Brenner had three children—Cole, Slade and Wyatt. He and the mother of Cole, his first son, fought a custody battle for several years. Brenner finally won child custody in 1992. Because family courts would have regarded him as an absentee Father if he were away from home more than 50 nights a year, Brenner substantially reduced the number of appearances in his stand-up comedy work, including performances on the Tonight Show in order to secure and maintain custody of his son. Brenner married Elizabeth Slater of New York, the mother of his sons Slade and Wyatt, in the closing minutes of his David Brenner: Back with a Vengeance! HBO Special recorded in Las Vegas, on February 19, 2000. They divorced a little over a year later and also then fought two custody battles, both of which Brenner won. Brenner was engaged to Tai Babilonia in 2005, but they never married. For a while in the 2000s, Brenner lived in Las Vegas.