Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds is opening up about his upbringing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I’m not religious anymore, but I went on a Mormon mission for two years in Nebraska,” Reynolds, 39, said in a street interview with reporter Kate Mackz published Wednesday, October 28. “I got kicked out of BYU [Brigham Young University].”
He continued, “I got kicked out ‘cause I confessed to having sex with my girlfriend to my bishop.” (BYU, a Utah college heavily associated with the Mormon church, follows a strict honor code that includes abstinence and sobriety.)
After his expulsion, Reynolds said he went through a “yearlong repentance process.”
“I read a lot of the Bible and said a lot of prayers, and then God forgave me,” he noted. “It is not something I would recommend to any kid to ever have to go through. It was not a good experience.”
Reynolds is a father of four children, whom he shares with ex-wife Aja Volkman. The two musicians were married from 2011 to 2024.
“I am saddened to say that after many beautiful years together Aja and I have separated. Being great parents to our children is our number one priority,” Reynolds tweeted in 2022. “Thank you for always supporting us with love and care for all these years.”
Reynolds and Volkman, 46, had briefly separated in 2018, reuniting before their eventual divorce.
“We decided to just keep working. … It’s been a work in progress, and we’re doing great,” Reynolds exclusively told Us in April 2019 of his short-lived reunion with Volkman. “My biggest goal in this realm of the platform I’ve been given is to show that everybody has issues.”
He added at the time, “Marriage is not perfect. Relationships aren’t perfect. My body [isn’t perfect]. I have autoimmune diseases. I have ulcerative colitis. I have ankylosing spondylitis. I have depression. I have anxiety. We’re all humans.”
After Reynolds and Volkman divorced, the “Thunder” singer moved on with actress Minka Kelly.
“This beautiful man has healed wounds in me he did not inflict — simply by being himself,” the Ransom Canyon actress, 46, wrote via Instagram in July 2025, celebrating Reynolds’ birthday. “By embodying true masculinity. The kind that is vulnerable, honest and loving. I thought I knew kindness. Love. Patience. Generosity. Care. I thought I knew how to be gentle. And then I met him.”
She continued in her tribute, “Watching him father and love his babies. Honoring and respecting their beautiful mother. Doing everything he can to be absolutely everything everyone needs from him. Finding ways every day to light up the lives of the ones so lucky enough to be loved by him. His benevolence, his priorities, his values and his honesty are all rooted in love.”
Reynolds and Kelly ultimately called it quits in October after four years of dating.
