Rita, now a reggae star in her own right, admits: "As much as I love him, if Bob were alive today I honestly don't think I'd still be married to him. So don't worry yourself, man, you're safe. And you see this line around it? Nobody can break that line to come into the circle with you and me. Drawing a circle in the palm of his hand, he explained: "You see this circle, this is like life. I just thought, 'To hell with this', especially when he started bring back the babies of women he'd got pregnant, wanting me to look after them.īut Bob's charm would always win her over. "For most of the time I was Mrs Marley, but it was only a title, nothing more. Once, asked by a New York newspaper about his wife, Bob replied: "Oh no - Rita's my sister." So I would see all this going on and it would really hurt, the jealousy." "And of course I'd be there too because I was a backing singer in his group as well as his wife. And then at night, she's there, in the bedroom, and then the next morning she's still there. "Every country he'd go to Bob would meet the Miss So-and-so or the local beauty queen. In the early days, Rita would wash Bob's only pair of underpants by hand every night in the tank outside their first house in St Ann.īut as Bob Marley and the Wailers earned global fame, Rita could only look on helplessly as the husband she adored succumbed to its trappings. Rita was shot in the head and was lucky to survive. When international stardom arrived she toured the world with him as one of his I-Threes backing singers.ĭays before a peace concert in Kingston in 1976, she was caught in the crossfire when a gang of youths tried to assassinate Bob. From then until 1972, when Bob signed to Island Records, Rita sold his early recordings from a makeshift record shop at their house. In 1966 the couple had an "impulse" wedding. We'd be rehearsing and looking into each other's eyes and singing, and then we'd put our mouths to each others'. Bob was so romantic and faithful, and I thought we would always be like that. He invited them to sing backing vocals on some tracks they were recording and the pair soon became lovers. One day, Rita and her friends stopped the group and performed an impromptu song - Bob was immediately won over. Robbie was the shy guitarist of local "rocksteady" group the Wailing Wailers, who would pass Rita's house every day on their way to the studio. The Cuban-born Alpharita Anderson met Robert Nesta Marley when she was 18 and he was 19, in the Trenchtown ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica. "But he was corrupted by showbusiness, by the girls who would throw themselves at him. He always provided for me, always gave me anything I wanted. "Just because he did these things and cheated on me doesn't mean he was a bad husband. The rape happened after years of Marley's cheating with a stream of women, many of whom bore his children.īut despite everything, Rita insists she still adores him as much as the day they first met in 1965. I screamed at him, 'I hate you, I hate you!'" He said to me, 'No, you're my wife and you're supposed to.' So he forced himself on me, and I call that rape. Talking publicly for the first time about that day in 1973, Rita, now 57, says: "Bob wouldn't take no for an answer. When she tried to put her foot down by denying him xes until he stopped playing around, the young Jamaican adored by millions as a peace-loving legend forced his way into her home and raped her. To millions she was the luckiest woman alive - married to Bob Marley, the international superstar of reggae, recognised the world over as a living icon.īut for Rita Marley life with the "Negus" of reggae was far from a fairytale, as she watched the man she dearly loved disown and betray her at every turn. THE DARK SIDE OF THE REGGAE SUPERSTAR: My husband Bob Marley raped me. I just came across this old article from 2004.
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