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Charlie Crist Files for Divorce

Freshman congressman’s wife served as his campaign director

Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., was married for nine years. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., was married for nine years. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Freshman Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist of Florida is filing for divorce from his wife of nine years.

“It just didn’t work out for us,” Crist told the Tampa Bay Times.

Carole Crist, 47, was political director for Crist’s 2016 congressional campaign when the former Republican governor ousted then-Rep. David Jolly. 

The divorce announcement comes a few weeks after Jolly hired Crist staffer Vito Sheeley, who had worked on Crist’s campaign as outreach director and was just three weeks into his job as district director. Sheeley is serving as a senior adviser to Jolly, who has not yet said whether he’ll challenge Crist in 2018.

[David Jolly Hires Charlie Crist Staffer for 2018]

Crist married then-Carole Rome in December 2008. They met on the New York and Hamptons social circuit in fall of 2007, the Times reported, and  were engaged in July 2008.

This is Crist’s second divorce — he was married for less than a year in 1979. He has no children of his own and Carole has two daughters from a previous marriage.

— Simone Pathé contributed to this report.

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