Amidst Ongoing Divorce, NASCAR Broadcaster Breaks Silence on Bitter Separation After 15 Years of Marriage

When NASCAR Race Hub shut down, Shannon Spake made a change. She hopped from motorsports to NBA, working with the Charlotte Hornets. But with TNT returning to the NASCAR scene, who better to be one of the faces of the return than Spake? Shannon Spake, the former college swimmer who worked her way from Nickelodeon production assistant to ESPN pit reporter and eventually Fox Sports NFL and NASCAR host, is still known for her candid and honest approach to life. In this appearance on a podcast, she revealed intricate details from her life before the spotlight hit, and it was only possible because of Kyle Busch’s wife, Samantha Busch’s, initiative.

Spake’s latest conversation took place on Samantha Busch’s fast-riding podcast, ‘Certified Oversharer,’ a series that bills itself as the destination “where no topic is off-limits and TMI is totally the norm.” Since its June 2025 launch, the show has cracked Apple’s Top-20 sports chart and drawn praise for episodes that tackle infertility, mental health, and the messy reality of life inside NASCAR’s traveling circus. Samantha’s frank approach, bolstered by her Bundle of Joy advocacy, has created a space where high-profile guests feel safe excavating the stories they usually edit out of television hits.  This time, the spotlight shifted to Spake as she opened up about the layered complexities of her divorce and the emotional terrain that accompanied it.

Spake’s honest reflection on the podcast revealed a deep emotional journey that led to her decision to separate after 15 years of marriage. Despite years of effort, counselling, and reconciliation efforts, she ultimately recognized that the relationship reached a point of no return. “So I think we tried a lot. This was not something that we just said, ‘Alright, we’re done. This isn’t going to work,” said Spake. “Counseling, we had times where, I went and saw a divorce lawyer back in like 2012, 2016, and I remember bawling, because I’m like, ‘what am I doing?’ And then I knew in 2022, when I went to a divorce lawyer and I didn’t cry, that it was like, this is the right time… But in 2022, when we separated, we’re still not actively, we’re not actually divorced yet, which is crazy. Divorce is still pending, which is almost three years later, which has been a very, very, very hard time.”

While the battle for divorce and custody went on for 10 long years, the couple tried their best for the welfare of their kids. “First of all, like getting back to the kids, it was really hard when the boys were like, ‘we didn’t really realize,'” Spake reminisced on the podcast. “On the one hand, you feel bad because they’re like missing what it was. But on the other hand, you’re like, ‘well, at least I did a good job as a mom to protect them from whatever was going on in that marriage.’ And so you’re kind of like pulled in two different ways. So I’m pretty honest with them about, ‘hey, this is how it really was, like, I know this is how you guys saw it. That’s not really how it was.'” Even though it was hard to fight the guilt over the sudden disruption, Spake found some validation in her attempt to shield her children from the conflict and distress.

And, Samantha agreed to her approach, citing her own example. “I find when Kyle and I have had hard times, like you can go from crying on the bathroom floor, a mess, or maybe you guys just had a huge argument to the second your kid walks in, you’re like, ‘Hey, baby, what can I get you to eat? You doing good? How’s school coming?'” said Samantha. “Like you can switch it for those kids. And that takes a lot on you.” During their grueling fertility journey, Samantha revealed that she and Kyle Busch briefly considered divorce amidst emotional turmoil, as they feared that their marriage wasn’t going to make it after multiple IVF failures and a painful miscarriage in 2018.

In an Instagram post, Busch revealed what helped them. “To be completely real with you—there was a time I thought he’d walk away and never come back. But through time, counseling, and a whole lot of work, we’ve come out stronger. Here’s what we’ve learned and what helped us heal. I’m so proud of us, babe.”

For Spake, the road was far from straightforward. As a recognizable figure with an active social media presence, she found herself under constant questioning while also navigating tough, deeply personal conversations with her children. “So we told them, that we were going to separate,” said Spake. “So September 4th is when we kind of told them that’s what we told them. August 22nd was when we got in like our last fight. It was one week off that we didn’t communicate in the house and my kids didn’t say anything about us not communicating. And at that time I was like, this is not good. It’s normal for them to see their parents not communicating like this. They need a better example. And that was one of the reasons, that I think that ultimately it was my kids. My number one priority during this entire thing is my children.”

With questions piling up and the pressure mounting, it was a period marked by emotional weight. Yet, through it all, Spake remained composed and resilient, managing the situation with clarity and courage. “I wanted them to be able to decide where they wanted to be,” Spake confessed. “Did they want to be in my house? They’d be in my house? Did they want to be in his house? They’d be in his house? I didn’t want somebody to tell my kids, ‘you have to be here for a week, and then you have to be here for a week, and then you have to be here.'”

Spake’s willingness to speak candidly about personal struggles provided comfort and connection for others navigating similar journeys. And with Samantha’s help, the duo proved that strength comes from authenticity, not appearances.

Shannon Spake’s path to the spotlight through struggle

In the recent episode of Samantha’s podcast, Spake opened up about her tough upbringing and the winding road to her career in television. Growing up in Sunrise, Florida, with a single mother, Spake admitted, “I wouldn’t say wild. I would say I didn’t have guidance… I think the one thing that kept me on track when I was growing up was swimming.” That structure, she revealed, helped her avoid the more self-destructive behaviors common in her environment.

Spake didn’t shy away from discussing her family hardships either. She revealed that her father, once an airline pilot, lost his job and left them in a financially fragile state. “So we didn’t have anything, like we grew up very poor,” she recalled. Reconnecting with him during her teenage years was emotionally difficult, especially after a rough divorce. “My parents’ divorce was pretty rough and he would come down as much as he could, but there was a lot of conflict. And then you’re a teenager. Right? Like I was a teenager who would go spend some summers up there before I started high school.” she explained.

Despite scoliosis surgery at age 12, Spake fought her way back into the pool and eventually earned a college swimming scholarship, laying the foundation for her resilience. From production assistant stints to Nickelodeon to eventually becoming a key figure in NASCAR media, Spake’s story shows how grit and personal battles often fuel professional success. “Luckily, I feel like there was something inside me that I knew right from wrong, if that makes any sense,” she said. It became a quiet strength that carried her from swim lanes to TNT’s national spotlight.