The Way Kenny Rogers Met His Fifth Wife Is Totally Out Of Left Field

And it took a long time for Rogers to finally meet the woman of his dreams. Before then, he’d cycled through four marriages and a heck of a lot of other ladies into the bargain. His first time down the aisle was with Janice Gordon. That marriage only lasted a couple of years, but Rogers still believed it had been the right thing to do.

In 2012 the Gambler told Fox News, “You know what? I loved her. At 19 I thought, ‘This is okay with me. That was a thing where her parents thought I’d ruined her life and were determined to break me. It didn’t work, and it’s really sad because I think it could have worked.” But while he and Gordon also had a daughter, Carole Lynn, Rogers didn’t have much to do with her after the split.

In 2012 Rogers explained why to Fox News, saying, “That was my promise to them, that I would be her father, but he [his ex-wife’s second husband] would be her dad, and I don’t want to disrupt that. He stepped in at a time that was really awkward for all of us, and he became her dad, and I love him for that. He was a good guy.”

Getting divorced didn’t put Rogers off love, and he walked down the aisle mere months after quitting Gordon. That marriage was to Jean Rogers, and once again it didn’t last. He explained why to The Independent in 2006, saying, “That only lasted three years because we finally realized this isn’t right. And in the end, it was boring for me and for her.”

Speaking about his third wife Margo Anderson, the star told The Independent, “So then I met this girl, and that was a really exciting relationship which lasted 12 years, and out of it we had a son. In fact, the first nine years were as good as it gets, and it was only the last few that got ugly. I was touring a lot, and that is part of what killed the marriage.”

Next up came Marianne Gordon, who Rogers wed in 1977. And together with the country legend, she had a son called Chris in 1982. But although his marriages were getting longer, this one still ended 11 years later. “I always felt his total focus was on me. If anyone wanted anything from him, he was looking me in the eye and said, ‘Whatever she wants to do,’” Gordon later said to Closer Weekly.

Rogers’ ex-wife continued, “I think that when he turned 50, I didn’t have his full attention anymore, but it looked like he still wanted me here. His life was such an open book and after two years he felt this craving, this longing. He said he felt he was having a mid-life crisis. He felt like his career was fading.”

Well, they say that practice makes perfect, and perhaps that’s true for Rogers and marrying. His fifth wife was Miller, and they remained together for the rest of his days. He had met her in the 1990s, and they tied the knot in 1997. Seven years later, they had twin boys Justin and Jordan, bringing him to five kids in all.

Apparently, the pair were inseparable during those early days of their marriage. In 2015 Miller told The Valdosta Daily Times, “The first 12 years we were together, I went everywhere with him. Then when the kids came along, you have to prioritize.” But the opportunity for globetrotting didn’t turn her head. She still kept close to home and family, and Rogers would be with her when he could.

Rogers did not doubt the value of Miller as the person who maintained his family. He told Fox News, “She is truly my soul mate. She knows me better than anyone has ever known me before. She is the most phenomenal mother I have ever seen. The boys are so lucky to have her, and so am I.”

But Rogers didn’t feel that Miller was the only good parent in the relationship. In 2016 he spoke to CMT about ending his career as a live artist. And he gave a touching explanation for the decision, “I hope my fans understand that I’m a father first and a singer second,” Rogers said. “I know as well as anybody else how that time gets away from you. And I don’t want to miss it. I just worry about how much longer I’m going to be here, and I want to have time to spend with them. It’s pretty simple.”

That the singer adored his wife was evident in a 2012 interview with Reuters. “[Miller] and I have been together now for 20 years [and] married 15 years... [Miller] knows me better than anyone else has known me. She loves what I do, and I’m not as insensitive to her needs as I may have been in the past,” he said.

But the pair may not have gotten together without a stroke of real luck. Just before they bumped into each other, Rogers had been casually dating around. So, he’d gone out to dinner with one of these women, perhaps hoping for a spark to ignite. On the date, however, things weren’t going all that well.

