Muppets Creator Jim Henson’s Ex Jane Called Their Split ‘a Handshake of a Separation,’ Biographer Claims

Jim Henson and his wife Jane Henson may have ended their marriage in 1986, but their partnership never truly dissolved.

Biographer Brian Jay Jones shared intimate details about the couple’s unconventional split during a Monday, February 2 appearance on Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia. “It was a handshake of a separation,” Jones explained, describing how the pair chose to part ways without bitterness or legal proceedings.

The revelation came as Jones, author of Jim Henson: The Biography, also disclosed that the Muppets creator was “not always — in fact, not usually — faithful to his own wife” throughout their decades-long marriage.

Still, their connection dated back to the 1950s at the University of Maryland, where they studied puppetry together—he was a freshman, she was a senior. Jane’s memories of their first encounter revealed an instant recognition of Jim’s unique charisma.

“She just lights up remembering him entering the room for the first time,” Jones recalled. “It wasn’t one of those ‘I’m going to marry that man,’ but just what the presence he had and how he absolutely knew what he was doing and took over that classroom.”

Following their May 1959 wedding, the couple co-founded Muppets, Inc. and raised five children. Despite separating, they never divorced. “They just never stopped listening to each other and valuing each other,” Jones noted.

Their friendship remained intact until Jim’s death in 1990 at age 53.