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Delia "DeDe" Pritchett (neé Williams) is Jay Pritchett's ex-wife, the mother of Claire Dunphy and Mitchell Pritchett and the grandmother of Haley, Alex, Luke and Lily. She caused a scene at Jay and Gloria's wedding, which is referred to as "The Incident". She later apologizes to Gloria, but tries to hit her moments later.

Biography

It has been heavily implied that she may be mentally ill due to her somewhat manipulative and sometimes aggressive ways. Jay wanted to divorce her after a spectacular fight they had while their kids were still in school (he taped over an episode of Dallas to record an NFL game that, ironically, featured the Dallas Cowboys) but was inspired by an animatronic Abraham Lincoln exhibit at Disneyland to stick things out until Claire and Mitchell reached adulthood.

It is implied that she was initially more accepting of Mitchell's sexual orientation than Jay was when he first came out. She often uses her close relationship with Mitchell to get him to do things she doesn't want to. She is still bitter over Jay's re-marriage to Gloria and even attempted to ruin their wedding, which she convinced Mitchell to invite her to, by getting drunk and making rude and inappropriate toasts, and eventually had to be dragged out of the reception, in the process ruining the wedding cake. She is very aggressive towards Gloria, often trying to physically attack her. DeDe is also passive aggressive toward Cameron about his weight, and is often critical of Claire, especially her appearance. She also seems to be very good friends with Manny as they write letters to each other's talking about their personal issues. DeDe is also a famous author and poet.

Her antagonistic and aggressive relationship to Gloria surprisingly changes in "Arrested." When DeDe sees that Gloria is pregnant, she finds it so fantastic that her ex-husband is going to be a father again at his age. It also seemed to have fixed her uterus which she claimed was telescopic and they both bonded over Jay-bashing when DeDe tells Gloria that she was always the one having to change diapers, clean spit-up and getting baby equipment. Gloria was sympathetic explaining that it makes sense to why DeDe became so crazy to which DeDe answered "Right?".

Appearances

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