In Hernando, Mississippi, Myra Gale Brown married 22-year-old Jerry Lee Lewis when she was 13 years old. The marriage would essentially ruin Lewis’ career.
Myra Gale Brown married 22-year-old Jerry Lee Lewis in 1957.

Lewis had already been married twice. When people discovered that his second marriage in September 1953 had occurred 23 days prior to the finalization of his first divorce, it created quite a commotion.

But the disturbance was nothing in comparison to what his third marriage would bring forth. It was revealed that his new wife, 13-year-old Myra Gale Brown, was also his third cousin, despite the fact that he had remarried before his divorce was finalized.

J.W. Brown, Lewis’ cousin and band’s bassist, was the father of Myra Gale Brown. She was unaware at the time that there was a problem with her connection with Lewis. The world’s biggest rock singer, Elvis Presley, was seeing Priscilla Beaulieu, a 14-year-old who would eventually become his wife. There just appeared to be a rock and roll element to falling in love with a youngster.

Additionally, Myra later stated that she felt prepared for marriage.

In an interview, Brown recalled that “my generation was taught to hide under our desk when the bomb came, so you always had in the back of your mind that any minute, any day, life could come to an end.” “I wanted a husband, a house, a kitchen to cook in, a yard to grow roses, and a baby in my arms.” When I was ten years old, I pleaded with my parents for a baby, and so my little brother was born.

Lewis intended to accompany Brown on a tour of England after the two were married on December 12, 1957. Lewis was ready to replace Elvis as the most well-known figure in rock after Elvis was drafted into the military. The goal of the England tour was to build a British fan base that would eventually attract an international audience.

But it soon became evident that the British were not on board with Jerry Lee Lewis after he and his child-bride arrived in the country. Lewis disregarded his managers’ warnings regarding the British press’s enjoyment of disparaging American celebrities.

He warned them, “I’m not going if Myra doesn’t go.”

Thus, the tale was concocted. Lewis had informed everyone that Brown was his wife, but he had omitted to specify how old she was, stating that she was fifteen. He informed them that, as long as you could find a husband, it was perfectly acceptable to get married in America at the age of 15, even at the age of 10.

However, Myra Gale Brown was not informed of the narrative and did not believe the lie.

“I could have easily said, ‘I’m J.W. Brown’s daughter,’” she recalled the day it was made public that she was 13 years old and the wife of Jerry Lee Lewis. “Because it was the reality! I could have avoided this if someone had informed me anything. However, neither they nor I did, and I suppose the rest is history.

Yes, it was. The tour was canceled after only a few performances in England. Because they strongly disapproved of his relationship, the British public essentially forced Lewis out of the country after the tabloids branded him a “cradle robber” and a “baby snatcher.”

Regretfully, going back to the United States had no effect on the torrent of hate speech directed at Lewis and Brown. They were pointing out that Jerry Lee Lewis had remarried before his divorce was finalized, in addition to criticizing her age. Furthermore, his most recent track, “High School Confidential,” did not help his case even though it had nothing to do with his relationship.

His ticket rates had plummeted from $10,000 per night to just $250 before he realized it. The public was still strongly against Lewis even after she remarried Brown, this time in a formal ceremony while he was not yet married, and moved in with her parents.

Jerry Lee Lewis eventually achieved success in country music, despite the fact that his marriage to Myra Gale Brown permanently damaged his rock career.

Myra Gale Brown and Jerry Lee Lewis had two children before their 1970 divorce; one of them passed away when still a kid, and the other one currently oversees his career. Even though they were no longer together, they continued to be friendly throughout Lewis’s subsequent marriages and stay in touch.

Myra Lewis Williams blames the media for making the connection become something evil, but she has no ill will toward it. She claims that in the end, Jerry Lee Lewis’ demise was a greater problem than her age. Brown believed that rock & roll was not yet ready for the world, even with Elvis Presley’s triumph.

She claimed that they were trying to find a way to insert the knife into rock & roll. And I opened my mouth, so I did, and Jerry handed it to them. And that’s precisely what it was.

Read about Lori Maddox and Sable Starr, two young groupies who turned their pursuit of rock stars into a career, after reading about Myra Gale Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis’ third wife.