Beach Boys Legend Brian Wilson Mourns Death of Wife Melinda: “She Was My Savior”

January 31, 2024 10:40 am

Brian Wilson’s wife of nearly 30 years, Melinda Ledbetter Wilson, died on Wednesday, January 31, at age 77. The founding Beach Boys legend, who married Melinda in 1995, posted an emotional message announcing his wife’s passing on his official website and social media sites.

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“My heart is broken. Melinda, my beloved wife of 28 years, passed away this morning,” Wilson wrote. “Our five children and I are just in tears. We are lost. Melinda was more than my wife. She was my savior. She gave me the emotional security I needed to have a career. She encouraged me to make the music that was closest to my heart. She was my anchor. She was everything for us. Please say a prayer for her. Love and Mercy, Brian.”

Message from the Wilson’s Children

The post also featured a joint message from Brian and Melinda’s children, whom the couple adopted after they got married.

“It is with a heavy heart that we let everyone know that our mom, Melinda Kay Ledbetter Wilson passed away peacefully this morning at home,” the note reads. “She was a force of nature and one of the strongest women you could come by. She was not only a model, our [father’s] savior, and a mother, she was a woman empowered by her spirit with a mission to better everyone she touched.”

The message continues, “We will miss her but cherish everything she has taught us. How to take care of the person next to you [without] expecting anything in return, how to find beauty in the darkest of places, and how to live life as your truest self with honesty and pride.”

About the Couple’s Relationship

Wilson met Melinda during the 1980s, when she was working at a Los Angeles car dealership. At the time they began dating, he was under the controversial care and conservatorship of psychiatrist Eugene Landy.

As dramatized in the 2014 biopic Love and Mercy, Landy exerted extreme control over Wilson, who has long struggled with mental health issues. Landy discouraged their relationship, but after he was removed as conservator in the early 1990s, Brian and Melinda rekindled their romance and eventually married.

Brian and Melinda were portrayed, respectively, by John Cusack and Elizabeth Banks in the film.

Melinda went on to become Wilson’s manager, and is credited by many with helping him get proper medical care and reinvigorating his touring and recording career.

During the time his wife oversaw his career, Wilson completed the long-shelved Beach Boys album Shine as a solo project, and reunited with his old band for the 2012 album, That’s Why God Made the Radio, and a 50th anniversary tour. He also recorded many other solo albums and mounted a variety of successful solo tours during those years.