David Hasselhoff divorce from Pamela Bach is finally complete and, although it’s a stark reminder that he’s ultimately a tragic failure, it’s not all bad.

That’s because David Hasselhoff got to keep the thing he most treasures in the divorce settlement – his name. Or, specifically, use of the phrases ‘The Hoff’ and ‘Don’t Hassel The Hoff’. Honestly, we’re not making this up. Furthermore David Hasselhoff gets to keep the intellectual property rights to a potential TV show called Tales Of The Hoff.

Sometimes a story comes along that doesn’t need jokes to be funny. We think this might be one of them. Oh, and David Hasselhoff also gets to keep the elephant foot, too. We promise all this is true.

You know when you look at a photo of David Hasselhoff stroking a kitten in a leather jacket and a pair of Speedos and you’re never quite sure how seriously he’s taking it? Yeah, turns out he takes it very seriously indeed.

David Hasselhoff’s divorce from Pamela Bach was a stupendously messy affair. There were accusations of domestic violence, confusing fake child suicide threats, accusations of drug addiction and – gloriously – a video of David Hasselhoff lying topless of the floor failing to push a hamburger into his dribbly mouth. It was, in short, everything you could possibly ever want from a divorce.

Between that and all the urinating in his trousers in airports that he did, the divorce left David Hasselhoff a broken man. Variously throughout the course of his break-up, David Hasselhoff lost contact with his children, lost the love of his life, lost all trace of self-respect and lost a lot of money and possessions in the settlement. But there’s one thing that David Hasselhoff will never give up.

The Hoff. The Hoff means more to David Hasselhoff than anything else, including marriage or children. It’s The Hoff that turns David Hasselhoff from a shambling alcoholic with a messed-up personal life and zero self-awareness into an ironic cultural superhero. Hear that David Hasselhoff has stabbed a toddler to death and thrown it down a well and you’d be appalled, but hear that The Hoff has done the exact same thing and it’s high-fives and a quick burst of Jump In My Car all round.

Which is a needlessly long way to say that the most important things David Hasselhoff got to keep in his just-announced divorce settlement were use of the terms ‘The Hoff’, ‘Don’t Hassel The Hoff’ and the rights to an unmade TV show called Tales Of The Hoff.

We know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “But what about the photos of Michael Jackson and the elephant’s foot?” E! Online has more:

In the personal effects department, Hasselhoff seems to bag the best of what was known as his Encino, Calif., home’s African room. He gets the African pipe, the ivory tusk, assorted statues and the “elephant foot and two elephant stools.” She gets the photographs of Hollywood great Claudette Colbert and pop singer Michael Jackson that hung outside the couple’s master suite. She also gets a shot of herself that apparently ran in Sports Illustrated.

She gets one-half of any income from his 2006 autobiography, Making Waves.

He gets the intellectual property rights to his tome, as well as those to the “potential television series referred to as Tales of the Hoff.

He gets the Ted Williams “baseball paraphernalia,” the barber chair, the computer, the weights, the piano and the “French maid.”

Yes, we know. French maid. Saucy. But we can’t spend too long lingering on the thought of David Hasselhoff chasing his continental cleaner around the kitchen in a pair of Speedos because a) it weirds us out too much and b) Tales Of The Hoff? What the hell?

We’ll assume that this will be a project along the lines of the still-unmade David Hasselhoff musical – a collection of dramatised autobiographical episodes solely about David Hasselhoff.

If that’s the case, we’re especially looking forward to the episode where Baywatch becomes a global success, the episode where David Hasselhoff single-handedly brings about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the episode where David Hasselhoff kids himself that his divorce settlement worked in his favour because he got to keep two meaningless phrases and a sawn-off piece of elephant.

Read more:

The “Hoff” Is All Hasselhoff’s – E! Online