Ex-ESPN analyst’s wife withdraws divorce bid

‘Pause button’ in petition against Steve Phillips, who lost job after affair

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In an appearance on TODAY in February, Phillips said that he was “working his tail off” to save his relationship with his wife, Marni.

TODAY staff

updated 4/8/2010 7:14:32 PM ET

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The wife of Steve Phillips, who lost his job as an ESPN baseball analyst after admitting to an affair with a production assistant 24 years his junior, has “hit the pause button” in divorce proceedings against him, her attorney revealed exclusively to NBC.

“In an effort to better understand the diagnosis, treatment and recovery process for sex addiction, Marni Phillips has withdrawn her divorce petition for now,” the attorney said in a statement. “This does not indicate a reconciliation. It is an attempt to hit the pause button in the legal process to further evaluate the healing process for herself and her four sons.”

Marni Phillips’ attorney, Angelo Maragos, explained that his client needed this break in the painful divorce proceedings for the sake of herself and her children.

“The withdrawing of the divorce allows her to focus her attention on her kids and on trying to get better herself after being dealt a blow like that,” Maragos said in an interview. “It may mean she goes through with a divorce in the future, it may mean she doesn’t, but the pause is more for Marni Phillips than for anybody else.”

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‘All my family’s gone through’
Steve Phillips was traveling Thursday and was not immediately available for comment. Steve Lefkowitz, a spokesman for Steve Phillips, said he did not feel comfortable speaking about something as personal as the withdrawal of the divorce petition.

“I can tell you this, though,” Lefkowitz said. “Everything is being done to a) keep the family together and b) get his career back, in that order. ...

“He can’t bear to lose his family.”

Marni Phillips filed for divorce last fall after her family was rocked by scandal and intense media scrutiny.

Brooke Hundley, a 22-year-old production assistant at ESPN, told Marni Phillips last August that she and Phillips had had an affair. Hundley, who also contacted Phillips’ 16-year-old son through the Internet, posing as a classmate, confronted Marni Phillips in front of her home. Terrified, Marni Phillips called the police on the young woman.

Image: Brooke Hundley and Steve Phillips

TODAY

Steve Phillips lost his job as a baseball analyst for ESPN after it was revealed he had had an affair with 22-year-old production assistant Brooke Hundley.

When Marni made her 911 call after being confronted her in her own driveway, the story hit the New York tabloids, which had a field day with the salacious saga.

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Both Steve Phillips and Hundley lost their jobs at ESPN. Phillips recently started working as a baseball analyst again for New York radio station WFAN and Chicago radio station The Score. Phillips also is in discussions about becoming a baseball analyst for AOL, Lefkowitz said.

In an interview with TODAY’s Matt Lauer in February, Phillips said he took responsibility for his actions and regretted the mistakes he had made.

“I think of all that my family’s gone through,” Phillips said. “People choose to participate in a relationship, but my wife and kids didn’t. With what my wife and kids have gone through, the trauma that they’ve faced, not only from having a father and a husband that’s a sex addict, but the trauma of the media attention, they’ve been through a lot.”

‘Trying to save my marriage’
Steve and Marni Phillips have spent some time together and some time apart since the scandal broke. They are now living together again in their Connecticut home since his completion of an in-depth treatment program for sex addiction.

In February, Phillips told Lauer that he and his wife were trying to work out their problems, but it was by no means certain that they would not divorce.

“I’m working my tail off to try to save my marriage,” Phillips said. “I don’t know what the ultimate result will be.”

—By Laura T. Coffey and Mike Celizic

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>> nbc news, new york.

>> and steve phillips joins us now exclusively. steve, good morning. good to have you here.

>> good morning.

>> with all that's happened with your family, with your career, with the sex treatment facility, you could have come out and you could have gone completely underground and i'm just curious why you decided to talk to us?

>> well, it was hard to watch that lead-in. that was sad. there's a lot of sadness there. i think i look at it and i think that what people need to understand, what i want to do is take ownership. i mean, i made some mistakes. and people look at sex addiction as an excuse. it's not an excuse. i'm fully responsible for everything i did and accept responsibility for that. sex addiction is a diagnosis. it's what you recognize, the problem that you have where you have to try to go and get some help, which is what i did.

