Patrick Carney - Personal Life

Personal Life

Carney married his first wife, writer Denise Grollmus, in 2007. The couple acrimoniously divorced in 2009. The following was written in the Rolling Stone's May 27, 2010, issue regarding his relationship with Grollmus:

says she slept with his best friend, lied to him for years, bilked him for money. By the end, Carney was depressed, drinking a lot, and had gained 25 pounds. 'Homeboy was miserable,' Auerbach says. 'He was being manipulated mentally and emotionally. It was so draining.' Carney finally broke it off last July, with a phone call while his wife was in Europe. ('The ultimate p---- move,' he admits.) He says it cost him a quarter of a million dollars, plus health insurance and a monthly alimony check: 'Totally worth it.'

After Carney's interview, Grollmus wrote her side of the story concerning the couple's infidelities, alcoholism, and eventual split in a Salon essay published on March 3, 2011. In her essay, entitled Snapshots From a Rock 'N' Roll Marriage, Grollmus wrote:

I think about the day he asked me for a divorce. Aug. 4, 2009. Just two days earlier, I had left for Warsaw, Poland, on a two-month research trip for a book I was writing. It was one of the few times in our relationship that I had done the leaving. I always feared that if we were both bouncing around the world for the sake of our careers, we’d never last.

In 2010, Carney and his bandmate, Dan Auerbach, moved from Akron, OH, and purchased homes in Nashville, TN. They recorded their El Camino album at Auerbach's newly completed Nashville studio, Easy Eye Sound Studio.

On February 13, 2011, hours before the Grammys in Los Angeles, CA, Carney proposed his girlfriend, Emily Ward. They married on September 15, 2012, in the backyard of their Nashville home. The wedding ceremony was officiated by actor Will Forte. The wedding party included Ward's siblings Danielle Shuster & Henry Ward, Carney's brothers Will Carney, Michael Carney, & Barry Stormer, and the couple's Irish wolfhound, Charlotte. Wearing Carolina Herrera, Ward walked down the aisle to Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells. Carney and Ward invited 350 guests, including bandmate Dan Auerbach and professional snowboarder Shaun White, who was later arrested and charged with vandalism and public intoxication at a hotel in Nashville, TN after the wedding reception.