Diane Plese: Everything About Robert Herjavec’s Ex-Wife

Before Robert Herjavec became a smiling shark on television, before the fast cars, the big houses, and the business fame, there was Diane Plese. She was the eye doctor he fell for at a routine appointment, the wife who stood beside him while he built his first companies, and the mother of his three older children. For 26 years, she was at the center of his private life, even though she never wanted the spotlight for herself.

Today, Diane Plese is known to most readers only as Robert Herjavec ex wife, a label that leaves out most of her story. She built her own career as a Canadian optometrist long before Shark Tank existed. She raised a family in Toronto while her husband fortune grew, and after their divorce she walked away from public life almost completely, just as quietly as she had lived in it.

This article shares everything that is genuinely known about diane plese, her work, her marriage, her children, and her life after the split. It also marks clearly what is not confirmed, because Diane has given very few interviews and many online claims about her come from weak sources.

Quick Facts

Early Life and Background

Diane Plese was born in Canada and built her life in the Toronto area. Many public profiles report her birth year as 1959 and her home neighborhood as Parkdale in Toronto, and several describe her family background as Croatian, which she shared with Robert, whose own family came from Croatia. Those details are repeated often online, but Diane herself has never published a biography, so they rest on secondary reporting rather than her own words.

What is solid is her education and profession. Diane trained as an optometrist, a doctor of eye care who tests vision, fits glasses and contact lenses, and checks the health of the eyes. It is careful, skilled medical work that takes years of university study and a license to practice. In Canada, optometrists are front line health professionals, and Diane built a respected practice in the Toronto area.

Diane has also kept her parents, siblings, and childhood almost entirely out of the press. No strong source names her family members, and this article will not guess at them. Her privacy on those points has held for decades, through fame, divorce, and court coverage, which says a lot about how firmly she guards her personal life.

Her Career as an Optometrist

Diane worked as a practicing optometrist in Toronto before and during the early years of her marriage. Patients came to her clinic for eye exams, and her work was steady, local, and far removed from the technology world her husband was entering. Robert himself has told the story of working in film production and waiting tables before he found his path, which makes the contrast clear: in the beginning, Diane was the one with the stable career.

As Robert companies grew and their three children arrived, Diane stepped back from full time practice to raise the family. Court reporting on their later divorce case noted that she had been out of the workforce for about fifteen years while caring for the children. That detail came out in legal discussion about spousal support, and it underlines a choice many professional women of her generation made: she put her own career on hold so the household could run while her husband built a business empire.

That choice had a real cost, and the courts later recognized it. A professional license left unused for fifteen years is not easy to restart in your late fifties, and the divorce judge treated her years at home as a genuine contribution to the family success, not as time off. It is one reason her settlement became one of the most talked about in Canada.

How She Met Robert Herjavec and Their Marriage

The meeting story is the one detail Diane herself has happily shared. In 1988, a 26 year old Robert Herjavec booked an eye appointment and walked into her clinic as a patient. Diane later told the National Post in 2010 that it was love at first sight. They began dating, and two years later, in 1990, they married. Several accounts say the wedding took place in a Croatian church in the Toronto area, in keeping with both families roots.

The early marriage years were not rich ones. Robert had been fired from a job at a company called Logiquest in 1990, the same year as the wedding, and he started his first technology firm, BRAK Systems, from the basement of the family home. Diane supported that risk while working and starting their family. BRAK Systems grew in internet security and was later sold to AT and T Canada in a deal reported at over 30 million dollars. After a period at home with the children, Robert founded the Herjavec Group in 2003, the cybersecurity firm that made him truly wealthy.

Television fame came next. Robert joined Dragons Den in Canada in 2006 and then Shark Tank in the United States in 2009, where his warm style and immigrant success story made him a fan favorite. Through all of it, Diane stayed in the background. She appeared with him only rarely, focused on their Toronto home, and raised their children away from the cameras as much as a Shark Tank family reasonably could.

