Family is as synonymous with Willie Nelson as country music, long hair, marijuana and the nickname Red Headed Stranger. That's because his appropriately-named Family Band featured his late sister Bobbie Nelson for decades and served as a launching pad for more than one of the country music legend's children. Spouses have also informed Nelson's public image, especially since he found true love with current wife Annie D'Angelo.
Nelson's love story with D'Angelo began on the set of the film Stagecoach, which co-starred fellow Highwaymen Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings. She was a makeup artist for the 1986 movie. D'Angelo joined the family on Sept. 16, 1991.
"I now understand a lot more than I did," Nelson said of his fourth marriage to Parade. "I'm not easy to live with. I'm pretty temperamental, you know. I've been used to doing things my own way for so long that I'm not interested in any suggestions. There was friction with my other wives. But it seems like Annie and I did okay with each other. It takes a special person to live with me."
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The couple has two musically-talented children together: singer-songwriters Lukas Nelson and Jacob Micah Nelson. They currently split time between the Luck Ranch in Spicewood, Texas and a home in Maui, Hawaii. The couple helps each other with charity work, including farming, animal and weed legalization activism.
In 2021, D'Angelo and Margo Price became the first women added to the board of Farm Aid, an annual fundraiser concert co-founded in 1985 by Nelson.
"I am honored to join Willie and the other members on Farm Aid's Board of Directors," D'Angelo shared in a press release. "I've witnessed the incredible strength and resilience of America's family farmers through my involvement in Farm Aid, and I am eager to continue to help our family farm system thrive through this new role."
Read on to meet the multi-Grammy award-winning country singer's previous three wives.
Martha Matthews
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The country legend was with first wife Martha Matthews from 1952- 1962. The marriage was a contentious and violent one. In a 1980 interview with People, Nelson said Matthews once sewed him up in a bed sheet and then beat him with a broomstick. "By the time I got loose, she'd lit out in the car with the kids, her clothes and my clothes," Nelson told People. "There was no way I could follow her naked, and that was kind of the end of it."
Nelson and Matthews had three kids together: Lana, Susie and Willie "Billy" Hugh Jr.
Shirley Collie
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The country legend's second wife was Shirley Collie, whom he married in 1963, soon after his first marriage ended. This marriage ended almost as bizarrely as his first. Things quickly deteriorated after Collie found a bill in their home from the maternity ward of a Houston hospital. It was charged to Nelson and Connie Koepke for the birth of their child Paula Carlene Nelson.
Before marrying Nelson, Collie played bass in his band. She was an established country and rockabilly singer beforehand and first collaborated with Nelson on the 1962 duet "Willingly." Collie wrote two of Nelson's Nashville-era singles: "I Hope So" (1969) and "Once More With Feeling" (1970). Her singing career lasted until at least the mid-'90s. She passed away on Jan. 27, 2010.
Connie Koepke
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Nelson went on to marry Koepke a short time later and they had another child, Amy Lee Nelson. Nelson and Koepke divorced in 1988. Little is known about Koepke except that she produced the award-nominated 1984 documentary Streetwise, which follows the lives of teenagers living on the streets of Seattle.