In his autobiography Luck or Something Like It, Rogers wrote, “We both knew the food was great, but the relationship wasn’t going anywhere.” Still, things were about to change. “[My date and I] had chosen a little Italian restaurant called Pricci and were in the middle of our ‘getting to know each other’ banter when the hostess walked by our table,” the star continued.

The young hostess had certainly caught the singer’s eye, although he wasn’t sure whether he’d caught hers. Rogers continued, “I’m honestly not sure she even looked at me, but I saw her. I don’t know what, and I don’t know why, but there was just something incredibly different about her from the minute I saw her.” She turned out to be Miller, of course!

And Rogers had no doubt what had attracted him. He wrote, “She had a smile, not a hostess smile, but something more genuine, and believe it or not, it rocked me to my core.” But he could do nothing about the attraction he felt. Ever the gentleman, he felt that he couldn’t make a move on a date with another woman.

Rogers then took his date back to her home and was left alone with his thoughts. Who was this woman who had smitten him, and how could he arrange to meet her again? The “Coward of the County” singer wrote, “I didn’t want to go back to the restaurant. But I didn’t want to miss this opportunity — if there was one.”

Luckily, one of the superstar’s buddies was a regular at the restaurant and had even been there the night Rogers was on his date. He offered to ask the manager of the restaurant about the waitress. Miller later told The Valdosta Daily Times, “I came in the next day and they all said, ‘Kenny Rogers called asking about you.’ They gave me a piece of paper with a number on it. I threw it away. I thought it was a joke. They dug it out of the trash and said it was for real.”

The two of them hit it off, and they started seeing each other more regularly. But Miller’s mom and dad weren’t keen on the pairing. Rogers said in his autobiography, “The fact that I was two years older than her parents put an awkward slant on things right from the start. Not for me, but I’m sure it would be troublesome to any caring parent, and I understood that.”

Rogers explained that his love’s parents hadn’t taken the news of his courtship too well. He continued, “[Miller] and I dated for almost six months before she worked up the nerve to tell her parents about me. Actually, I’m not sure whether she told them, or they read it in the tabloids. Either way, it was not pleasant.”

Eventually, Miller’s mom and dad came to accept Rogers. But that may partly be because he’d made a vow to them. The singer explained to Fox News that he had told them, “I will make you a promise. I will never lie to her, and I will never lie to you.” Clearly, that impressed them, as they would become very good friends with the singer.

Five years after they had started dating, Rogers and Miller got hitched. And the star never regretted it. He finally had found the right woman, and the length of time that they were together showed the age difference just didn’t matter. He wrote in Luck or Something Like It, “As wrong as it may have looked, I also knew this: my relationship with [Miller] felt right to me.”

The singer also claimed that his time with his last wife had been the best years of his life. Rogers explained to Closer Weekly, “I think the years with [Miller] have been the most rewarding. That’s no offense to any of the other people I was married to. I just think I wasn’t ready before.”

And Rogers felt that he had learned the meaning of his life. He added, “I’ve had a lot of things in my life. I’ve made loads of money and had the biggest and best of everything, but now I’m back to looking at the small things that matter: my boys. [Miller]. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about them.”

Rogers made it plain that, after five marriages, he’d finally found the woman of his dreams. But in another life, perhaps he’d have finally got it together with Dolly Parton. Romantic tension first sparked between the pair in 1983 when the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb wrote and produced the song “Islands in the Stream.” Originally, it was just Rogers singing alone on the track, but something was missing.

Rogers and Gibb recorded for four days with little success. No matter what they tried, the song just didn’t sound complete. They needed a voice that was sweet, melodic, and wholly original. Yup, they needed Dolly! She was one of the biggest stars in the industry at that time, and a happy coincidence led her to the studio the same day.

