‘My wife threatened to divorce me’: Stephen King shares the annoying habit that puts his wife on edge

Living with a creative genius who is arguably one of the most prolific writers of our time is no cakewalk, and it seems that Stephen King certainly doesn’t go out of his way to make it any easier on his wife.

Ahead of the release of his new book, Holly, the best-selling author sat down to have a chat with Rolling Stone, and felt comfortable enough to offer up some candid trivia about his personal life. At one point, King was asked about his rumored obsession with “Mambo No. 5” by Lou Bega, and he explained that it was actually more than just an obsession at one point.

“My wife threatened to divorce me,” He said. “I played that a lot. I had the dance mix. I loved those extended play things, and I played both sides of it. And one of them was just total instrumental. And I played that thing until my wife just said, ‘One more time, and I’m going to [freakin’] leave you.'”

It’s very surreal to picture King vibing to “Mambo No. 5,” but apparently, it’s all part of his creative process. You see, he was writing 11/22/63 at the time, so of course that was the timeless track to jam to when you’re dealing with one of the most infamous assassination attempts on the life of a president in history.

“When I write, there are things that I can listen to a lot,” he elaborates. “And a lot of it is techno stuff or disco stuff, but techno in particular, there’s this group called LCD Soundsystem, and I love that. Fat Boy Slim is somebody else. I can just listen to that stuff. If you tried to write and listen to Leonard Cohen, how the [heck] would you do that? Because you’d have to listen to the words and you’d have to listen to what he’s saying. But with some of the techno stuff, or KC and the Sunshine Band, Gloria Gaynor, it’s all good.”

As far as creative quirks go, this is actually a bit on the vanilla side. But then, you’d be fortunate not to find yourself anywhere close to the guy if he plans to write a 220,000-word novel while keeping Lou Bega playing on a loop in the background.

Such is the curse of creativity.