A Look Back at Bob Dylan's Marriages: All About His First Wife Sara Dylan and Second Wife Carolyn Dennis

Bob Dylan wrote 1997’s “Make You Feel My Love” after experiencing his own two marriages.

The iconic singer, who is now being portrayed by Timothée Chalamet in his biopic A Complete Unknown, was first married to Sara Dylan from 1965 to 1977, and the two welcomed four children — Jesse, Anna, Sam and Jakob — together. Bob also adopted Sara’s daughter, Maria, from a previous relationship when they wed.

Nearly a decade after his divorce from Sara, Bob quietly married his backup singer Carolyn Dennis and the two welcomed a daughter, Desiree, together. The pair eventually split in 1992, but kept the news of their marriage and daughter secret until 2001.

"Bob and I made a choice to keep our marriage a private matter for a simple reason — to give our daughter a normal childhood," Dennis said in a statement after a 2001 biography on Bob called her his girlfriend, per ABC.

So who are Bob Dylan’s past wives? Here’s everything to know about Sara Dylan and Carolyn Dennis and their relationships with the singer.

Sara Dylan

Sara was born Shirley Noznisky in Wilmington, Del. but after she married magazine photographer Hans Lownds, she changed her name to Sara Lownds because Hans’ first wife was also named Shirley, according to a 2001 biography, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan, by Howard Sounes.

The actress and model welcomed one child with Hans, Maria, in October 1961 before the two split. Sara met Bob in 1964 while she was a secretary for the film production division of Time Life, where she worked alongside filmmakers Richard Leacock and D. A. Pennebaker, according to Andy Gill and Kevin Odegard’s 2004 biography A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks.

“She was supposed to be a secretary, but she ran the place,” Pennebaker shared in the book.

Sara eventually introduced Bob and his manager, Albert Grossman, to Pennebaker, who went on to make a film about Bob’s April 1965 U.K. tour, Don’t Look Back.

The two quietly got married on Nov. 22, 1965, when Sara was already pregnant with their first child together, Jesse. Sara and Bob went on to welcome three more children together — Anna, Sam and Jakob — in four years, living a quiet life together in Woodstock, N.Y.

In 1973, the former couple sold their Woodstock home and moved to Malibu while also keeping a place in Manhattan. Bob told biographer Sounes that tensions started arising in their marriage in 1974 when the singer began taking art classes in the city.

"I went home after that first day and my wife never did understand me ever since that day,” he said. “That's when our marriage started breaking up. She never knew what I was talking about, what I was thinking about, and I couldn't possibly explain it."

Though Sara accompanied Bob on his Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975, the couple called it quits soon after, divorcing in 1977.

Sara and Bob’s youngest son, Jakob, told biographer Michael Gray in 2005 that while his parents didn’t end up together, they did the best they could to continue co-parenting.

"My father said it himself in an interview many years ago: 'Husband and wife failed, but mother and father didn't,’ ” he said. “My ethics are high because my parents did a great job."

Carolyn Dennis

Dennis was born on April 12, 1954, and is best known for her career as a backup singer. She has sung vocals for greats like Stevie Wonder’s band Wonderlove and Bruce Springsteen. The performer has also appeared on Broadway, starring in the original cast of 1985’s Big River and 2005’s The Color Purple.

Dennis and Bob welcomed their only child together, daughter Desiree Dennis-Dylan, on Jan. 31, 1986. The two wed five months later, but divorced in 1992. However, the marriage and Desiree’s existence weren't known to the public until Sounes’ biography was published in 2001.

In the book, Sounes alleged that Bob was an absent father to Desiree, prompting Dennis to make a public statement to the contrary. Dennis explained that the former couple took advantage of a California law that allowed them to seal their marriage certificate for their privacy, and for the same reason, Dennis did not list Bob as the father on Desiree’s birth certificate.

She added that she and Bob agreed that Desiree could choose to take her father’s last name when she was mature enough to make the decision, which she did decide to do when she was a teenager.

"To portray Bob as 'hiding his daughter' is just malicious and ridiculous," Dennis said in her statement. "That is something he would never do. Bob has been a wonderful, active father to Desiree."

Desiree has since maintained a close relationship with both of her parents, often posting tributes to them on social media for their birthdays or holidays.

“There will never be enough words in any language — or any lifetime, for that matter — to adequately express how much my mom means to me,” Desiree wrote in an Instagram post celebrating Dennis’ birthday in April 2023, alongside a baby photo of her mom holding her while she laughs. “She still makes me cackle like this to this day and she’s been covering me and this family with love, wisdom, prayers and so much more for longer than I can remember.”