- Barbara Corcoran has been on Shark Tank since it first premiered in 2009.
- The real estate mogul has been married since 1988 to Bill Higgins.
- Barbara opened up about the secret behind a long-standing marriage.
As one of the original faces on Shark Tank, real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran has a sharp mind for finding the best business deals on TV. But when Barbara isn't busy working, she prioritizes being with her family, including her husband of 37 years, Bill Higgins.
According to People, the couple first met in 1981 while attending at a conference in New York. At the time, Bill (a former FBI agent who served in the Navy reserves) was working in real estate. Barbara, on the other hand, had already had gained success at her firm, The Corcoran Group, and Bill was interested in getting to know her better.
While Bill and Barbara's initial interactions were business-only, Bill initially declined Barbara's desire to spend the weekend together. But as he told to Yahoo! back in 2018, that seemingly piqued Barbara's interest even more. “By me saying no, I think, knowing Barbara now, that just did it," he stated at the time.
The pair began dating after six months of knowing each other, and Barbara quickly became part of Bill's, as well as his four children's, life from a previous marriage.
After getting engaged in Norway, Barbara and Bill tied the knot on Valentine's Day in 1988. And when reminiscing about the couple's wedding in February 2022, Barbara revealed how the two almost didn't get married that day.
"We almost missed our wedding," she wrote on Instagram. "Bill and I were in the woods cross-country skiing and got lost, we didn’t expect to hit traffic coming back even though we always hit traffic coming back, and my mom, dad and the minister were about to call it a day when we finally got there. We were married 5 minutes later."
The couple later welcomed son Tom and daughter Kate to their big family. And through it all, remained supportive figures for one another in their careers.
"I’m proud of my wife, and I’m proud to call myself her spouse," he told the outlet at the time, per People. "[Admitting to being proud of your powerful wife] makes you seem much more secure in who you are. It shows you’re confident, but that you’re not trying to prove anything."
And as for the one piece of marriage advice Barbara would give to other couples after four decades of being with Bill? She's adamant on making sure she accepts her husband for who he is—not what he could be.
"You really have to take your partner as they are and not hope through the marriage they're going to change. Because they never do," she told Hello! in February 2024. "You have to be satisfied! What you see is what you get."
