Ric Flair is one of the best-known professional wrestlers in the world. He is a record-setting 16-time World Heavyweight Champion and one of the faces of both WWE and WCW.

Ric is considered by many of the WWE Universe be the best wrestlers of all time and is also the only person in WWE history to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame twice. Ric also holds the record for the fastest WWE Championship win following his debut.

Aside from all this, Ric also has one of the most controversial personal lives in WWE history, having been married four times and then divorced four times as well. He is currently engaged to be married for the fifth time.

This is a record that Flair wouldn't actually want to hold, but given that his personal life is such a hectic one, there is a lot that many of the WWE Universe either don't know or don't understand about one of the biggest wrestling stars of all time. Here are 15 facts about Flair to help you decide on whether or not his personal life is controversial or just a by-product of his successful wrestling career.

16 15. Flair Married Leslie Goodman In 1971

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Ric Flair met his first wife while still relatively new and on the rise in the professional wrestling industry. He was known as a playboy and a stylin' and profilin' character, but this didn't come across into his personal life until many years later.

Leslie and Ric married in 1971 and went on to have two children. The couple were married for more than a decade when they announced that they had filed for divorce in 1983. The marriage is one of the only ones that didn't end in a media circus of court proceedings and it seems that it was ended amicably between the two former partners. Of course, this marriage and divorce would take place during a time when the media was not what we know today.

15 14. Flair Almost Went To Prison For Not Paying Spousal Support

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One of Flair's messiest splits came to his fourth wife Jackie Beams. Their marriage ended in the Summer of 2012 and it was then decided that Flair would pay $4,000 a month to his ex-wife.

In July 2013, more than a year after this was agreed an arrest warrant was issued for Ric Flair after he had failed to pay more than $32,000 in spousal support to his ex-wife. Ric had agreed to pay things such as her healthcare and car and legal fees but had failed to pay a penny of it. Flair explained that he had been in the hospital and that his son had died earlier in the year as well, so these were the reasons why he had failed to pay up.

14 13. Flair Married Elizabeth Harrell In 1983

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Flair married his second wife merely months after his divorce was finalized from Leslie. Flair and Elizabeth Harrell tied the knot in August 1983, with wrestling promoter Jim Crockett acting as the best man for Ric for the ceremony. Flair had 'settled down' once again but it would not last.

Beth and Ric had two children together, Reid and Ashley. Reid sadly passed away in 2013 while Ashley went on to become a WWE Superstar much like her father. Elizabeth was the only wife of Flair's that went on to make appearances for WCW up until 2000. The couple filed for divorce in 2006 after more than 23 years of marriage. Many different reasons were given for the split (these will be explained later in the article).

13 12. Charlotte Is The Daughter Of Flair's Second Wife

Charlotte Flair and her mother

Raw Women's Champion Charlotte was the daughter of Elizabeth Harrell and is actually the second youngest of all of Flair's four children. Reid was the youngest child and he was a professional wrestler as well. He didn't gain as much fame as his sister and sadly passed away in March 2013 after what was ruled as an accidental overdose.

Charlotte later agreed to WWE using Reid in a storyline between her and Paige which was then condemned by the WWE Universe as being in bad taste. Flair has two older children from his first wife, Megan and David who are obviously the half brother and sister of Charlotte. David is also a former WCW wrestler who found some minor success while competing for the promotion.

12 11. Flair Married Tiffany VanDemark In 2006

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Once again, just months after his divorce from his wife of 23 years was finalized, Ric was prepared to marry another woman. Ric married Tiffany VanDemark, who is a fitness instructor, in May 2006. Merely two years later the couple was filing for divorce. Tiffany, much like Ric's previous wives was much younger than Flair and it seemed as though the couple had rushed into a marriage.

Tiffany was the first wife of Ric's that didn't have any children with the leader of The Four Horsemen and when the couple finally filed for divorce, which was finalized in 2009, there were a lot of personal things added to the proceedings. When it came to Flair and his wife and what had been going on between them over the past few years, things, the situations seemed rocky at best.

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10 10. Flair Then Married Jackie Beems In 2009

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After what was a messy divorce from his third wife, Ric failed to learn his lesson and was once again walking down the aisle with wife number four. Jackie Beams and Flair married in November 2009, just months after his divorce from Tiffany was finalized (seems to be a pattern).

It didn't take long for the couple to hit a rough patch after their marriage and by February 2010 the police were called to the couple's home after a domestic violence complaint. Beems was charged with a misdemeanour and the charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence. It seems that their marriage was doomed from the beginning and it came as a surprise to no one when the couple finally announced their intention to part ways.

9 9. Flair And Jackie Then Divorced In 2012

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The couple never fully got back into the swing of things and it is reported that Beems was quite violent throughout her marriage to the former 16-time World Champion. And in the end it was Ric who would file for divorce in 2012.

This was the first time that Flair had filed the papers rather than having the papers filed against him, and it seems that this is where his wife became much nastier. Jackie and Ric came to an agreement about him paying for her after their marriage was over. Of course, when Flair didn't pay she then contacted a lawyer and an arrest warrant was issued for Flair, who was recovering from a hospital trip and the loss of his youngest son at the time.

