Mary Lee Harvey has a rather notorious fame thanks to the scandalous divorce and custody battle with her former husband Steve Harvey. Her maiden name is Vaughn though some sources state that it’s Shackelford.
While nothing is known about Mary’s early life and youth, she was a makeup artist when she got acquainted with Harvey at a mall in Arlington, Texas, where the comedian was working on one of his shows. Their relationship developed pretty fast and in 1996, they tied knots. In a year, the spouses welcomed son Wynton.
However, the marriage went wrong and ended with a divorce in 2005. Mary Lee Harvey received three houses from the divorce settlement and was paid $40,000 monthly for 4 years after it. Nevertheless, the woman claimed that she wanted to commit a suicide suffering from the breakup. Afterwards, she accused Steve of torture, kidnapping of their son, intentional infliction of emotional distress and many other bad things, claiming that he owed her $60 million.
Moreover, there was a severe custody battle between the former spouses. Wynton remained with his dad while his mom didn’t leave the attempts to return her son. As a result, she was imprisoned several times for violating court orders. However, Mary never admitted her guilt and continued to accuse Harvey of many things. In some of her interviews, she even claimed that he mentally and physically abused her.
A curious fact: Mary’s father, whose name remains a mystery, was married three times and had many kids. One of them is sister Ruth Vaughan Littrell.