The Truth About Paula Zahn's Marriage To Richard Cohen

What led to the end of Paula Zahn's marriage to Richard Cohen? Nearly 14 years after the journalist confirmed she was divorcing her then-husband after 20 years of marriage, there are still plenty of questions in regard to what actually caused the scandalous end of their relationship, many of which may never be answered.

In August 2007, several months after their split was confirmed, a person claiming to be a friend of Zahn's told the New York Daily News that Zahn began an alleged affair with Paul Fribourg, the chairman and chief executive officer of Continental and a friend of Cohen's, after she and Cohen, a real estate developer, stopped being intimate with one another. "She and Richard weren't having sex for some time," the friend said.

However, at the same time, Cohen reportedly said Zahn, who currently hosts On the Case with Paula Zahn, began cheating on him with the also-married Fribourg at least a year prior to the time they stopped having sex. "Richard felt like he'd been stabbed in the heart twice when he found out his wife had been cheating with one of his best friends," one of Cohen's pals explained. "They played golf and tennis together. Their families skied together in Aspen." According to the same report, Cohen learned of Zahn's reported affair with Fribourg through a "shocking" and "lurid" diary he discovered.

Later in 2007, as their marital drama continued to make headlines, Paula Zahn and Richard Cohen embarked on a messy legal battle after she sued him for the reported mishandling of $25 million of her own money.

According to a second report from the New York Daily News, Zahn accused Cohen of making "dubious investments" with her hard-earned money. However, Cohen's own filing at the time claimed there was no money to mishandle as Zahn spent more than she brought home, per The New York Post. His court papers read, "Taxes on her earnings, payments to her agent, and the $20 million cost of her Connecticut mansion alone (without even including the extravagant nature of Ms. Zahn's annual expenditures), consumed more than her entire income over their 20-year marriage." The case was eventually dismissed.

Zahn and Cohen first met in the early 1980s during her time working at a local TV station in Boston, Massachusetts; they wed in 1987. The former couple shares three adult children, including daughter Haley and sons Jared and Austin (via the Boston Herald).