Facebook/AXS TV Laurie Money, Eddie Money's wife, pictured in a promotional image for the family's reality TV show.
Laurie Money was Eddie Money’s wife of 30 years. The couple had five children together, Zachary, Jessica, Joseph, Julian and Desmond. Laurie’s maiden name was Laurie Harris.
Singer Eddie Money, born Edward Mahoney, died on September 13 at the age of 70. A statement from Money’s family, via Variety, read, “The Money Family regrets to announce that Eddie passed away peacefully early this morning. It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to our loving husband and father. We cannot imagine our world without him. We are grateful that he will live on forever through his music.”
Since April 2018, the Money family had been appearing in a reality show, named “Real Money.” Laurie is listed as one of the producers of the show, along with her husband. The show aired on AXS TV.
One memorable episode of the show saw Money surprise his wife by recording a new song about her. When unveiling his gift, Money said, “It’s good. It’s like ‘Honkeytonk Woman.” To which Laurie hit back, “Isn’t that about a hooker?”
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Money Said That Meeting His Wife Laurie in 1985 Inspired Him to Get Sober
Money told People Magazine in 1996 that it was meeting his future wife, Laurie, in 1985, that inspired him to become sober. Laurie had been working as a model at the time the pair met. Laurie told the magazine, “I really didn’t know who he was. I used to get him mixed up with John Mellencamp. He was really interested in having children, but he had to stop doing what he was doing. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have stayed.” The pair married in 1989.
On his newfound domestication, the magazine noted that Money was known to cancel concerts in order to attend one of his children’s ballet recitals. Money had told the magazine that in 1980 he had accidentally inhaled a barbiturate that he thought was cocaine. Speaking to CNN in 2003 regarding his sobriety, Money said, “I made a promise to my wife and kids that I was gonna change.”
2. Money Called His Wife His ‘Rock’
Happy 30th anniversary to my rock.
Thank you for giving me the best years of my life!
Love you Laurie
E$
Eddie Money would regularly pay tribute to his wife on his Twitter page. On their 30th wedding anniversary in June 2017, Money posted a photo of the couple saying, “Happy 30th anniversary to my rock. Thank you for giving me the best years of my life! Love you Laurie.” On her birthday earlier that year, in May 2017, Money posted this clip:
That girl was shakin’!
Happy birthday to my beautiful wife Laurie
Love you forever
E$
While in November 2013, Money posted a link to his song, “Heaven In the Backseat,” with the words, “My wife is hotter than yours.” In 2009, the famly was featured in a musical about Money’s life that debuted in Rochester, New York. Actress Morgan Troia portrayed Laurie.
3. Money’s Secret to a Long-Lasting Marriage Was Treating Your Wife as an Equal
GettyMoney performing in January 2017.
In an April 2018 interview with the San Jose Mercury News, Money was asked about his secret to a long last marriage. The singer replied, “You have to listen to your wife and realize that she really wants to be treated like an equal. There’s no real boss. I’m not the boss … Well, OK, she’s the boss.” In the same interview, Money marveled at his wife’s fitness saying, “She’s No.1 in her spin class.”
Despite the overall longevity of their marriage, Money told the Herald Palladium in May 2018 that he and his wife split for two and a half years. Money said, “I broke up with the wife and was living at the Motel 6 for awhile, so I wrote some really good songs. We’ve been together for 31 years. We separated for about two and a half years, and she tells everybody it was the best two and a half years of her life.”
4. Laurie Is a Former Miss One for the Sun
Money told Classic Rock Revisited in 2018 that when he met his wife, she was the reigning Miss One for the Sun, a beauty contest out of Nashville, Tennesee. In the same interview, Money went on to compare his wife to his mother saying, “My wife was born a day apart from my mother. I hate to say it, but it’s like I married my mother [laughter]. When I was living with my mother I did everything in my power to get 3000 miles away from her, so I moved to California. I can’t do that with my wife.
The San Francisco Chronicle referred to Laurie as a “Pamela Anderson look-alike” in a 1999 interview. During that interview, Money referred to his marriage as “volatile” as he described his wife not wanting to talk about his past with drugs or with other women. Money also said that his wife forbade him from going on Howard Stern’s radio show. When the Chronicle interviewer described Laurie as a “gold digger,” Money responded saying, “She just wants what she deserves. Being married to me is not easy. The trouble is, I married somebody I love more than she loves me. I’m 15 years older than her. I had all these chicks I was walking over for years, then I met her. She thinks my career started when she came along. She hates the past. She hates my fans. We have a very volatile relationship.”
5. Laurie Was Side-by-Side With Her Husband When He Told the World He Had Cancer
In August 2019, when Eddie Money told the world that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer, Laurie was side-by-side with her husband as he broke the tragic news. Money said, “I thought I was going in for a check-up and [the doctor] told me I have cancer. We found out that I had cancer and that it was stage 4 and that it was in my liver and my lymph nodes and a little bit in my stomach… It hit me really, really hard.” Laurie added, “Eddie has been diagnosed with Stage 4 esophageal cancer. It’s in his esophagus, it’s in the top of his stomach – it’s where the tumor is – and it’s also spread to his liver.”
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Laurie Money, Eddie Money’s Wife: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know