>> jeff rossen just said there is a diagnostic criteria that has to be met. what is that? because people do think, for someone of high profile who gets caught in a scandal, this is kind of a modern-day get out of jail free card. what is the criteria?

>> yeah. i recognized in august that i had a real problem, that i was a sex addict and i needed to get help. i started calling facilities in august well before everything blew up and really before there was a problem and i lost my job. i made a decision to get help on a friday before the sunday when i got fired. so i was going to go get help. i realized i had a problem and i needed to get help. i think it's a compulsion where you can't stop and you understand the consequences. the first step of the 12 steps is you're powerless over your addiction and in your life it gets unmanageable it wasn't anybody else. it was me. i couldn't stop myself from doing the things that i was doing, even knowing the consequences -- married, great job, great career, and i risked all of that, risked all of that to act out the way that i did.

>> you said there's a lot of sadness in that piece when you watched it. when you listened to the phone call of your wife, the 911 call, where she's talking about brooke hundley coming to your house. we've already said that she sent text messages to your wife. she actually contacted one of your sons online, pretending to be someone else and asked questions about your marriage. what goes through your mind when you hear those things?

>> it's sad. i mean, i think about all my family's gone through. you know, when you talk about victims with all of this, people chose to participate in a relationship, but my wife and kids didn't. and with what my wife and kids have gone through and the trauma that they've faced not only from having a father and a husband that's a sex addict , but the trauma of the incident, the trauma of the media attention afterwards and then me going away for 45 days, they've been through a lot.

>> you lost your job, but so did brooke hundley. she was young, 22 or 23 at the time, as she said in that piece, so she's a victim also. although you say she chose to be in the relationship. if you could talk to her -- first of all, have you spoken to her?

>> no.

>> what would you say to her?

>> i don't think it would be appropriate. the way i look at it is that is all in the past. my focus is trying to move forward, trying to save my family. i'm not wishing ill on anybody. i think everybody needs to move on with their lives and try to put the pieces back together.

>> talk to me about the process at this clinic, gentle pass in mississippi. it has been reported that tiger woods is there as well. can you share any of what it's like? and in particular, what's it like for the week, i understand the spouse of the person treated is asked to come and be a part of the therapy is it.

>> yeah, people who go there are broken people. that's really the essence of the addiction is you're broken inside and you've got a hole that you tried to fill, whether it was with alcohol or drugs, sex or gambling, with whatever. and so, you've got a lot of broken people there that are struggling to find answers. and really, that's what you do is you go there and they try to get to the basis of why did you do what you did, and for most addicts, whether it's alcohol or sex or whatever, it's that you have that hole inside based upon shame and trauma that you've incurred from a childhood --

>> was there an ah hah moment for you during therapy? do you now have a better understanding -- and by the way, i should mention this is not the first time you've gone to a clinic for that. so, clearly, the first time it didn't work. are you able to sit in front of me today and say you're healed, you're repaired, you're better able to deal with it?

>> yeah. the first time, back in '98, you're referencing with the mets, when i had another scandal, i didn't go to a clinic. i just got some local therapy and really didn't get diagnosed properly. so, i tried to manage everything on my own. i didn't get in the system, didn't get in a program, didn't get the appropriate help that i needed it was my issue. i didn't realize it back then. i did get to the basis of my issue, that reality that when i made a mistake, it wasn't i made a mistake, i thought it was a mistake, that when i failed, i thought i was a failure, when i disappointed somebody, i internalized it that i am a disappointment. and that hole is something that i looked for some way to medicate and fill. and most addicts that i've been around that's been a similar story. so, i've gotten to the basis that i need to try to resolve those issues on my own.

>> i have just a few seconds left, steve. the status of your marriage right now, you and marni, you're together?

>> i'm working my tail off to try to save my marriage. i've broken my wife's heart and she's had to deal with so many issues trying to keep the family together. we went to therapy together and we're working hard to try to do that. i don't know what the ultimate result will be, because i've damaged her and our relationship in a terrible way.

>> i know it's not easy to sit here and talk about it. i appreciate you coming in this morning.

>> thank you.

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