YouTube
Tonight, April 12, 2020, A&E is airing a special titled Willie Nelson: American Outlaw. The special will celebrate Willie Nelson’s 70-year career and will feature performances from music stars.
In addition to the performances, the special will show interviews about Nelson’s career and exclusive behind-the-scenes concert footage. All performances for the special were filmed in January 2019.
Prior to the special, a documentary about country music superstar Dolly Parton will be airing. The documentary will take an in-depth look into Parton’s rags-to-riches story and talk about her decades-long career in the music industry.
Nelson has been married four times and has seven children. His second wife, Shirley Collie passed away in 2010, over 40 years after their separation.
Shirley Collie Nelson Died in 2010
Shirley Collie Nelson was also a country singer. She passed away on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at the age of 78.
In the late 1950s, Collie appeared on ABC’s Ozark Jubilee, which was a country music variety show. After that, she released three singles with Liberty Records that included a duet with Nelson, called “Willingly.” That song marked Nelson’s debut on the Billboard country charts.
The two got married in 1963, just one year after the release of their duet debut. It was both of their second marriages, and they did not have any children together. They divorced in 1971.
Nelson did not refer to his ex-wives as his exes because he still considers each one of them a member of his family.
“You don’t have to be selfish because your ambition and drive is for your family members as much as for yourself. Along the way you pick up wives and kids and you are responsible for them,” Nelson told The Telegraph. “You don’t discard them. There is no such thing as ex-wives, only additional wives.”
They Got Divorced After Shirley Received the Invoice for a Birth of Nelson’s Daughter
After they got married, Collie told Time Magazine that it was “instant love.”
“I saw things in him that give me goosebumps now,” she said.
According to Pop Culture, at one point during their marriage, Collie received the invoice for the birth of a baby, but she had never been pregnant with her husband at the time. When asked about it much later, Nelson said that he could see how that would upset her and it definitely didn’t help the situation.
The hospital had sent Nelson the invoice for the birth of Paula Carlene Nelson, but Collie was not the mother of Paula. Instead, her mother was Connie Koepke, who Nelson ended up getting married to in 1971.
People reported in 1980 that Nelson married Koepke before his divorce from Collie was finalized. They went on to have another daughter before they got divorced in 1988.
Nelson later married his current wife Angie D’Angelo, in 1991. The two met in 1986 when Nelson worked on the made-for-TV Stagecoach movie.
“She’s been with me through thick and thin — you can’t ask for anything more than that,” Nelson told Rolling Stonein 2014.
READ NEXT: Mariah Carey’s Houses: Where She & Her Kids Call Home