Tragic Details About Fran Drescher's Love Life

Fran Drescher's dating history wasn't quite like her iconic "The Nanny" character Fran Fine's. An argument can be made that the comedian's love life has actually been sadder than her television counterpart's, whose own love story ended with a sitcom-style happily ever after in the series finale. Unfortunately, Drescher probably thought she had finally found her own romantic ending years before becoming a television star when she married her ex-husband and high school sweetheart, Peter Marc Jacobson. 

She was only 21 when she wedded the television producer. But although they certainly went the distance as a couple, they divorced 21 years after exchanging their vows. Drescher hasn't been lacking any potential suitors since then. However, the Queens native has remained pretty unlucky in love despite her abundance of options over the years. Drescher has even ruled out the possibility of ever getting married again. And after looking at some of her less-than-ideal romantic experiences, it's not too hard to see why she might want to avoid the headache of marriage or long-term relationships.

Fran Drescher's first husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, had a hard time walking away from his marriage with the TV star. In fact, if it were up to Jacobson, the pair wouldn't have divorced at all. It was Drescher's call to end the relationship after a sudden change in Jacobson's behavior became too much for the actor to deal with. "He was very controlling," Drescher said in an interview with Oprah. "He was easily threatened if I was spending time with people outside of the relationship. He was even jealous of our dog, when I wanted the dog to be with us. So it became very suffocating." But Jacobson's newfound control issues were a symptom of his own refusal to acknowledge his homosexuality, which he didn't know about when he married Drescher in 1978. "We were living a heterosexual life. I wasn't having affairs on the side or anything like that. I thought that I was straight," Jacobson said during the same interview.

Jacobson would eventually tell his then-wife that he was bi-sexual, and Drescher would try to maintain their marriage. But this left the SAG-AFTRA president feeling trapped, and Drescher realized she had to move on from Jacobson for the sake of her own happiness. Jacobson briefly resented his ex-wife's decision. But the two were later able to resume their friendship at a time when Jacobson was fully at peace with his sexuality, and they considered themselves better off as friends than they were as a couple. However, Drescher had to endure a lot of heartache to arrive at that point with her former husband. Her seemingly exhausting break-up might've been the first sign her love life probably wouldn't turn out the way she hoped it would.

Fran Drescher tried her hand at marriage again after being charmed by Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, whom she met at an event hosted by author Deepak Chopra. "Deepak Chopra was our cupid," she quipped in an interview with Today. According to Ayyadurai, Drescher overheard a conversation the entrepreneur was having regarding the lack of women scientists and innovators at the event. "And Fran heard my talk and we fell in love, and we've been together since that talk," Ayyadurai once told HuffPost. The doctor had reportedly even broken up with another girlfriend before pursuing a relationship with Drescher, which was a testament to how smitten he was. The two would eventually wed in 2014. But unlike with Drecher's ex, Peter Marc Jacobson, it didn't take long for her marriage with Ayyadurai to unravel. They divorced later in 2016.

Insiders claimed that their personalities and lifestyle differences were too different to overcome in the end. "Shiva wasn't willing to compromise much, and he never loved her lifestyle as an actress," a source alleged in an interview with Closer. A second insider claimed, "He was shy and would accompany her to events but he wanted no part of the cameras or the spotlight [whereas] she loves Hollywood. She's looking forward to the next chapter of her life!" But Drescher might've been a lot more candid about her marriage than the anonymous sources were. Although she claimed she didn't regret her time with Ayyadurai, she couldn't have been more relieved that their marriage came to a close. "In my second marriage, we were together for three years," she said in an interview with The Cut. "The first year was bliss, the second year was agony and ecstasy, and the third year was just agony, and I said, 'Enough.'"

Fran Drescher has been rarely spotted in Hollywood during the latter half of her career. But one place where you can catch her fairly consistently is the dating scene. The Emmy-nominee has been actively searching for someone to sweep her off her feet. And one of the perks of being Fran Drescher is that you never run out of options when it comes to boyfriends. However, she's had a hard time finding a compatible match for as far back as the 2000s. "I don't have trouble meeting people. I just have trouble meeting people that I kind of like," Drescher quipped on "The Ellen Show." But apparently, finding her soulmate hasn't gotten any easier for her as the years passed.

Although new innovations like dating apps gave Drescher a quicker means to find what she was looking for, the catch was that these online sites typically had the type of man she wasn't looking for. "I tried one app once and I found that none of the guys seemed to be honest about how they presented themselves," Drescher said in an interview with E! News. "They weren't as successful as their profile suggested, some of them smoked." Their insecurities about their success turned out to be a big issue for Drescher, who noticed a lot of wannabe boyfriends began to envy her own hard-earned accomplishments. "It starts to chip away at the male ego," Drescher added. "So I'm not gonna do that anymore because it's too painful for me. I don't wanna be resented for my success." What's even more tragic about the experience is that by changing her preferences, Drescher's been forced to further limit her dating prospects. This, of course, only made finding a true partner even harder.

Just because Fran Drescher hasn't found the one doesn't mean that she's lonely. The '90s icon once reassured she had a friend-with-benefits situation that was a fulfilling substitute for an actual relationship. "[We're] very comfortable with each other and we have our routine," she said. "It's always the same experience. We really don't go out, we don't go to restaurants, we don't date. What we do, we do great," Drescher had confided to People. However, the mysterious suitor didn't just have one friend with benefits. She later revealed that she had a revolving door of platonic lovers to spend time with. 

Drescher asserted that these types of relationships are convenient because of how busy her life is, but we can't help but wonder if there's a sadder motive behind her explanation. After years of dating disappointments, the "Happily Divorced" star might've decided it's better to simply have fun at her older age than to tie herself down to someone who may only break her heart in the end. After what the dating world has had to offer since her divorce, we can't say that we blame her if that's the case.