Beach Boy Brian Wilson and family are mourning the death of his wife of 28 years, Melinda Ledbetter Wilson. She was 77.
A cause of death was not given for the woman the star called his “anchor” and “savior.”
“My heart is broken,” Wilson wrote on Instagram on Tuesday. “Melinda, my beloved wife of 28 years, passed away this morning. Our five children and I are just in tears. We are lost.”
Ledbetter was working as a model and car salesperson when she sold Wilson a Cadillac in 1986. They dated sporadically for the next three years and then were driven apart by Dr. Eugene Landy, his therapist and legal guardian. Landy exerted inordinate control over Wilson, who had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and mild bipolar disorder. Though Ledbetter had reported Landy to the attorney general in 1989 for his unscrupulous treatment, the case was dismissed, EW reported.
Two years later, Wilson’s mother, brother and daughters filed a conservatorship lawsuit against Landy and succeeded in removing him from Wilson’s life. Wilson and Ledbetter got back together, marrying in 1995. She became his manager four years later and they adopted five children: Dakota Rose, Daria Rose, Delanie Rose, Dylan and Dash.
They, too, mourned their mother in a postscript appended to Wilson’s Instagram post.
“She was a force of nature and one of the strongest women you could come by,” they wrote. “She was not only a model, our fathers savior, and a mother, she was a woman empowered by her spirit with a mission to better everyone she touched.”
The couple and their love story were depicted in the 2014 movie “Love & Mercy,” starring John Cusack and Elizabeth Banks.
“I’ve never had a relationship with a girl like we have,” Wilson told People in 1998. “She’s a partner who’s also a best friend.”
Theresa Braine
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