Larry King’s sixth and current wife Shawn, 48, carried on a torrid affair for a year with the 29 year-old baseball instructor to the couple’s eight and nine year-old sons. The National Enquirer has the dirt, which they say comes from multiple sources who have independently confirmed the details. The way they tell it, Shawn was a sex-craved housewife who slept with her son’s young coach all over the mansion she shared with Larry. The two stopped seeing each other once Larry confronted the guy, and Shawn ended up going to rehab for a treatment for a prescription painkiller addiction this summer. There were rumors at the time that Larry planned to dump Shawn when she returned from rehab, but the 74 year-old talkshow host has forgiven his wife’s affair and plans to stay with her.

Larry King has caught his wife cheating with their young sons’ baseball coach, the Enquirer has learned exclusively.

Willowy blonde beauty Shawn King, 48, carried on a year-long extramarital affair right under Larry’s nose with hunky 29-year-old Hector Penate, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the intimate relationship.

The Enquirer’s blockbuster investigation has also uncovered that Shawn and Hector were so brazen, they made love on the desk in 74 year-old Larry’s home office!

Shawn even paraded through Beverly Hills holding hands with her lover, according to insiders. Their illicit liaison began to unravel when Shawn’s dependency on the powerful painkiller Vicodin deepened, but it didn’t end until the CNN talk-show host confronted Penate, sources say.

Larry… is heartbroken over his wife’s cheating, but he’s chosen not to end their 11-year marriage, insiders say.

“I truly love my wife and I stand squarely behind her and support her,” Larry told The Enquirer through his spokesman Howard Rubenstein.

Penate no longer coaches the couple’s two boys, said Rubenstein and declared: “Shawn adamantly denies the allegations that she had an affair with the sports instructor.”

But Shawn’s denial is contradicted by multiple sources who, during a period of months, provided the Enquirer with key evidence about the love affair.

When contacted by The Enquirer, Penate did not deny the affair, adding: “I’d love to be able to talk to you, but I can’t.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, November 17, 2008]

The Enquirer has more salacious details, including the story of how Shawn supposedly pursued coach Hector and bought him gifts of jewelry and sent him multiple text messages a day. She is even said to have become threatening when Hector tried to call it off. Their affair ended for good when Larry confronted Hector about six months ago and told him he knew what was going on and had to fire him. Hector claimed that it was Shawn who came on to him, while Shawn had been able to talk to Larry first and convince him that she was seduced by Hector.

You wonder why one spouse would stay with the other after they had a year-long affair. It doesn’t matter who seduced whom because it takes two. Maybe Larry figures he’s getting on in years and he may as well stick with the mother of his youngest children. He’s been married seven times to six different women, it’s not like he has a great track record either.

Larry and Shawn King are shown in the header on 5/17/08 and below with their two boys on 2/3/08. Credit: WENN