Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has always been a bit of a strange brew, something New Yorkers have known for a long time and people across America learned during his embarrassing, failed Democratic presidential run in 2019.

Here we are a year and a half after his last day in the mayor’s office and nearly a year since he dropped out of a Democratic Congressional primary race and electoral politics altogether, and de Blasio is pulling what may be his strangest stunt yet – going very public alongside his wife, Chirlane McCray, in announcing they are separating.

While a formal joint statement revealing such news is quite common along with also requesting privacy, it appears the de Blasios actually sought out an interview with the New York Times in order to alert New Yorkers about their decision, informing them in a very lovey-dovey way not often seen on display by couples who are going their separate ways — perhaps because their separation, as it turns out, is only a technical thing:

Bill de Blasio, the former New York City mayor, and Chirlane McCray are separating. They are not planning to divorce, they said, but will date other people and continue to share the Park Slope townhouse. https://t.co/PWXZAJ6sMp

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 5, 2023

From the Times piece:

“You can’t fake it,” Ms. McCray said Tuesday from their kitchen table.

“You can feel when things are off,” Mr. de Blasio said, “and you don’t want to live that way.”

They made their decision that night.

Mr. de Blasio and Ms. McCray are separating.

They are not planning to divorce, they said, but will date other people. They will continue to share the Park Slope townhouse where they raised their two children, now in their 20s — the vinyl-sided hub of a thoroughly modern political family whose mixed-race symbolism helped send a spindly progressive long shot to City Hall.

[…]

Rather than issue a terse joint statement to announce what they called a trial separation — the carefully worded fate of so many political marriages before theirs — the two suggested they wanted to get considerably more off their chests.
They concluded — Mr. de Blasio more forcefully than Ms. McCray — that their marriage would not have reached this place if he had never been mayor, as grateful as they said they were for the experience and as proud as they remain of much of their work. (“Everything was this overwhelming schedule, this sort of series of tasks,” Mr. de Blasio said. “And that kind of took away a little bit of our soul.”)

In the piece, de Blasio said in so many words that he constantly worried during the course of their marriage if McCray would go back to being a lesbian, which she “identified” as prior to the two beginning to date in the early 1990s. He also bragged about sporting a new haircut, and they both joked about putting their phone numbers and gym pictures in the newspapers to attract prospective dates:

Ms. McCray asked dryly if their phone numbers could be included in the newspaper.

“Can I put a picture from the gym in there?” Mr. de Blasio asked. (He added that he was “not a believer” in online dating.)

He's never been accused of being the sharpest knife in the drawer. pic.twitter.com/CgzyohJ322

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) July 5, 2023

In an interview outside their Park Slope home on Wednesday after the Times published the report about their separation, McCray told reporters that the two of them were “still very much in love” but needed space, even though they’ll still be married and living together. She also expressed hope that people would view them as role models for how to split amicably:

“I hope that we can be a model for how couples can communicate honestly about what their needs are and to conduct themselves when they find it’s time to move in another direction. I think that’s important,” McCray, who came out as a lesbian before marrying de Blasio, gushed.

“That’s what we’re doing right now. But there’s a very deep bond between us. We’ve been together for nearly 32 years … Serving shoulder-to-shoulder in City Hall and even before that. We’ve raised a beautiful family,” she continued.

I’ve been a news junkie for several decades now and I’ve read a lot of articles in my time, but this one easily ranks in the top five most cringe not to mention unbelievable stories I think I’ve ever read. Quite frankly, the both of them would have done far better in just issuing a written statement announcing what they planned to do, and then traveling together to visit a therapist.

I mean let’s just call this what this is – not a “separation” but an open marriage, where both of them get to date who they want, whenever they want, and then get to make arrangements as to who gets to bring their dates home for a chat on what nights.

Not that it’s anyone’s business, of course, but you kind of invite people into your business when you pull stunts like this.

They ran for office as That Annoying Park Slope Couple, they governed like they were running a commune, and now they're divorcing in the most Brooklyn way possible.

Say what you will about the de Blasios, but at least they're consistently the worst. https://t.co/Kj2Ge3qPLn

— Tim Rice (@timerice1) July 5, 2023

The man has a point.

Flashback –>> Awkward: Bill de Blasio Speaks to Iowa Union via Video Conference, and the Audio Sounds Like He Ingested Helium