Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem filed for divorce from her husband of more than three decades, Bryon Noem, according to court documents filed in South Dakota and reported this week. The paperwork, submitted in Hamlin County on April 6, did not surface on the county’s online records server until Monday, leaving the split under wraps for months.
The documents list irreconcilable differences as the basis for the dissolution, according to The Hill, which reported the filing Tuesday. The Noems married on May 23, 1992, meaning the couple had been wed for nearly 34 years when the petition was submitted.
Reached by a Sioux Falls television station on Tuesday, Bryon Noem offered only a brief response: “I can’t comment right now.” Efforts to obtain comment from Kristi Noem were unsuccessful. She currently serves as Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, a role she took on after leaving the Trump administration earlier this year.
A filing that followed March’s revelations
The timing of the petition places it just days after the Daily Mail published photographs on March 31 that it described as showing Bryon Noem cross-dressing during online conversations with fetish models. A representative for Kristi Noem told outlets at the time that the disclosure had “blindsided the family” and left the former governor “devastated.”
The photographs emerged only weeks after Bryon Noem attended portions of a House Judiciary Committee hearing where his wife testified. Some of the questioning at that hearing touched on Corey Lewandowski, the president’s former campaign manager, and his role at the Department of Homeland Security β a line of inquiry that revived longstanding speculation about a relationship between Noem and Lewandowski.
That speculation dates back to a 2021 report by a conservative news outlet that accused the two of having an affair. Noem, then serving as governor of South Dakota, rejected the claim outright at the time. “These rumors are total garbage and a disgusting lie,” she said in a statement. “These old, tired attacks on conservative women are based on a falsehood that we can’t achieve anything without a man’s help.” She added: “I love Bryon. I’m proud of the God-fearing family we’ve raised together. Now I’m getting back to work.”
A political career marked by controversy and a sudden exit
Kristi Noem’s tenure in public life has rarely been quiet. She served as South Dakota’s governor from January 2019 until January 2025, when she resigned to become President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security secretary. Her frequent appearances at high-profile Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations β often accompanied by heavy publicity β drew both praise from supporters and mockery from critics, who nicknamed her “ICE Barbie.”
Her visibility also made her a frequent target for Democratic leaders opposed to the administration’s deportation efforts targeting criminal illegal aliens who had entered the country during the Biden administration. That dynamic turned Noem into one of the more recognizable β and polarizing β faces of the president’s immigration agenda.
The role ended abruptly in early March, when Trump announced her removal in a Truth Social post, writing that she “has served us well” and had achieved “numerous and spectacular results,” particularly on border enforcement. He named Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin as her replacement and simultaneously announced Noem’s new position as Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, described as a multinational security and political alliance aimed at combating drug cartels and organized crime across the Western Hemisphere.
The divorce documents offer few additional details beyond the stated grounds and the length of the marriage. It remains unclear whether the couple has reached any agreement on property or other matters, or whether either party will seek to keep further filings sealed. Hamlin County, a small jurisdiction in northeastern South Dakota, is where the petition was lodged.
Representatives for Kristi Noem did not respond to requests for comment from multiple outlets. The silence from her side, coupled with Bryon Noem’s brief remarks, leaves the public record dependent largely on the court’s own paperwork β a document that sat unnoticed in the county’s electronic system for roughly six months before it became visible.
The revelation adds another chapter to a political story that has moved quickly this year: from a cabinet post and a national profile, to a sudden reassignment, to a marriage’s quiet unraveling now laid out in a county courthouse filing. For a figure who spent years in the center of the country’s most heated policy fights, the end of the Noems’ 34-year marriage arrived with no public statement β only a date, April 6, and two words: irreconcilable differences.
Source: www.breitbart.com β https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/30/court-documents-kristi-noem-filed-for-divorce-following-husband-bryons-reported-cross-dressing/