Kaley Cuoco might as well be deemed the real-life counterpart of Penny, her eternally fan-beloved character from The Big Bang Theory. Even through all the ups and downs in her life and the struggles she mostly goes through without letting others know, she always tries her best to do whatever she can to help everyone else get their needs met.
Kaley Cuoco. | Credits: Gage Skidmore/CCA-BY-SA-2.0/Wikimedia Commons.
But even Cuoco couldn’t conceal being so utterly broken and traumatized by one incident in her life that made her realize she couldn’t make her way through it alone: Her divorce from her second husband. If anything, this was so severe that even the experience of facing innumerable heartbreaks as her iconic character in TTBT didn’t help her cope with the pain.
Kaley Cuoco’s Split with Karl Cook Left Her Traumatized
There are very few individuals who perfectly embody a character to the point where their names are used synonymously with their respective iconic roles, and yet, Kaley Cuoco effortlessly makes her way into this list. Just like Penny in TBBT, she is as friendly and down to help as one of the most amicable people to ever exist—even if she’s struggling with something severe herself.
Cuoco as Penny in The Big Bang Theory. | Credits: CBS.
However, her divorce from her second husband, Karl Cook, was an incident that didn’t sit well enough with her to let her go on through her daily life without letting anyone know that she was suffering. Although they claimed that there was “no anger or animosity, quite the contrary” in their statement shared with PEOPLE, Cuoco was still as heartbroken about it as ever.
While she still tried to put on her best show on set while working on The Flight Attendant soon afterward, the 38-year-old beauty didn’t take long to realize that this wasn’t one of those incidents where she could make her way through it all on her own. If anything, this left her so scarred that she soon found herself working through the “trauma” while trying to overcome it all.
Cuoco in a still from the series. | Credits: CBS.
During a candid Zoom interview with Glamour, the 8 Simple Rules star came clean about it all, saying:
I am so capable and strong, and I take on so many things. But this is the first time I faced something where I thought, I can’t do this alone. And it was just enough for me to voice it to my team, because…[normally] I can hide stuff. I was trying to hold everything [and everyone] up.
Turns out, even all the heartbreaks she faced on set as Penny—be it all the rejections she faced or the times she got cheated on and got her heart broken (even by Leonard, yes)—didn’t quite help Cuoco while she was trying to deal with the “trauma” the end of this one relationship landed her with. But even then, she didn’t let herself down as she finally sought comfort in therapy.
Kaley Cuoco Eventually Found Solace in Therapy
Cuoco in The Flight Attendant. | Credits: HBO Max.
Of course, dealing with rejection and heartbreak is incredibly challenging, and even Cuoco admits she couldn’t weave through it without some help. As it turns out, she chose the healthy route around her feelings and stuck to therapy to finally relieve herself of all the mental and physical stress this traumatizing turn of events had lain down on her.
Continuing to confess in her 2022 interview with Glamour, she said:
My therapist and I are working on forgiveness and forgiving myself for making mistakes. I think that’s been the hardest thing is just accepting that I’m normal and that I’m not superwoman. I highly recommend therapy to everyone out there. Even if your life is going really well. I can’t imagine life without it.
Cuoco with Tom Pelphrey, her current partner. | Credits: @kaleycuoco/IG.
On her journey to forgiving and mending herself, Kaley Cuoco also realized she didn’t want to “get married again” ever, although she “would love to have a long-lasting relationship or a partnership.” That said, it seems she has already found her way around love again, considering just how happy she is with her current partner and “soulmate,” Tom Pelphrey.
You can stream The Big Bang Theory on Hulu.
