Inside the Winning Love Story of Judge Judy and Husband Jerry Sheindlin

And having long eschewed retirement (“I’m not tired. I don’t play golf or tennis. I have no desire to learn how to play mahjong, chess or checkers. I know what I like to do”), Judy shows no signs of laying down her gavel.

She expanded her television empire in 2014 to include Hot Bench, now the third-highest-rated syndicated show on daytime behind Dr. Phil and, well, Judge Judy, which she’s really only ending to make room for her latest venture, Judy Justice. Plus, as she put it to The Hollywood Reporter recently, “I like to see things tied up in a bow,” and 25 years just sounds better than, say, 27. 

As for their union, though Jerry didn’t magically transform himself into a doting caregiver during their year apart, “He did learn to use a calendar better,” she remarked to Marlo. “He learned to write down: ‘October 21, Judy’s birthday. Buy present, card.'” 

In 2019, to mark her 77th, he got her exactly what she wanted—more or less. “I said, ‘I’d like a new Aston Martin,'” she detailed to the TMZ cameras waiting outside her Beverly Hills apartment. “And he said, ‘What’s your second choice?’ So I got a bathrobe!” In Jerry’s defense, he cut in, ”It was from Aston Martin!”