What happened to Jerry Lee Lewis’ 13-year-old bride? She’s been here the whole time.
The Jerry Lee Lewis-Jerry Lewis marriage is famous for many things — its many years, for example. But one particular detail is almost certainly the most enduring — the fact that it was a child bride who, on July 28, 1974, stood proudly where the husband and father stood, and married the man who was not yet his husband.
To most people, Jerry Lee Lewis was a rock-and-roll icon — an electrifying stage performer, the frontman of rock band The Dixie Chicks, a rock-and-roll diva. To many others, he was a child bride, having wed a 17-year-old runaway in a Texas church hall in 1974. She was her mother’s idea, the only girl Lewis ever slept with, who was 15 years younger than him but who was ready for marriage.
For those who knew her, she was not just a runaway, she was a runaway bride. And for Jerry Lee Lewis, she was just a girl.
She was a bridesmaid in the wedding of his young friend, Buddy Holly, to Priscilla Starling. And then there was the day the marriage license to Priscilla Starling was filed.
And it was then that Lewis was informed by the state that their marriage was invalid.
“I looked at him and said ‘You’re right,’ ‘Thank you, Jerry.’ ”
For the record, Jerry Lewis has always maintained that it was his wife who had the idea to do the marriage. And that he had no say in it. In an interview with CNN in 2015, Lewis said, “I wouldn’t say that my wife had any control over where we went to the courthouse. She just kind of went along with the thing.”
But she did go along with it because she did not want to be a part of what was really a bad day for her.
“I looked at him and said ‘You’re right,’ ‘Thank you, Jerry.’ ”
Lewis’ story isn’t really about marriage. It’s about a family being torn apart.
Jerry Lee Lewis and the bride
While
