He married the actress Adah Isaacs Menken on 3 April 1859, but by October, 1861, she was "united to R. H. Newell, the humorist". Heenan and Menken were divorced in 1862 by an Indiana court. According to a biography of the actress: "it was generally known that Heenan had treated her in the most brutal and ignominious manner." In 1865 he returned to America, where he married actress Sarah Stevens, and had mixed success in the gambling business. In 1870 he appeared onstage with English fighter James Mace - the American as Hamlet and James Mace as Laertes in the "Great Fighting Scene". Eight years after his return to America, he became seriously ill with tuberculosis.