Gary Coleman, Married Man

Wed., Feb. 13, 2008 10:18 AM PST by Joal Ryan

Gary Coleman once vowed he'd never get married. Well, what do 13-year-olds know?

The 40-year-old former child star has revealed to Inside Edition that he's been married since last summer to a woman who was barely alive when he starred in Diff'rent Strokes.

Coleman and Shannon Price exchanged vows on the occasion of her 22nd birthday last Aug. 28, on a Nevada mountaintop, the TV tabloid show reported Tuesday.

"Nobody was around but the minister, the preacher, the videographers, the photographer, the helicopter pilot and us," Coleman said of the intimate ceremony.

Coleman and Price kept their marriage under wraps for more than five months, they both said, because they didn't want his fame to overwhelm her name. According to the proud groom, Price is a "fabulous eBayer."

"I hope she gets famous for that," Coleman said.

It was Price apparently who brokered the auction of Coleman's sweatpants, which sold for $500 to late-night host Jimmy Kimmel last month after a headline-worthy bid of $400,000 fell through. The pair is currently hawking, among other items, a "3000% authentic," autographed Coleman glossy. (Bidding starts at $25.)

Other tidbits as revealed by Coleman and Price:

The couple met on the set of Church Ball, a 2006 spoof comedy that starred Coleman.
She proposed.
She stands about a foot taller than he, but "he was ten feet tall to me because he was sweet."
He has a temper, "throws things around"—sometimes at Price, and heaved a printer, direction unknown, on the day of the TV interview.

"I don't like the violence, I really don't," Price said. "He's got to damage something before his anger stops."

Price told the show she's called the police on Coleman, and that the police, in turn, have ticketed him for disorderly conduct.

Coleman most infamously was arrested in 1998 for punching an autograph seeker who accused him of being washed up.

Marriage has changed Coleman in at least one way: Once a self-professed virgin, who at a curmudgeonly 13 declared that if his mother ever wanted grandchildren, "I'll adopt one, because I'm never getting married," the actor now finds himself in his first "romantic relationship."

"I wasn't saving myself," Coleman said. "She just happened to be the one."

Coleman's eight-year, star-making run on Diff'rent Strokes ended in 1986, when Price was about one.