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Melinda Ledbetter, the second wife and longtime manager of Brian Wilson, has died at 77.
Wilson announced Ledbetter’s death on Tuesday (January 30th) through social media. “My heart is broken. Melinda, my beloved wife of 28 years, passed away this morning,” he wrote. “Our five children and I are just in tears. We are lost.”
He continued, “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.”
Ledbetter and Wilson’s children also shared their thoughts in the same statement, saying, “She was a force of nature and one of the strongest women you could come by. She was not only a model, our fathers savior, and a mother, she was a woman empowered by her spirit with a mission to better everyone she touched.”
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Ledbetter met Wilson in 1986, when he bought a car from her at the Cadillac dealership where she worked in Santa Monica, California. At the time, Wilson was under the care of psychologist Eugene Landy’s controversial 24-hour therapy program.
The two of them dated for three years until Landy ordered Wilson to break up with her. Ledbetter is credited with helping to get the attention of Wilson’s family to fire Landy, though she wasn’t part of his life when the psychologist was forced out in 1991 after a court issued a separation order.
They reconnected in 1992 when Ledbetter nearly ran Wilson over with her car, and they married three years later on February 6th, 1995. Ledbetter became Wilson’s manager in 1999 and is credited with helping him get proper medical treatment, as well as convincing him to go on tour and complete his long unfinished album, Smile.
“I was in the right place at the right time to help him,” Ledbetter told The Washington Post in 2007. “It’s like the concept that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t get him to drink… What he’s missed out on is an environment where he feels safe. He didn’t have that before with his family, his old band, his doctor, his first wife. But he finally has that.”
Ledbetter was played by Elizabeth Banks in the 2014 Brian Wilson biopic, Love and Mercy. The 1980s portions of the film were primarily based on her conversations with writer Oren Moverman about her relationship with Wilson.
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— Brian Wilson (@BrianWilsonLive) January 30, 2024