Listen up, today we’re diving into some mouth-watering gossip about the one and only Joan Templeman, the sizzling devoted wife of billionaire extraordinaire Richard Branson. Now, strap yourselves in because you’re about to get a taste of the glitz, glamour, and perhaps scandal that surrounds this power couple. Joan has managed to etch her name into the annals of the elite, flaunting her impeccable style, unapologetic ambition, and drop-dead gorgeous looks. So, primates, prepare to be blown away as we unravel everything you need to know about the irresistibly captivating Joan Templeman, the woman who stole Branson’s heart and turned heads all over the world!
When it comes to business, Richard Branson has been around for a while, and he’s done well. Equally striking is the closeness he has with his wife. Meet Richard Branson’s wife, Joan Templeman.
Richard Branson, who turns 73 on July 18, 2023, is well respected for his excellent business management. He was a high school dropout who started Virgin Group and ran hundreds of different companies.
Behind Branson’s great company comes a successful marriage. The well-known British businessman happily married his lovely wife, Joan Templeman.
WHO IS RICHARD BRANSON’S WIFE, JOAN TEMPLEMAN
Templeman, born in Glasgow, Poland, in 1948, came from a background with its fair share of poverty. Her father was a ship carpenter who had to provide for her and her six siblings.
Due to her difficult childhood, Templeman learned to be independent at a young age. To make ends meet, she worked many jobs, including running an antique shop.
In 1966, she married Ronnie Leahy, the man she had been in love with since childhood. But unfortunate circumstances in their union caused them to split in 1978, after 12 years of marriage.
The sordid details of how they met
In Richard Branson’s autobiography, Losing My Virginity, Richard spoke about how whenever he and Kristen tried to be intimate, a painful rash spread across his body. After consulting with numerous doctors, nothing seemed to help. Eventually, Richard Branson and Kristen Tomassi parted ways and divorced in 1979.
Unlike her husband, who lives constantly in the glare of publicity, Joan Branson prefers to shun the limelight.
For years she has been the rock who keeps the home fires burning while he sets off on one dare-devil adventure after another.
But the man famous for exploits in trains, boats, planes and balloons is not the only one to enjoy the occasional act of daring.
As these pictures show, Joan has not always been a shrinking violet.
She posed for this set of saucy snaps at the age of 28, while holidaying on the Greek island of Crete.
At the time, Joan combined nude modelling with running a clothing business in Kensington market in London.
But the pictures resurfaced almost 20 years later when, as the wife of world-renowned tycoon Richard Branson, a glossy magazine couldn’t wait to publish her nude shots.
Naturally, the extremely hot-under-the-collar Virgin boss rang the photographer immediately … and requested his own personal set of pictures.
Far from being angry, Branson boasted: “I’m very proud of these pictures. Joan looks lovely in them and I’ll keep a copy beside my bed when she’s away from home.”
Branson’s pride in his beautiful Scots wife is typical of the man who moved heaven and earth to make her his.
Branson met Joan in the kitchen of his country house recording complex in 1976, while her first husband Ronnie Leahy was producing an album in the studio next door.
Dazzled by the straight-talking blonde Glaswegian, the business mogul pursued her with the ruthlessness of any multi-million pound business deal.
And it was not long before he had lured her into an affair which saw her leave her musician husband for him.
The split almost destroyed Ronnie, now 50 and a keyboard player for ageing rockers Nazareth. He still carries a torch for his childhood sweetheart, Joan Templeman.
The pain of losing the love of his life is still raw and he has vowed never to remarry. But still he cannot bring himself to voice his feelings about the Virgin tycoon.
Ronnie said: “The least said about him the better. I vowed years ago I would keep quiet and I still stick by that.
“I think my silence speaks volumes. I wouldn’t want to get into a slanging match. It’s still deeply personal.”
But the memory of how his perfect life was snatched from him is still crystal clear.
IRONICALLY, Branson’s first bitter experience of being a loser in love did not stop him stealing the musician’s wife.
Kevin Ayers, himself a musician, yesterday told the Record how he won the Virgin boss’s first wife Kristen Tomassi in a bizarre wife-swapping session.
Branson tried in vain to win his wife back, as did Ronnie many years later.
When Ronnie discovered Joan’s affair with Branson, he sought out his love-rival and warned him to steer clear.
Ronnie said: “I did what any man would do in that situation – I confronted him.
“There was no violence or anything. We had a meeting and I asked him for the sake of our marriage to leave Joan alone.”
Branson reluctantly agreed not to contact her for three months,
At the beginning of 1978, Joan accompanied her husband to Los Angeles, where he was working with singer Donovan. Ronnie said: “I went away confident that Joan and I could make our marriage work. But two weeks later she left me for Branson.”
Ronnie discovered the tycoon had broken his promise when Joan called him from a hotel room in New York to say their marriage was over.
Branson had flown across the Atlantic to meet his lover half-way for a secret tryst.
Despite pleading for another chance, Ronnie was told it was too late. Joan was hopelessly in love with Branson.
Ronnie said: “It must have been true, since she married him and became the mother of his children. They’re still together, so what more can I say?”
The Glasgow-based musician is still in touch with his ex-wife, and last saw her a couple of years ago.
He said: “But it’s still hard. I moved back to Glasgow and I see her family around.
“We grew up together and both of our families are friends. At home there are reminders of her everywhere. Even now I don’t like to talk about it. It’s part of my life I have buried. It was a deeply personal thing, obviously upsetting.”
Despite Ronnie’s best efforts to get on with his life, memories lie around every corner.
The daughter of a ship’s carpenter, Joan grew up in a Glasgow tenement, sharing a bed with her six siblings.
