Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has formally filed to end her marriage to her husband, Bryon Noem, months after a family scandal in which he was accused of engaging in a “bimbofication” fetish.
Noem, 54, submitted the divorce papers in a South Dakota court on Monday, according to reports. The filing cited irreconcilable differences, Dakota News Now reported. It follows the publication of photos showing Bryon, 56, in pink shorts and a skin-colored top with two balloons tucked inside to imitate large breasts.
The images appeared in a late March Daily Mail article. One of the adult entertainers who allegedly communicated with Bryon online explained the fetish to the outlet. “It’s called bimbofication. People who modify their body to look like a doll. The Barbie look,” the entertainer said. “His kink is for huge, huge ridiculous boobs.”
At the time, a spokesperson for the former Cabinet official said Noem was “devastated” by the news. “The family was blindsided by this. They ask for privacy and prayers at this time,” the spokesperson said.
Despite that claim of shock, officials inside the Trump administration said they had heard rumors about Bryon’s cross-dressing earlier. “I have been hearing he was a cross-dresser since last year and that she was telling people about it – we assumed to justify her affair,” a senior Homeland Security official told the Mail in a follow-up report.
The official was referring to allegations of an affair between Noem and her close aide Corey Lewandowski, who is also married. Both have strongly denied the claims. Noem previously dismissed the rumors as “tabloid garbage” during a House committee hearing in March.
The couple has been married for 34 years. They met in high school and wed in 1992, and they have three adult children and several grandchildren.
Noem’s mother, 77-year-old Corinne Arnold, was the first to reveal that divorce proceedings had begun, telling the Mail in July that the family saw it coming. “It has been difficult, but we knew this was coming, that they were going to get divorced,” Arnold said.
Noem was no political newcomer when President Trump chose her to lead his sweeping immigration crackdown at the start of his second term. She had previously served as South Dakota governor and as a state congresswoman.
Her time at Homeland Security drew intense scrutiny. Calls for her resignation grew after Senator Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, was forcibly removed from her press conference in Los Angeles in June 2025. Criticism of her leadership escalated further after U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti were gunned down in Minneapolis streets by federal immigration agents in January.
In early March, Trump announced that Senator Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, would replace her as Homeland Security secretary. Noem then became special envoy for the “Shield of the Americas,” a security initiative created by the Trump administration to combat drug trafficking and illegal immigration in the Western Hemisphere.