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Tears for Fears star Roland Orzabal admits he fell in love with second wife before his first wife died

Roland Orzabal has not held back in new memoir and is hard on himself despite going through a lot after his band Tears For Fears had huge global success

[Tears for Fears star Roland Orzabal ]

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Tears for Fears star Roland Orzabal on stage(Image: Getty Images)

Tears for Fears star Roland Orzabal has opened up about falling in love with another woman while his wife was dying. The 64-year-old singer explores his first marriage to Caroline Johnston, who died at 54 of an alcohol-related illness in 2017, in his memoir, Welcome to Your Life: Love, Death and Tears for Fears.

And he reveals his stunned reaction when he met photographer and writer Emily Rath while performing in Colorado, in October 2016, and thinking: "That's my wife".

In his book, Roland admits: "The truth is, I was falling in love with Emily before Caroline had died. I was at a crossroads, a tipping point that would redefine my life. With all the things that were going on with Caroline, with all the visits to psychiatrists, to neurologists, to hepatologists, I was falling in love with a young, healthy woman who I believed loved me too and was the opposite of what I'd left at home."

[Roland with second wife Emily]

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Roland with second wife Emily(Image: Alamy Stock Photo)

Roland was a teenager when he met Caroline in Bath in South West England. He had just turned 21 when they married in 1982, and Caroline was 20, later having two sons. As synth pop band Tears for Fears, he and Curt Smith released their debut album, The Hurting, in 1983, featuring Mad World and Change.

Their next album, Songs from the Big Chair, in 1985, which included hits Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule the World, turned them into global stars. But offstage, Roland's marriage had endured bumps in the road. After the band's third album, The Seeds of Love, in 1989, the relationship deteriorated and in the mid-nineties they had marriage counselling.

By the late 2000s, heavy nightly drinking became routine for them. Speaking on The Reset podcast in 2022, Roland said: "My wife and I were always into wine, that was the first thing we would spend money on. I guess what happened to me is addiction... and I was in huge denial.

"It killed Caroline, she died from cirrhosis of the liver, and it was not a nice period watching that happen. It wasn't until the autopsy that I realised the truth. Terrible."

On meeting Emily, he writes: "I've been around the world many times and had met many attractive women, but I'd never heard those words ["That's my wife"] before. They didn't make sense, I was already married, and this woman looked nothing like Caroline."

He adds: "Caroline had spent three months in a psych ward. I'd been there virtually every day. And then, Emily, in 2016 all of a sudden, in 2020 that night I saw an alternative life for myself, which is hard to do - hard to take. But I did."

Promoting the book this week, he added: "Why was it important to be so candid? Well, because it's the truth. I didn't want to write something false. Also, I always felt somewhere out there is someone who's going through what you went through." On the struggles of his first marriage, he told Fox News: "I'd spent years and years with Caroline in this state. It wasn't just a year or six months. And yes, I had enough. I was shown a clear way forward."

[Roland Orzabal memoir]

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New book shares extraordinary life Roland had off stage

Of their 25-year age gap - Emily was 30 years old and Roland was 55 at the time - he says: "Ouch. If only I was half my age and she was older."

But Roland says his alcohol intake increased after Caroline's death. He says: "My life spiralled out of control. And then in 2018 I ended up in hospital four times. I had anxiety off the scale, suicidal ideation."

He sought help in rehab, and in 2020, he married Emily, and their daughter, Eula, was born last year. He adds: "I think if you believe in the soul, then [Caroline] would completely understand. When I think about the person she was... she would understand.

* Welcome to Your Life: Love, Death and Tears for Fears is published by Constable and is out now.

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