Photo:Tibrina Hobson/FilmMagic
Tibrina Hobson/FilmMagic
Bob Barkerfound love again.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce that the World’s Greatest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker, has left us," Barker’s publicist, Roger Neal, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Burnet’s statement read, “I am so proud of the trailblazing work Barker and I did together to expose the cruelty to animals in the entertainment industry. We were great friends over these 40 years. He will be missed.”
Later that month, she reminisced about her life with Barker in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE.
On what would have beenBarker’s 100th birthday, Burnet spoke withEntertainment Tonightabout her longtime love.
“He had a really wonderful, charmed life,” she told the outlet, adding that if Barker had been alive to witness turning a century old, he’d have said, “I’m just as cute as I ever was.”
Here’s everything to know about Nancy Burnet and her decades-long relationship with Bob Barker.
She and Barker met in 1983
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At the time, Burnet was not very familiar withThe Price Is Rightor Barker, but when a friend told her about his involvement in the spay-neuter movement, she was intrigued. She approached him about a different project, and they connected over a shared love of animal rights advocacy.
“I knew almost nothing about him really,”Burnet recalledin an August 2023 interview with PEOPLE. “I knew he didThe Price Is Right. I knew that he was interested in animals, and he had the format to get the word out.”
She’s the president of a nonprofit organization
She and Barker got involved with animals everywhere they went
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Though the couple were committed to animal rights at home, it’s also something that had a tendency to follow them on their travels.
“Just about everywhere we ever traveled, we became involved in some animal issue or something,” she told Fox News. During one trip to the Cayman Islands, they attempted to organize a protest after learning a circus was coming to town.
“They were happy to see us leave Cayman,” she shared.
On a trip to Hawaii, something similar happened when the pair found an injured pit bull loose in a tourist area begging for food. The two believed the dog had been in a fight since they saw a piece of the skin on its side had been ripped away.
“We found out that it wasn’t dog fighting at all. It was because of hunting pigs with pits,” Burnet said. “And so we tried to get a campaign going for that, and they were happy to see us leave there. We weren’t welcome in a lot of places.”
She worked on Barker’s “greatest living legacy”
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In 2018, Barker donated over 400 acres in Moreno Valley, California, toDonkeyLand, a nonprofit rescue organization that works with injured and sick wild donkeys and burros.
This land helped fence off part of the property so the animals can be protected and still roaming freely. Burnet called the donation Barker’s “greatest living legacy,” and in total, he has donated millions of dollars to DonkeyLand through his charitable organizations.
“Five hundred acres that’s fenced and that’s thanks to Bob Barker and Nancy Burnet and the foundation for the generous contributions for the sanctuary and the fencing,” Chad Cheatham, vice president of Donkeyland, toldNBC Los Angeles.
Barker said he would never remarry
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After the death of his wife of 36 years, Barker remained committed to keeping Gideon’s memory alive and kept true to his word that he would never remarry.
“She was with me all the time until she died,” Barker toldEsquirein 2007. “For some men, maybe a second or third marriage would work out fine. In my case, I had my marriage and she was the love of my life.”
Despite their decades-long relationship, Barker and Burnet never tied the knot. But after Barker’s death in August 2023, Burnet revealed during an interview with PEOPLE that Barker didconsider tying the knotagain.
Burnet claimed that in 2011, Barker had his attorney draft a prenup without consulting her.
“He had his attorney send it to me,” she recalled. “I said, ‘I just don’t want to do this. I’m not going to accept this.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t like the terms of the prenup, take it to your own attorney. You can change it.’ I never did do it.”
source: people.com
