotional consequences in interviews and in his stage work.

What makes this chapter different is how often it gets summarized through the lens of aftermath. Many people didn’t follow the relationship in real time—but they heard about the divorce later, because Cleese talked about it with a mixture of frustration and humor. Whether you find his tone sympathetic or blunt, the effect is the same: the third marriage became the one people connect to “why he kept touring” and “why he kept working” in later years.

If you’re writing a biography-style article, the best approach is to keep this factual and avoid turning it into a dramatic scoreboard. The core, widely repeated facts are simply that the marriage lasted from 1992 to 2008, and Cleese has publicly acknowledged it was a turning point in his finances and lifestyle.

Fourth wife: Jennifer Wade

Cleese’s fourth wife is Jennifer Wade. They married in August 2012, and she remains his current wife. This marriage is the “present tense” answer to the search term, and it’s also the chapter that tends to be described as lighter in tone—more playful, more private, and less defined by public conflict.

Because it’s his fourth marriage, some online summaries try to turn it into a punchline. But a more human way to look at it is this: Cleese has lived an unusually long, unusually public life, and his relationships reflect the reality that a life can have multiple chapters. Jennifer Wade is the partner in his current chapter.

Does John Cleese have children?

Yes—John Cleese has two daughters. In most biographical summaries, they’re identified as Cynthia (from his marriage to Connie Booth) and Camilla (from his marriage to Barbara Trentham). If you’ve seen recent headlines about Cleese working on projects with one of his daughters, that usually points to Camilla, who has also worked in comedy and entertainment.

Cleese’s family life isn’t presented as a constant public story, so you’ll see fewer intimate details than you might expect for someone so famous. But the basic “two children” fact is a consistent part of his biography and helps explain why some relationship searches lead into family-related questions.

Why “John Cleese wife” can be confusing online

This search term stays confusing for two reasons. First, different sites compress the timeline in sloppy ways—mixing up marriage years, skipping over the second marriage, or treating the third divorce as if it’s the only relationship chapter that matters. Second, because Cleese is still alive and still working, the “current wife” question stays active. People aren’t only researching history; they’re checking what’s true now.

If you want to keep your understanding clean, remember this: four marriages, one current wife (Jennifer Wade), and three previous wives (Connie Booth, Barbara Trentham, Alyce Faye Eichelberger). Once you keep that structure in your head, the internet noise gets much easier to ignore.

The takeaway

The present-day answer to John Cleese wife is Jennifer Wade, his fourth wife, whom he married in August 2012. But the full story is that Cleese has been married four times, with Connie Booth tied to his most famous sitcom legacy, Barbara Trentham tied to a later family chapter, Alyce Faye Eichelberger linked to the widely discussed 2008 divorce, and Jennifer Wade representing his current chapter. Keep the timeline straight, keep the tone factual, and suddenly the topic becomes simple instead of messy.