Stephen Hawking’s First Wife On Refusing to ‘Worship’ Ex-Husband

In a new interview with the Radio Times, Stephen Hawking’s first wife Jane Wilde — subject of the recent film The Theory of Everything — describes the circumstances that led to the dissolution of their marriage.

“To me, Stephen was my husband and the father of my children,” The Telegraph reports her as saying. “One does not say to one’s husband, ‘Oh, you’re so clever! I must worship the ground under your feet, or in this case, wheels.”

She continued, “I found this kind of sycophantic attitude – the attitude adopted by so many people around Stephen – exceptionally frustrating and, of course, it grew a lot worse when we finally had to engage carers.”

She also discussed a competing love in Hawking’s life: The Goddess of Physics.

“I was not jealous of her, but she did give me some cause for concern,” she said.

Wilde wrote the book Traveling to Infinity about her life with Hawking. It inspired the film The Theory of Everything.

[Telegraph]