Willie Nelson’s second wife, Shirley Collie, didn’t know he was having an affair with Connie Koepke until she found a startling piece of mail.
In the four-episode Paramount+ docuseries Willie Nelson & Family, which hit the streaming platform on Thursday, December 21, Willie, 90, opened up about the moment that Collie laid eyes on a Houston hospital bill for the birth of a baby girl named Paula, born to Connie Nelson.
“Shirley wanted to know who in the hell was Connie Nelson,” Willie recalled. “The truth is, Connie had been my girlfriend for several years before becoming pregnant.”
Willie’s daughter Lana Nelson, whom he shared with first wife Martha Matthews, added that Shirley “had no idea there was a Connie” or a baby “until she got the hospital bill.”
Willie wed Collie, who died at age 78 in 2010, in 1963. The pair met when Willie was still married to Matthews, who died from liver failure at age 53 in 1989. Sparks began to fly between Willie and Collie while recording their 1962 duet, “Willingly.”
“The title just about summed up the sexual vibe we felt in the studio,” Willie shared in the docuseries.
Two years after Willie secretly welcomed baby Paula with Koepke, he and Collie divorced in 1971. He wed Koepke that same year.
During his marriage to Koepke, Willie began a relationship with makeup artist Annie D’Angelo, whom he met on the set of his 1986 film Stagecoach. Willie went on to divorce Koepke in 1988 and exchanged vows with D’Angelo, 67, in 1991. The musician spoke candidly about his three divorces in Willie Nelson & Family.
“I’ve always said there’s no such thing as a former wife,” Willie said. “Once in your life, a wife never leaves. I regret the pain I caused Connie, and Martha and Shirley before her. I have no excuses. I’d be hard-pressed to define love. I know God’s love is pure, but worldly love is flawed love, and lot’s of times confused love.”
Although the songwriter admitted he “had a gift for complicating things” when it comes to romantic love, he has no regrets about ending up with D’Angelo.
“Marrying Annie wasn’t complicated at all. It’s about the smartest thing I ever did,” he said.
Willie is the dad of eight children: Lana, 70, Susie, 67, and Billy Jr., who died by suicide at age 33 in 1991, all of whom he shared with Matthews; Paula, 54, and Amy, 50, whom he shares with Koepke; Lukas, 34, and Jacob, 33, whom he shares with D’Angelo; and Renee, who died at age 64 in 2012. Willie welcomed Renee with friend Mary Haney but didn’t know she was his child until 2012.
“I have an old, dear friend, Mary Haney, who I’d lost touch with but recently met again after decades. Turns out, Mary and I had a child together called Renee,” Willie wrote in his 2012 memoir, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road.
