This story was reported by Hunter Walker and Sharon Waxman and written by Walker.
CNN's primetime cornerstone is leaving the network in November, and the reason is not just declining ratings -- his "messy" personal life is the primary factor, network insiders tell TheWrap.
(Read also: Troubled Times at CNN; Anchors at Odds with Cooper)
Larry King, host of "Larry King Live" for 25 years, announced Tuesday he is ending his primetime show sometime this year.
"I talked to the guys here at CNN and I told them I would like to end Larry King Live, the nightly show, this fall and CNN has graciously accepted, giving me more time for my wife and to get to the kids’ little league games," the 77-year-old King said in a statement released by CNN.
An individual at CNN told TheWrap that King will continue doing his show until November. King signed a new contract with the network to produce quarterly specials once "Larry King Live" ends its run.
The move was not entirely unexpected. King is 77, and the ratings for "Larry King Live" have been down 43 percent this year, a stunning drop for the star talk show host who was once CNN's top-rated talent.
On Monday, Nielsen ratings gave King's show 104,000 viewers in the adult 25-54 demographic compared to 592,000 for Fox News' Sean Hannity and 292,000 for MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.
King's Monday ratings were even lower than the numbers for Joy Behar's show on CNN's sister network Headline News. Behar's show brought in 129,000 viewers. 
But in spite of King's ratings struggles, a CNN insider told TheWrap it was turmoil in King's personal life rather than declining audience that led to the decision to have him step aside. “What brought this to a head was his messy personal life, and he’s old – it’s too much.”
King and his wife Shawn, his eighth marriage, filed for divorce in April, reportedly after the CNN anchor had an affair with his sister-in-law. An individual close to the family said that Shawn King has been distraught and threatened to do harm to herself over the family drama.
Multiple network insiders told TheWrap that, with all of the problems with his ratings and his marriage, King had become a liability to the network. “Larry King leaving doesn’t worry anyone. What worries people is who replaces him,” one told TheWrap.
But King leaving does raise a thorny problem of succession for the news network, which suffers from a shallow bench.
Anderson Cooper seemed to be the most likely candidate to inherit the talk show slot, although Joy Behar and Piers Morgan are names that have also been mentioned.
(Read also: Who Will Replace Larry King?)
Cooper's contract with the network expires next year.
The departure of King places renewed pressure on network president Jon Klein to find a strategy that will reverse its declining ratings.