8 8. Jackie Was Accused Of Harassing Flair's Current Fiance

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Jackie Beams has come across as one of the most violent of Flair's ex wives and while she forced the police to put out an arrest warrant for Flair, she turned herself into the police not long after Flair did and was charged with making harassing phone calls.

It was reported that Wendy Barlow had 50 texts and five voicemail messages of Flair's ex-wife after it was obvious that Flair hadn't been paying the support money that he had agreed to in the years before. 2013 was a horrific year for Flair, but luckily it seems as though he is finally getting back on his feet as he know gets to enjoy his daughter's success in WWE as well as a part-time role with the company.

7 7. Flair Is Currently Engaged

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Flair's fourth divorce was so messy that it seems that Ric has decided that he would rather remain engaged to Wendy Barlow rather than marry her too soon and risk a repeat of the affair he had with Jackie Beems. It seems that for once, Flair is thinking ahead but that's not to say that this relationship is in any kind of trouble.

Barlow and Flair have been friends since his WCW days and decided to become more than friends following his divorce from Jackie. Barlow herself is a mother of four, much like Ric and it seems that the couple is happy to be engaged and living together rather than having marriage and the stress of another divorce hanging over their heads. We will have to wait and see if and when they tie the knot.

6 6. Flair's Second Wife Brought Up Some Graphic Stories In Court

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Divorce proceedings are messy. They bring up things in a court room that many people don't want complete strangers knowing about their personal lives. But it seems that since Ric had once again ended up at the other end of the proceedings, that a lot of his personal life was about to be laid bare.

Flair's second wife of 23 years stated how Ric once passed out after attacking his youngest son Reid in a fit of anger after he had found out that Reid had broken his drunken mother's arm by pushing her out of an elevator. It was also reported that Flair not only got into a fist fight with one of Charlotte's boyfriends, but he also lost. It was also reported that Flair would expose himself to many airline stewardesses while drunk.

5 5. Flair Was Assaulted By His Third Wife?

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Much like his second wife, Flair ended up before a court once again when he filed for divorce from Tiffany VanDemark. Flair then shared many stories of domestic violence when it came to his wife 'hitting him in the face with a phone charger.' While it was also stated that Flair often 'bladed' to make the injuries look much worse than they were.

After filing for Divorce, Tiffany then went on to break into Flair's house with a shovel and stole Ric's merchandise, two guns, a robe, and a necklace. It was also reported that she stole Flair's dog as well and renamed it. It seems Ric couldn't catch a break here even while he was literally trying to break ties with his former wife.

4 4. Flair Simply Ignored His Financial Agreement

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When Ric Flair and Jackie separated in October 2011, the couple came to the agreement that Flair would pay $4,000 a month in spousal support, as well as $15,000 in legal fees and another $15,000 to cover the time that they were apart from July 2011 up to October the same year.

Flair and Beems had both agreed upon this but Flair easily got out of it. He paid his wife nothing up until April 2012 when she then contacted a lawyer and took the case to court, claiming that Flair earns more than $1 million a year. Flair denied everything that his wife accused him of and stated that he looked forward to the issues being resolved in court. What it all boils down to is the fact that Flair simply ignored the original arrangement.

3 3. Flair Has Passed On His Dating Ways To Charlotte

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Being the daughter of Ric Flair, it was obvious that poor Charlotte was also going to have some trouble when it came to dating. Charlotte had already been married and divorced and then remarried again before she made her WWE debut. And then it seems her second divorce was then finalized in October 2015.

Charlotte was said to have then had a purely physical relationship with Alberto Del Rio before he chose to get into a relationship with Paige, much to the anger of the Women's Champion. It seems Charlotte is definitely following in her father's footsteps when it comes to both wrestling and her love life. While she chases the number 16 in championship victories, we hope she does not reach her father divorce number along the way.

2 2. Flair's Fourth Wife Claimed That He Cheated On Her

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It seems that during the court proceedings that were set into motion when Jackie Beems filed for divorce in 2012, it was revealed that Beems believed that Flair had been cheating on her during their marriage. Jackie stated that Ric had had numerous intimate relationships with other women during their marriage and this had caused her some humiliation and embarrassment.

Beems claimed that she had been a loyal and dutiful wife throughout their three-year marriage but Flair, who was still working full-time for WWE at the time, had not given his wife the same kind of treatment. The divorce would actually take a while to finalize, but the papers were eventually signed in 2014, two years after Jackie had originally filed for divorce from Flair.

1 1. Flair Always Remarries Within The Same Year

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It has probably become obvious throughout this article that Ric Flair has divorced his wife and always had a backup ready. Flair would divorce and then married merely months later. This just seems to be an odd pattern that Ric has gone through his entire dating life, with the exception of his current fiance.

Ric has been dating Wendy Barlow since 2014 and the couple only became engaged in 2016. This is new for Ric as he seems to be taking things at a slower pace. As with Ric's ex-wives, it seemed that as soon as Ric was filing for divorce he was already working on a new wife. Flair's dating history has been well documented over the past few decades and has become one of the things he is best known for. Ric Flair is 'The Nature Boy' after all.