The couple had three children together: two daughters, Caprice and Skye, and a son, Brendan. All three are now adults. Robert has often praised his older children in interviews, and they grew up mainly in Toronto, where the family lived during the height of his business rise.

The Divorce and the Settlement

After 24 years of marriage, Diane and Robert separated in July 2014. The split became public in early 2015, and the divorce was finalized in early 2016. Robert has spoken openly about how hard that period was for him. He told People magazine in 2015 that he struggled with dark thoughts after the marriage ended, a rare and honest admission from a television star known for confidence and cheer.

The financial side of the divorce drew wide attention in Canada. Robert wealth at the time was reported in the hundreds of millions, built during the marriage. In June 2019, after further court proceedings, a judge ruled that Robert must pay Diane additional sums that would bring the total she received from the marriage to 25 million dollars. Canadian legal coverage of the case also discussed spousal support in detail, noting her years out of the workforce and the lifestyle the couple had shared during their long marriage.

Those court figures are the firmest money facts in Diane story, and they need careful wording. The 25 million dollars is the total the court said she should receive from the marriage, including equalization of property. It is not the same thing as a verified statement of her net worth today, which has never been published. Websites that list an exact net worth for Diane are turning a court figure into a guess about her current wealth, and readers should treat those numbers as unverified estimates only.

Robert moved on publicly. He fell in love with his Dancing with the Stars partner, professional dancer Kym Johnson, confirmed the relationship in September 2015, and married her on July 31, 2016. They welcomed twins, Hudson and Haven, in April 2018, giving Robert five children in total. Diane, by contrast, has never announced a new relationship, and no strong source reports that she has remarried.

Life After Divorce and Where She Is Now

Since 2016, Diane Plese has lived almost completely out of public view. She has no verified Instagram or other social media account, gives no interviews, and does not attend the kind of events that would put her back in entertainment news. Reports place her in Canada, in the Toronto area where she spent her adult life, close to the family she raised.

That quiet is consistent with everything known about her. Even during the years when her husband was becoming a television star, Diane chose home and work over publicity. Her children with Robert are adults now, building their own lives, and she appears in public coverage mainly when old divorce stories are retold.

Her story has a clear shape when you step back. A young eye doctor met a patient who had big dreams and very little money. She married him, raised their three children, gave up her own practice at its height, and shared the long climb that ended in television fame and a fortune. When the marriage ended, the courts made sure her contribution was recognized in financial terms, and she chose privacy as her reward.

There is something worth respecting in that choice. In an age when many people linked to famous names sell their stories, Diane Plese never did. She remains, by her own design, the quiet force at the start of the Herjavec story, and a private citizen ever since.

FAQs

Who is Diane Plese?

Diane Plese is a Canadian optometrist best known as the first wife of businessman and Shark Tank star Robert Herjavec. They were married from 1990 until their divorce in early 2016 and have three children together.

How did Diane Plese meet Robert Herjavec?

They met in 1988 when Robert came to her Toronto eye clinic as a patient for an eye appointment. Diane later said it was love at first sight. They married two years later, in 1990.

How many children does Diane Plese have?

She has three children with Robert Herjavec: daughters Caprice and Skye, and son Brendan. All three were raised in Toronto and are now adults.

What was Diane Plese divorce settlement?

A judge ruled in June 2019 that additional payments should bring the total Diane received from the marriage to 25 million dollars. Her exact net worth today has no public record, and figures listed online are unverified estimates.

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Final Thoughts

Diane Plese is much more than an ex wife label. She was a working optometrist with her own career, a mother of three, and a partner through the hardest and most uncertain years of Robert Herjavec rise, long before television made him famous.

Today she lives privately in Canada, away from cameras and social media, on terms she chose herself. After spending 26 years beside one of the most public businessmen on television, that quiet life may be the most Diane Plese outcome of all.

Featured photo: Robert Herjavec – photo by Philip Romano, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons