When people talk about the Jerry Lee Lewis wife history, they usually stop at the one that blew up his career. You know the one. Myra Gale Brown. The 13-year-old cousin. That headline from 1958 essentially nuked his status as the "King of Rock 'n' Roll" before he even really got the crown settled on his head.
But honestly? That’s just the middle of the book.
Jerry Lee Lewis was married seven times. Seven. Most of those marriages were messy, some were tragic, and a couple were—frankly—legal nightmares. If you’re looking for a simple story of a rockstar and his spouses, you won't find it here. This is a saga of bigamy, suspicious deaths, and a final decade of relative peace that nobody saw coming.
The Early Mess: Dorothy and Jane
Before the world even knew his name, Jerry Lee was already racking up marriage licenses. He was 16 when he married Dorothy Barton in 1952. She was a preacher’s daughter. It lasted about 20 months.
Then things got weird.
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He married his second wife, Jane Mitcham, in September 1953. Here’s the kicker: he married her 23 days before his divorce from Dorothy was even final. That's bigamy. Plain and simple. He and Jane had two kids, but the relationship was volatile. Jerry Lee was a man of extremes—extreme talent, extreme temper, and an extreme inability to stay single.
The Scandal That Changed Everything: Myra Gale Brown
You can't discuss a Jerry Lee Lewis wife without focusing on Myra. This is the big one. In 1957, Jerry Lee married his first cousin once removed. Myra was 13 years old. Jerry Lee was 22.
When he touched down in London for a massive 37-date tour in 1958, he thought he could just play it off. He told reporters she was 15. They didn't buy it. They dug up the truth, and the British public—and eventually the American public—revolted. He went from earning $10,000 a night to playing dive bars for $250.
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Myra stayed with him for 13 years. She later wrote about the "physical and mental abuse" she endured. In her memoir, The Spark That Survived, she paints a picture of a man who was essentially a child himself, incapable of handling the reality of his own actions. They had two children together: Steve Allen Lewis, who tragically drowned at age three, and Phoebe Allen Lewis.
The "Killer" Label and the Dark Years
After Myra, the story takes a turn from scandalous to genuinely dark.
Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate was wife number four. They married in 1971. In 1982, just as they were finalizing a messy divorce, she drowned in a friend’s swimming pool.
Then came Shawn Stephens. This is the one that still gets people talking in true crime circles. They were married for only 77 days in 1983. She was found dead in their home. The official cause was an overdose, but a famous Rolling Stone exposé by Richard Ben Cramer suggested something much more sinister. There were bruises. There were inconsistencies. No charges were ever filed, but the "Killer" nickname Jerry Lee had used for years suddenly felt a lot more literal to the public.
Finding Stability? Kerrie and Judith
Kerrie McCarver actually managed to stay married to him for 21 years. That’s a record for Jerry Lee. They married in 1984 and stayed together until 2005. They had a son, Jerry Lee Lewis III. For a while, it looked like the storm had passed.
But it’s Jerry Lee Lewis. There’s always another act.
In 2012, at the age of 76, he married Judith Brown. If that last name sounds familiar, it should. Judith was the ex-wife of Rusty Brown—who was Myra Gale Brown’s brother. Yes, Jerry Lee married his former brother-in-law’s ex-wife.
Surprisingly, Judith was the one who stayed until the end. She was his caregiver as his health declined, and she was by his side when he passed away in October 2022 at their ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi.
What This History Actually Tells Us
Looking at the Jerry Lee Lewis wife timeline isn't just a gossip exercise. It’s a look at how celebrity used to work—and how it didn't.
- Legal Loopholes: His early marriages show a total disregard for the waiting periods and legalities of divorce that would have ended a career today instantly.
- The Power of the Press: It wasn't the marriage to Myra itself that killed his career; it was the discovery of it by the British press.
- Survival: Myra Gale Brown eventually became a successful real estate agent and author. She moved on.
Basically, the life of Jerry Lee Lewis was a wrecking ball. He lived by his own rules, often to the detriment of the women in his life. If you want to understand the man, don't just listen to "Great Balls of Fire." Look at the trail of marriages he left behind. It tells a much more complicated, and often much sadder, story.
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To truly understand the impact of these relationships, you should look into Myra Gale Brown's 2016 memoir. It offers a perspective that the tabloids never could—the perspective of a child forced to grow up in the middle of a hurricane.