Dr. Phil’s Ex-Wife Describes Her Year's Together with Him

I’ve always liked Dr. Phil and his daytime talk show. Most often, he addresses important and interesting topics – it feels like you are learning something every time, although some guests and cases can leave us, as the watching audience, sad.

For me, Dr.Phil has always been that humble, stable man, combining wisdom with a brilliant take-no-prisoners style of therapy. Yet I must admit that until now I didn’t know much about his previous life – which is to say the life he led before he became a TV star.

Take his first, failed marriage, for example – which I had no idea about.

Over the years, his ex-wife Debbie Higgins McCall has talked openly about their turbulent marriage, referring to her ex-husband as “domineering”.

Dr. Phil, for his part, has always kept a low profile and hasn’t revealed much about what really happened between the two of them. But if we dig deeper into their time together, we can learn a little bit more about who Dr. Phil is and the events that shaped him into the man he is today.

With his popular TV show ”Dr. Phil”, and his best-selling books, Phil McGraw has become one of the world’s highest-paid daytime talk show hosts ever.

According to some reports, the 70-year-old is worth an estimated $400 million today and, as a result, could retire any time he wants.

But Dr Phil’s success story has also been marred by scandals, allegations of sexual abuse and law suits. He has also been accused of exploited people suffering from mental illness.

Phil McGraw’s ex-wife

Today, Phil McGraw is happily married to his beloved wife, Robin McGraw. Over four decades, Phil and Robin have been inseparable and have managed to expertly keep their love alive.

Yet before Robin came into the picture, there was another woman in Phil’s life – ex-wife Debbie Higgins. Phil and Debbie were high-school sweethearts in Kansas City and met when they were 20 years old.

Dr.Phil young

Phil actually grew up among the oil fields in North Texas, but was forced to move to Kansas when his father got an internship and saw a chance to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a psychologist.

According to Debbie, Phil didn’t want to move from Texas.

“Daddy made him come up here because he wanted to keep an eye on him,” Debbie told The Kansas City Star in 2002.

But the move ended up being pretty good for Phil. He met his future wife and was also a favored line backer in the high-school football team.

Debbie was very popular in high-school – she was the cute, blonde cheerleader and homecoming queen with “the million-dollar smile”.

Somehow she fit in perfectly with the big, strapping line backer, who stood out with his cowboy drawl dialect. They started dating in their junior year and many felt that the couple were made for each other.

But complications were present in the beginning. Debbie wasn’t really allowed to date until she turned 16, and her brother watched her like a hawk.

On her first date with Phil, she came home five minutes late – something that left her parents seeing red. Debbie was grounded for a month, but Phil and Debbie still talked on the phone every day.

In an interview with The Kansas City Star, Debbie described what Phil was like as a boyfriend. According to her, he was ”kind” and ”sensitive”.