The lead singers of two extremely popular 1980s bands teamed up on this day (May 5) in 1984, not as musical collaborators but as a married couple. The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde and Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr wed in New York City. According to reports, Hynde and Kerr celebrated the nuptials with a ride in a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park.
Hynde had met Kerr earlier in 1984, while The Pretenders and Simple Minds were on tour together in Australia. Around that time Chrissie was ending a relationship with The Kinks’ Ray Davies, with whom she’d had a daughter, Natalie, in 1982.
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In a 2016 article in Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald, Kerr explained that he’d had a huge crush on Hynde and was a big fan of The Pretenders before he ever met her. In a 2022 interview in the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, Jim recalled that he was waiting for a hotel elevator and recognized Chrissie voice as she stood next to him.
“I was surrounded by fans, trying not to make eye contact,” Kerr remembered. “I kept hearing this voice and it was Chrissie, taking the p—. … [W]e got chatting and—what can I say?—Cupid intervened.”
More About Hynde’s Marriage to Kerr
When Hynde and Kerr, she was 32 and he was 24. In March 1985, Chrissie gave birth to their daughter, Yasmin. In July of that same year, Simple Minds and The Pretenders performed back-to-back at the famous Live Aid benefit concert at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.
Hynde and Kerr never collaborated on each other’s recordings, although Simple Minds drummer Mel Gaynor played on the 1986 Pretenders tune “My Baby.” That song topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
The couple divorced in 1990.
Kerr reflected on the failed marriage in the aforementioned Sydney Morning Herald article.
“I got married at 24, which at the time didn’t seem young,” he noted. “I was just doing what I saw my mum and dad do. Getting married to Chrissie seemed like the natural thing to do, but it was hard. I was always on the road and when I’d come back she was on the road. You can’t keep a relationship going like that.”
He added, “Chrissie and I were both ambitious and wanted to make a go of our bands. That didn’t work in our relationship’s favor as we didn’t have much time to spend together. Signing a bit of paper and reality were very different for us.”
Kerr’s and Hynde’s Later Marriages & More
Kerr went on to marry singer/actress Patsy Kensit in 1992. The couple had a son, James, in 1993, but their relationship ended in divorce in 1996.
Hynde wed Colombian artist and sculptor Lucho Brieva in 1997. They divorced in 2002.
In 2018, The Pretenders and Simple Minds toured the U.K. together. This marked the first time the bands had performed on the same bill since the 1985 Live Aid event.