She met Ronnie as a fresh-faced young woman on the dance band scene, and supported him when his first band, Stone the Crows, hit the big time 30 years ago.
They moved to London where they married and spent a blissful 13 years as man and wife – but it proved an unlucky number for them, as their 13th year heralded the arrival of Branson in their lives.
And so began a battle for Joan’s love – a fight Ronnie was destined to lose.
A week after their first meeting, the Virgin king surprised Joan by turning up at the antiques shop where she worked, close to Portobello Road.
Anxious to impress, he swept her off to the restaurant he owned nearby, Duveens. Whenever Ronnie was away, Branson pressed dinner invitations on his unsuspecting wife. He was a regular visitor to her shop, buying one antique after another, just for an excuse to see her.
In fact everywhere Joan went, Richard popped up. He earned the nickname “Tag” because he was always asking mutual friends: “Are you meeting Joan? Can I tag along?”
The couple seemed an unlikely match – the socially awkward and ill-groomed divorcee with notoriously poor dress sense, and the cool, self-assured Glasgow lass five years his senior.
Joan’s then-husband was at the height of his career and could have his pick of women, but all he ever wanted was her.
“There were groupies who would have died for him,” said one of Ronnie’s rock and roll pals. “But he only ever had eyes for Joan. He thought they’d be together forever.
“They had their future mapped out. Children were on the horizon, but they’d decided to wait a while.
“Then Branson came along and wrecked everything. He simply couldn’t leave Joan alone.
“Even now, all these years later, Branson’s name is dirt to Ronnie. We’ve all tried to joke about it but he doesn’t find it funny.”
Branson and Joan have never been parted since. They lived together for 14 years and reared two children Sam, now 12, and Holly, 16, before marrying in a lavish ceremony on his Caribbean island of Neckers in 1989.
He said: “I didn’t realise quite how much getting married meant to both Joan and the children.”
After the marriage, their lifestyle became increasingly luxurious.
Branson bought Joan a pounds 2 million house in Holland Park, near London’s Notting Hill, as a wedding present. The four-storey home with indoor swimming pool, Jacuzzi and games room was sold two years later for double its original price and the couple now have homes in west London and Oxfordshire.
While Branson’s wealth is unquestionable, Joan’s wealth of tolerance at some of his ill-fated antics is seldom discussed.
SHE always puts on a brave face for the media, even when a former employee accused him of sexual harassment.
Joan has observed her husband’s two weaknesses in life are sticky puddings and pretty women.
While his gleaming smile demonstrates he is moderate with the former, his wife makes sure he shows the same control with the latter – by putting up with some of his hair-brained schemes.
Branson said: “Since I’m married and not allowed to touch women any more, I use my energy to start new things.
“Joan is convinced it’s the reason I go ballooning and do all these dangerous things.
“I’m expending all that energy in a positive, non-sexual way. That’s her theory and I’m sticking to it.”
While the Branson family fortunes have gone from strength to strength, Ronnie Leahy still ekes out a living with Nazareth.
HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN TOGETHER?
Templeman had a second chance at love when he met Branson in 1978 at The Manor, where the latter had established his live-in recording studio for Virgin Records.
Branson’s workplace and Templeman’s antique shop were both adjacent to one another. The renowned business mogul and adventurer, who was 27 then, said he fell in love with Templeman at first sight.
It seems that Branson’s feelings were not reciprocated since Templeman did not pick up on them at their first meeting. It took some time for the lovestruck businessman to get the courage to see her again.
Branson, who used to live on a boat, revealed that he went to great lengths to win her over, including following her to New York and convincing her to spend the weekend with him at Necker Island, to which Templeman agreed.
Templeman and Branson tied the knot in 1989. Since then, they have remained deeply in love, contributing to their relationship’s success. In 2020, Branson penned a lengthy love letter to his wife, which read:
“Far beyond record titles, I owe a lot to Joan. She’s my wife of 31 years, partner of 45 years, the mother of our two wonderful children, and my constant rock.”
Branson thanked Templeman for supporting his aspirations, notably his lifelong dream of traveling into space through his other company Virgin Galactic. He described his longtime wife as “the most understanding woman on Earth.”
DO THEY HAVE CHILDREN?
Joan Templeman and Richard Branson have two children: Holly, born in November 1981, and Sam, born in August 1985. The power couple is also proud grandparents to Sam and Holly’s children.
Holly, 40, graduated from University College London with a medical degree and worked as a junior doctor at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
Branson’s daughter became the vice president of the Virgin Group. She is the founder of Big Change, a charitable organization for young people in the United Kingdom.
She has been married to her long-term boyfriend, Freddie Andrews, since 2011. They have twin children, Artie and Etta, born in 2012, and Lola, born in 2019.
On the other hand, Sam is an actor and co-founder of Sundog Pictures. He attended Le Cordon Bleu London culinary school after graduating from St Edward’s School in Oxford in 2003.
Two years later, Sam enrolled at Musicians Institute in the United States. In 2006, he made his acting debut in the sci-fi film “Superman Returns” and “Requiem for Krypton: Making Superman Returns.”
In 2008, he was also included in the TV movie documentary “Bransons: Come Hell or High Water.” Sam, an adventurer like his father, participated in several environmental expeditions, including one to the Arctic.
The 37-year-old actor married actress and model Isabella Calthorpe in 2013, and they have two children: daughter Eva-Deia, born in 2015, and son Bluey, born in 2017.
Slaylebrity Net worth stats
Social fans: 4.8 million +
Est Net Worth: $3 billiom
Sources Amomama, the free library
From rags to riches
But it seems it was true love
Is it worth breaking another’s heart for true love?
She said she was hopelessly in love with him
Ever met a billionaire without skeletons in his closet ?
The family comes first