So, Parton was introduced to the song. And when she and Rogers recorded it for the first time, Gibb knew they had found their missing piece. “Islands in the Stream” went on to become a huge hit, and audiences were taken in not only by Parton and Rogers’ sweet harmonizing but also by their flirtatious chemistry.

It didn’t take perfect vision to see that there was something in the air between Parton and Rogers. What they had together went further than any ordinary professional duet! And as the rumors concerning their relationship intensified, people started to make negative assumptions about Parton’s strangely private marriage to Carl Thomas Dean. She had to be hiding something...

Parton had been with Carl since 1966. And although she repeatedly told news reporters that they were happily married, the tabloids just didn’t buy it. They were drawn to the more alluring possibility of a love affair. The suspicions only increased once people noticed how Parton’s husband was never around for the big moments in her life.

In fact, Parton and Carl were rarely — if ever — seen in public together. No, Carl was never there when his wife performed or won awards, so people started to spread the rumor that all was not well in the Parton household. And when folks saw Parton perform with Rogers, they couldn’t help but imagine that a passionate love affair had begun between the two.

If there was any trouble between Parton and her husband, it was never confirmed, but the rumors finally began to die down after Rogers married Marianne Gordon. Yet that didn’t lessen Rogers and Parton’s genuine chemistry on stage. Even Gordon could sense a fire burning between those two. And there had to be times when she wondered about Parton.

After all, Rogers and Parton’s on-stage chemistry was hard to miss. It was clear to audiences that they shared a special love for one another. And Rogers’ wife could tell there were times when the temptation was almost too much for the two to bear. So, during what she later described as being a private conversation, she asked him once and for all how he felt about Parton.

It wasn’t until a friend questioned Rogers’ faithfulness that Gordon shared what her husband had told her during their conversation. “Kenny said, ‘I like [Dolly] as a friend, and we have a great thing on stage. We’d lose it,’” she revealed. But then he said that he, too, understood the tension the audience — and Gordon — had picked up on.

“There is sexual tension and teasing each other,” Rogers admitted to his wife. But acting on that tension would only “screw things up,” he said. So for a while, Rogers and Gordon’s marriage remained a happy one. As the pair got older, however, the cracks started to show. And in 1993 the two eventually divorced.

Parton remained faithfully in love with her husband, saying in an interview, “I married a really good man... We’ve just been best buddies and best friends, and evidently it’s working!” And in 2011 she finally explained why Carl is never seen with her in public. Apparently, after attending an award ceremony in 1966, Carl firmly said, “Dolly, I want you to have everything you want, and I’m happy for you, but don’t you ever ask me to go to another one of them dang things again!”

Yet all the while, gossipers just couldn’t get over Rogers and Parton’s bond — even after 30 years! Decades on, the two country stars still had to field questions from reporters about the secret behind their unwavering chemistry. And it wasn’t until 2013 that Parton and Rogers finally confessed the many reasons why romance had never blossomed.

Parton explained, “It never crossed our minds because he was with people... I’ve been with my husband for 48 years.” Then she slyly added, “That’s not to say I’m blind or dead.” Rogers jumped in, joking, “She never thought I was handsome.” But he wouldn’t run away with that quip, as Parton had a quick retort.

“I’d always thought he was handsome," Parton said. “I just never thought of him that way... That would screw up everything.” And in another 2017 interview, Rogers made a never-before-heard admission about his feelings for his duet partner. “I’m a believer that tension is better if you keep it than if you satisfy it,” he started off.

“And then, secondly, she said no to me!” Rogers added. Yet again, Parton shut the gossipers down for good. “We were almost like brother and sister... and it would almost be like incest. So we just never went there,” she shared. In the end, everyone knew how much they loved each other — especially when Parton said her final farewell in 2020.

It wasn’t until Rogers’ death in 2020 that Parton realized, once and for all, how she really felt about her longtime friend. “You never know how much you love somebody until they’re gone,” she shared in an emotional post on social media. And looking back, some people may wonder if she chose the right romantic path after all.