Oops! Willie Nelson's Ex-Wife Found The Hospital Bill For The Baby He Had With His Secret Girlfriend

By Emily Richardson | Celebrity | December 22, 2023 |

By Emily Richardson | Celebrity | December 22, 2023 |

Today in “Old Gossip is the Best Gossip”, we’re diving into the wild world of Willie Nelson. In the new Paramount+ docuseries, Willie Nelson & Family, the 90-year-old country singer reflects on his career, alcoholism, financial issues, eight kids, four wives, and many, many affairs.

Willie got hitched to his second wife, Shirley Collie, in 1963. Before their marriage, Shirley was a successful rockabilly/country singer. But, as Willie’s star rose, he convinced her to stay at home in Nashville and help raise his three children from his first marriage to Martha Matthews.

Then, in 1969, Shirley stumbled upon a strange document: a hospital bill from the maternity ward of a Houston hospital charged to her husband and “Mrs. Connie Nelson” (aka Connie Koepke) for the birth of a baby girl. Um, excuse me? In the documentary, Willie recalls:

“Shirley wanted to know who in the hell was Connie Nelson. The truth is, Connie had been my girlfriend for several years before becoming pregnant.”

Lana Nelson, Willie’s daughter with first wife Martha, adds:

“She had no idea there was a Connie. She had no idea there was a baby until she got the hospital bill. That’s how she found out about Connie. That’s how I found out about Connie!”

Dear God. Can. You. Imagine? Willie also covered this scandal back in 2020, in his joint memoir with his sister Bobbie Nelson. He wrote that when Shirley found the bill, he “tried to play it off as no big deal,” and told her he “had to go to the hospital for something minor.” But Shirley didn’t buy it “for one simple reason”: “The bill said the charges were for the birth of a baby girl, Paula Carlene, born to a Mrs. Connie Nelson.” Willie says he “was caught flatfooted” and had to tell Shirley the truth.

Unsurprisingly, Shirley and Willie’s marriage did not survive. They officially divorced in 1971, and later that year, Willie married Connie. In 1973, the pair had another daughter, Amy Lee Nelson.

Alas, Connie and Willie’s marriage was also doomed. While filming the movie Stagecoach (1986), Willie fell in love with makeup artist Annie D’Angelo. She was 23 years his junior. Oh, Willie! Connie and Willie divorced in 1988, the same year Annie gave birth to their son. The serial two-timer and the makeup artist had another boy in 1990, got married in 1991, and are still together more than thirty years later.

In the documentary, Willie admits he has some regrets about all his cheating:

“I’ve always said there’s no such thing as a former wife. 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 lots of times confused love. When it came to romance, I had a gift for complicating things.”

Other bombshells from the docuseries include the time Willie’s first wife stabbed him in the side with a fork during a drunken fight (“it sounded like a tuning fork”), the 1970 house fire where he saved baby Paula, his beloved guitar “Trigger”, and “a bag of primo Colombian pot” (“I wasn’t about to lose a couple of pounds of good pot”), and the shoot-out he got into with his daughter Lana’s abusive ex-husband (that’s when Wife #3 Connie and Wife #1 Martha finally met).

Oh, what a tangled web Willie weaves! I gotta watch this doc.