Meet Dean Fleischer-Camp — Jenny Slate's Ex-Husband And Co-Creator Of 'Marcel The Shell With Shoes On'
They were married for four years.
Instagram Jenny Slate's Netflix comedy special Jenny Slate: Stage Fright is streaming now. It's an interesting comedy special in that, at times, it comes across like a documentary. In fact, it's really part-stand-up/part documentary. Slate gets very, very personal in her standup routine. She delves into stories about her family — especially her grandmother and parents. She also explores her own relationship issues and struggles with anxiety and terrible dates (we've all been there). One of the most emotionally loaded subjects she deals with his her divorce from Dean Fleischer-Camp and the shame she felt around moving back in with her parents when her marriage was over. Slate gets very vulnerable about her feelings about her divorce. However, she never mentions her ex by name in the Netflix special — which made us wonder: Who is Jenny Slate's ex-husband?
1. Background
Dean Fleischer-Camp is one of three sons of Sydney Fleischer and Dr. Norman "Mike" Camp. Dean and his brothers Marshall and Lee grew up in Richmond, Virginia. Lee and Dean attended New York University, the alma mater of their grandfather. Lee is a comedian who hosts the RT American show Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp.
2. NYU Film School
Growing up, Fleischer-Camp was into comedy. He started making short films at a young age. He said: “I started making short films with high school friends. One was a parody of an Abbott & Costello routine. Another was about an arrogant bowling team. They weren’t very good, so I decided to go to film school." Fleischer-Camp graduated from the film school at NYU and following that, worked as a director and editor. He made a number of short films that screened in alternative comedy venues in Brooklyn.
3. Marcel the Shell
Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate had their first real success with the lo-fi animated film Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. In an interview with Filmmaker magazine, they discussed how Marcel the anthropomorphic shell came to be. The former couple came up with the idea for Marcel while attending a friend's wedding. Slate said: “We were in a hotel sleeping six to a room because most of us were really broke, and I was beginning to feel really small. I had been doing this little voice over the weekend, so I started talking like Marcel: [in a squeaky, slightly forlorn voice] ‘I’m just feeling really squished here.’”
4. They made a short film about Marcel
Fleischer-Camp and Slate filmed the stop-action film about Marcel the Shell in their Brooklyn apartment. It was intended to be a sort of joke, something to do with their time while they were trying to make their real film and entertainment dreams come true. Slate didn't want to post it online and deal with Internet commenters tearing it apar but at the urging of friends, they posted it — and it blew up. Marcel struck a chord with audiences and soon was being invited to film festivals. Marcel the Shell With Shoes On won Best Animated Short at AFI Fest 2010 and screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Fleischer-Camp and Slate went on to write children's books about Marcel.
5. Their breakup
Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp divorced after four years of marriage. They married in September 2012 and ended things in 2016. A source at the time told Us magazine that Jenny and Dean had grown apart and it wasn't a bad breakup. Vulture asked Slate about her divorce. She said: “If we didn’t get divorced, we wouldn’t be able to be friends and we wouldn’t be able to do our work. We had just grown apart, and we love each other. It wasn’t easy, but not bad.”
6. They're still friends
Fleisher-Camp and Slate remained friends post-divorce. According to the bio on his website he "is currently directing the feature-length adaptation of Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, starring Jenny Slate and Isabella Rossellini. This is not reflected, however, on the IMDB pages of Fleischer-Camp, Slate or Rossellini. Guess we'll have to wait and see.
Amy Lamare is a Los Angeles based writer and editor covering entertainment, pop culture, beauty, fashion, fitness, technology, and the intersection of technology, business, and philanthropy. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook.