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Brian Wilson's touching love story with wife Melinda: How the late Beach Boys singer met his 'savior'
The late Brian Wilson and his wife Melinda Ledbetter had a powerful love story that all began in 1986 at a car dealership.
While the couple split three years into their romance as a result of the Beach Boy singer's therapist and then-legal guardian Dr. Eugene Levy, they eventually wed and started a family together.
They remained married until Ledbetter's death in January 2024. Just over a year later, on Wednesday, Wilson's children announced his passing at age 82.
The couple's inspiring romance even was the subject of the 2015 biopic, Love & Mercy, which starred John Cusack as Brian and Elizabeth Banks as Melinda.
'I remember meeting her at her dealership, Cadillac, and I said, "God, she's a pretty girl,"' Wilson told ABC News during a joint interview with his wife in 2015. 'I just said to myself, "God, I think I'll see her again sometime.'
'That's what attracted me to him,' Ledbetter said. 'He was so nice.'
The sale was the fastest Ledbetter had ever conducted, according to Rolling Stone.
'And he bought the ugliest car,' she said with a giggle during a 1999 interview with the magazine with her husband 'Honey, I always thought that was an ugly Seville, that color brown.'
'I liked it,' her husband insisted.
At the time, Landy wielded heavy influence over Wilson's life.
But Ledbetter was key in assisting Wilson in extricating Landy from his life.
Landy, who died in 2006, was barred from any contact with the Beach Boys artist in 1992, a year after Wilson's relatives sued Landy and said that he had 'undue influence' over the musical artist.
Landy was the one to call Ledbetter to arrange their first date. His life was pretty choreographed,' she said. 'But I just thought Brian was, like, the sweetest guy I had ever met. I thought, 'I gotta go see what this is all about.'
They were together for three years until Landy intervened and ended the romance. 'He was overmedicating Wilson and doing a lot of things that doctors shouldn't do,' Ledbetter recalled to the publication.
'I was questioning things, and that pissed him off. But I had seen something that was so wrong — it was like someone taking a child and abusing them, and none of the neighbors wanted to know about it.'
Three years later, after the law intervened to remove Landy from his life, that they reunited. 'I was driving down Pico Boulevard one day and I nearly ran over him,' she recalled of their fateful 1992 reunion.
'He had gone across the street from his studio to sneak a cigarette and I almost hit him, so I stopped and we just started to see each other again. It was like fate.'
The relationship between Wilson and Ledbetter was chronicled in a 2014 biopic film titled Love & Mercy.
The motion picture examined the Beach Boys singer's past battles with mental illness; and his controversial dealings with his late therapist.
Ledbetter said in a 2004 appearance on Larry King that Wilson was largely estranged from his friends, family and colleagues when she met him in the 1980s during his time under Landy's care.
She said of Landy, 'He was called into help and I think originally he did help. He helped Brian lose weight. He helped Brian care about himself physically again.
'As time went on, he became very captive of Brian. Brian was primarily a prisoner.'
Ledbetter in May of 1998 spoke with The Chicago Tribune about Wilson rebuilding his life after parting ways with Landy, as well as the problematic upbringing he endured.
'He came from an incredibly dysfunctional family,' Ledbetter said. 'His father was abusive, his father was abused. And Brian should have been an abuser too. Instead, Brian just withdrew. He was never involved with his kids.'
Ledbetter continued: 'Now, although music is still extremely important to him, he's learned that there's love, family. I just wonder what the music would have been like if he had this sooner, what he could have done if he had a supportive, loving family around him all along.'
During their marriage, Brian and Melinda adopted five children together - Dakota Rose, Daria Rose, Delanie Rose, Dylan and Dash.
The singer also has daughters Carnie, 57, and Wendy, 55, from his first marriage to Marilyn Rovell.
Last year, weeks after the death of Melinda, it emerged that Brian had been diagnosed with a neurocognitive disorder similar to dementia.
His children announced their father's death on the singer's official Instagram page this Wednesday, alongside what appeared to be a recent photo.
'We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away. We are at a loss for words right now,' they wrote.
'Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world. Love & Mercy.'
