Keith Richards Fell in Love At First Sight, But He Still Had to Propose More Than Once

Keith Richards divides his life into the time before he met his wife Patti Hansen and after. He fell in love with her very quickly, but she didn’t jump into the relationship with the same immediacy. It even took more than one proposal before she agreed to marry him. Still, the couple has been happily together for the better part of their lives.

Who is Keith Richards’ wife?

Before Hansen met Richards, she was an up-and-coming supermodel from Staten Island. A modeling agency scouted her when she was 16 and selling hot dogs. She booked her first job. Since then, she’s been a consistent presence on magazine covers.

“It was that quick,” she told Harper’s Bazaar.

She appeared in ad campaigns for Calvin Klein, Revlon, and Versace. She also briefly worked as an actor, appearing in Rich Kids, They All Laughed, and Hard to Hold.

“Patti is the ultimate cool girl,” designer Michael Kors said. “She is rock ‘n’ roll royalty but also incredibly down-to-earth and has one of the most genuine souls out there.”

The Rolling Stones Guitarist had to propose multiple times

Hansen met Richards on her birthday in 1979. Both were at New York’s Studio 54 when Hansen and her friends couldn’t get champagne after last call. Richards, who was extremely famous, was able to get them a bottle. Hansen thanked him, and their interaction ended there. 

“I didn’t see her again for a while, but the vision stayed in my mind,” he wrote in his autobiography, Life.

Months later, they met again at Richards’ birthday party. “When Patti and I met, it was just . . . boom,” he told Vanity Fair. “There was life before Patti and life after. We just clicked, and she rescued me from, shall we say, dark periods … without going into too much detail.”

While her family and friends warned her against dating the rock star, Hansen said she liked going out just as much as Richards. “It was the ’70s,” she explained.

In 1983, four years after they met for the second time, Richards proposed to Hansen. According to him, Hansen was so happy that she jumped on his back and broke his toe. Hansen tells a different story. She says that reaction came after multiple proposal attempts that she previously shut down. Still, she eventually accepted, and they’ve been married since.

Keith Richards and Patti Hansen have kids together

In 1985, Richards and Hansen welcomed their first child, a daughter named Theodora. The following year, Hansen had their second child, Alexandra. Like their mother, both have worked as models and have also found work in the entertainment industry.

In 2021, Alexandra had a child, making Hansen a first-time grandparent. Richards, who had children from a previous marriage, became a grandfather for the sixth time. 

“You know, 10 years ago my dad would never have watched a musical,” Theodora told Harper’s Bazaar. “He’d make such fun of them. You’d think that somebody who is so into music would love musicals, but he’d be like, ‘That guy’s asking for directions and the other person just bursts into song?’ But now he’ll watch Frozen and all the Disney stuff with his grandchildren.”