Married for 35 years, Johnny and June Carter Cash had the kind of love you write songs about—quite literally, as Carter penned the timeless hit “Ring of Fire” as an expression of her attraction toward the Man in Black. “I didn’t want to fall in love with him, didn’t mean to fall in love with him,” she said in a previous recording featured in the 2024 Paramount+ documentary June.
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She wasn’t exaggerating. Johnny Cash asked for her hand in marriage multiple times, but Carter always resisted—until this day (Feb. 22) in 1968, when Cash popped the question and finally got the answer he was was looking for.
Johnny Cash Interrupted a Concert to Propose to June Carter Cash
On Feb. 22, 1968, a crowd of 7,000 crammed into the London Gardens in London, Ontario, Canada, to experience Johnny Cash and June Carter live onstage.
After the pair wrapped up a performance of their famous duet “Jackson,” Cash met his singing partner’s eyes and uttered those five fateful words: “June, will you marry me?”
“I remember the Statler Brothers were on the stage, my mother and my sisters were on the stage, and he asked me in front of all these people. I mean, it was a very formal proposal,” June recalled in a 1996 TV interview with Nashville broadcaster Karlen Evins. “He stopped the whole show.”
She demurred at first, telling Cash she didn’t have to answer him immediately. He wasn’t having it.
“I stopped the show and said, ‘Will you marry me?’ on the microphone. She said, ‘Do you want to sing another, sing another, sing another?’” Cash later recalled during the couple’s 1981 appearance on The Mike Douglas Show. “I said, ‘I’m not going to sing until you answer me. Will you marry me?’”
He continued cheekily, “She finally said, ‘Yes. Okay, next song.’”
A Love Story for the Ages
Johnny and June Carter Cash met in July 1956 during the former’s Grand Ole Opry debut.
“I can’t remember anything else we talked about, except his eyes,” Carter wrote in the liner notes of her husband’s 2000 box set, Love, God, Murder. “Those black eyes that shone like agates.”
By the early 1960s, they were touring partners, although each was married to another at the time. By 1967, both had divorced their respective spouses. They didn’t waste any time after Johnny Cash’s very public proposal, tying the knot on March 1, 1968.
“You’re the object of my desire, the #1 Earthly reason for my existence,” Johnny Cash wrote to his wife on her 65th birthday.
Featured image by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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