Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, are separating after 40 years of
marriage that included a White
House run when their sunny relationship offered a counterpoint
to President Bill Clinton's philandering.
According to an e-mail circulated among the couple's associates on Tuesday, the Gores
said it was "a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have
made together following a process of long and careful consideration."
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider confirmed the statement came from the Gores, but declined to comment further.
The Gores were telling friends they "grew apart" after 40 years of marriage and there was no affair involved, according
to two longtime close associates and family friends, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity.
The associates said the Gores, over time, had carved out separate lives, with the former vice president on the road
frequently. One of the associates said: "Their lives had gotten more and
more separated."
Al Gore lost the 2000
presidential election to Republican George W. Bush. He has since
campaigned worldwide to draw attention to climate change, which in 2007 led to a Nobel Peace Prize and an
Oscar for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."..
The Gores, who were married on May 19, 1970, at the National Cathedral in Washington, crafted an image as a happily married
couple during his eight-year stint as vice president in the 1990s and a presidential candidate
in 2000. The couple famously exchanged a long kiss during the 2000
Democratic presidential convention.
The image of their warm relationship stood in sharp contrast to the Clinton marriage rocked by Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, a
scandal that hung over Gore's own presidential campaign.
Al Gore at the time said his wife was "someone I've loved with my whole heart since the night of my high school senior
prom."
On Halloween, Al and Tipper Gore would dress up in costume and greet trick-or-treaters who made their way to the vice
president's mansion. One year, she was dressed as a puppy and he was
dressed as Underdog.
Tipper Gore was a co-founder in 1985 of the Parents Music Resource Center, which pushed
for parental warning labels on music with violent or sexually explicit
lyrics. The group drew the ire of musicians ranging from Dee Snider of Twisted Sister to Frank
Zappa, who said warning labels were unnecessary and a danger to freedom.
Tipper Gore later became friends with the late Zappa's wife, Gail, and played drums and sang backup on daughter Diva Zappa's album in
1999.
The Gores have four adult children, Karenna, Kristin, Sarah and Albert III.
In a letter written to then-girlfriend Tipper as a 17-year-old college freshman, Al Gore wrote: "Mother's having a fit
about me riding the motorcycle back to Harvard. Dad's mad at my long
hair."
Gore later held his father's former seats in the U.S. House and Senate for 16 years. He first ran for president in 1988 at
age 39, but drew little support outside the South.
A subsequent bid in 1992 was derailed after the Gores' 6-year-old son almost died after being hit by a car in 1989.
"It was a very spiritual time for both of us," Tipper Gore later wrote. "In Al's case, he decided to write a book and not to
run for president in 1992."
The book was "Earth in the Balance," and Al Gore ended up in the thick of the 1992 campaign anyway — as Bill Clinton's running mate.
Tipper Gore, who has acknowledged treatment for depression after Albert
III's accident, is a vocal advocate on mental health issues.
