How George Jones Angrily Convinced Tammy Wynette to Leave Her Second Husband for Him
When country music icons George Jones and Tammy Wynette decided to be in a relationship, they did it during an angry confrontation with her second husband. After that, Jones and Wynette married, but their romance couldn’t withstand the explosive nature that sparked it. Still, their names are forever connected thanks to the real-life love they once shared.
George Jones was a family friend of Tammy Wynette and her second husband
Wynette married for the first time when she was 18 and had three daughters with her first husband. But she eventually left the failing marriage behind and ultimately headed to Nashville with her kids, hoping for a country music career, which she succeeded in.
Jones was already a seasoned performer when he and Wynette met in a recording studio a few years after she arrived on the Nashville scene. And he became a friend of her family, including her second husband, Don Chapel (People).
One night, Wynette found her three daughters alone at home and sick with food poisoning, and it was Jones who joined her at the hospital. The next day, he was still at her house when Chapel returned and lashed out.
George Jones convinced Tammy Wynette to leave her second husband after he heard him call her a ‘son of a b****’
Jones confessed his feelings for Wynette to the surprised couple, which he wrote about in his autobiography, I Lived to Tell It All. He said, in his presence, Chapel called Wynette a “son of a b****” during that marital spat (Newsweek).
“I felt rage fly all over me. I jumped from my chair, put my hands under the dinner table, and flipped it over,” he wrote.
“Dishes, utensils, and glasses flew in all directions,” Jones added. “Don and Tammy’s eyes got about as big as the flying dinner plates.”
According to People, Chapel eventually asked Jones why he cared so much. That’s when he kind of put Wynette on the spot and made his stunning confession, even though they’d “never even gone out together,” he noted. He told Chapel, “I love Tammy, and she loves me, too. Don’t you, Tammy?”
Lucky for Jones, she answered “yes,” and the pair left with her three daughters. Soon after that, she became the third Mrs. George Jones.
George Jones and Tammy Wynette’s love story inspired a new Showtime series
The union between Jones and Wynette was made for the movies, and it still places among the most celebrated in country music.
A new Showtime miniseries, George & Tammy, has renewed public interest in their story. The first episode covered the confrontation between Jones and Chapel, after which Wynette left with her future ex-husband.
Though Jones’ drinking habits were no secret, they were inevitably challenging for Wynette to put up with. So, their marriage was tumultuous and relatively short-lived. In her autobiography, Stand By Your Man, she claimed he drunkenly chased her around their house with a shotgun. He denied that had happened, though he confessed his antics were problematic.
Their names stayed together even after they divorced, and people whispered that he might have been involved in her mysterious kidnapping. But they reunited for musical purposes several times before she died in 1998.
Their daughter, Georgette Jones Lennon, told People, “When it was time for us to go pick out a casket and do all those horrible things, it was my dad who went with me and my sisters to do it.”
“And he hated all of that kind of stuff,” Lennon added. “He stayed away from funerals as much as possible. But he knew that I needed him. He was there for me when I needed him the most, and it meant everything to me.”
