Never doubt the power of babies to bring people together. Amid their divorce proceedings, Sarah Palin reunited with her estranged husband, Todd Palin, to adore their brand new granddaughters.
“Banks and Blaise… we are so in love with you girls,” Willow Palin, 25, captioned the Nov. 18 Instagram post that announced the birth of her twins. The joy of these new additions to the Palin family was so powerful that it squashed (albeit temporarily) any bad feelings between Willow’s parents, Sarah and Todd Palin. Sarah, 51, shared a picture of her and Todd, 55, cuddling the newborns to her Instagram. “Banks&Blaise!! BlessingX2 Congratulations Willow&Ricky = and then there were four,” the former Alaskan governor captioned the gallery that also featured Piper Palin, Trig Palin and her parents, Charles and Sarah Heath.
Todd and Sarah’s more than three-decades of wedded bliss came to an end on Sept. 6 after he filed for divorce. The snow machine racer claimed, in documents filed in Anchorage, Alaska, that the split was due to “incompatibility of temperament between the parties such that they find it impossible to live together as husband and wife.” Todd also requested joint custody of Trig, their 11-year-old son with Down Syndrome. Todd and Sarah’s other kids – Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Track Palin – are all over 18 years old. Oddly enough, Todd filed the papers on his birthday, and just eight days before filing, he and Sarah celebrated their 31 st wedding anniversary.
It was devastating. I thought I got shot,” Sarah said while speaking on the Nov. 12 episode of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. While the world learned of Todd’s desire to split when filed in September, Sarah revealed she learned of his intentions months earlier — and in a very impersonal way. “I found out from an email from an attorney saying that she was hired and that was on June 19th, I’ll never forget it,” she said.
“I’m sure so many of you either — maybe you’ve been through [divorce], or you have people whom you love — you’ve witnessed how horrible it is. But I just think, wow, maybe except for the death of a child, I don’t know what could be more… Yeah, it hurts,” she said. Sarah said at the time that Sarah and Todd were “going through counseling,” and she hated how “attorneys are getting rich off of us.”
Sarah and Todd eloped in 1988. The family rose to fame in 2008 when the late Senator John McCain picked her to be his running mate on the Republican presidential ticket. After they failed to unseat President Barack Obama, she continued to pursue the political spotlight with diminishing returns. Todd, for his part, stayed out of the spotlight as best he can. Unfortunately, he made headlines in 2017 when Track, then 28, allegedly beat him up after telling his armed father to shoot him. Track was later arrested by Wasilla, Alaska police.