Joe Scarborough Once Opened Up About ‘Fighting a Lot’ With Mika Brzezinski: ‘I’m Passive Aggressive’

Before his 2018 wedding to Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough opened up about their communication style and overcoming obstacles in their relationship.

Prior to his nuptials with Mika, 57, Joe, 61, was married to his first wife, Melanie Hinton, from 1986 to 1999 and to his second wife, Susan Warren, from 2001 to 2013. After sparking speculation that he and Mika were dating, the Morning Joe cohosts announced their engagement in May 2017.

A few months later, the TV personality admitted, “We still fight a lot” as he and Mika prepared to get married.

“For me, the mistake always was I’m very driven at work, but I go home and I don’t want to fight. I’m passive aggressive. I’m sort of like, ‘Whatever you want to do,’” he told People in August 2017. “That’s really what I think hurt me in one relationship after another. And differences grow over a decade and things ultimately blow up. With Mika and me, we both learn you have to. If there’s a problem, put it on the table immediately. If it gets ugly, it gets ugly. You go there and you fight through it.”

However, the silver lining was that most of their disagreements were solved before going on-air each morning.

“I’ll tell you, the blessing for us is, we always knew we had to take care of things by 6 a.m. the next morning,” he told the outlet at the time. “So we couldn’t go to sleep mad at each other, because Mika has the worst poker face in the history of television. She wears everything on her sleeve. I know if she goes on the air angry with me that everybody’s going to know.”

Joe and Mika got married at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in November 2018, in a private ceremony.

“We wanted it to be really small and simple and not what you expected from Mika and Joe,” she told Vanity Fair. “Everything we do is exposed, and everything felt exposed every step of the way, so we want this to be private until it’s over. We wanted to recognize it more quietly and have the people who are most important to us around us. And you know, our show is a cocktail party every morning.”

The former politician is a dad to kids Joey, Andrew, Kate and Jack from his previous marriages, while Mika is a mom to daughters Carlie and Emilie from her marriage to Jim Hoffer, which lasted from 1993 to 2016.

In the years since they wed in their secret ceremony, Joe and Mika have continued to cohost Morning Joe with Willie Geist, as well as share glimpses of their life at home together on social media. However sources close to the couple have told Closer that “the cracks in their relationship are becoming more apparent.”

“Spending every waking moment together is just too much,” an insider said in August. “Their on-air bickering has escalated into full-blown fighting.”