Veteran singer Bob Dylan, the legend of music, is one pioneering figure who has shaped a significant chunk of the music scene in America. He accumulated a fortune, almost worth $500 million, through his music, business ventures, films, special awards, and much more, Not much is known about his personal life, especially about Bob Dylan’s children and inner circle.
The legend was involved in several serious relationships, but despite his glorifying career, Dylan’s personal life is quite a bit of a mystery. Dylan first dated Suze Rotolo, an artist and the daughter of American Communist Party radicals, followed by folk singer Joan Baez, and they broke up after some time. Then, Dylan married Sara Lownds. They had four children together, and Dylan also adopted Lownds’s daughter from a previous marriage. They divorced in 1977. In 1986, Dylan married Carolyn Dennis, who was his backup singer. They had one daughter together, before divorcing in 1992. Let’s find out more about his children in detail below.
A short brief about Bob Dylan’s family life
Maria, Jesse, Anna, Sam, and Jakob are the children of Bob Dylan. He had Maria with his ex-wife, Sara Lownds, and one daughter, Desiree, with his ex-wife, Carolyn Dennis. Dylan first became a father after marrying Sara Lownds in 1965 and adopting her daughter, Maria. The couple then welcomed four children before splitting in 1977. In 1986, Dylan quietly married his then-backup singer Carolyn Dennis, and, four months later they had a daughter, Desiree. Though the pair split in 1992, the former couple kept their marriage and daughter private until 2001.
“Bob and I chose to keep our marriage a private matter for a simple reason: to give our daughter a normal childhood,” Carolyn said in a statement to ABC News. “Bob has been a wonderful, active father to Desiree,” she added.
1. Maria Dylan Himmelman
Sara Lownds and her first husband, Hans Lownds, welcomed their daughter Maria on Oct. 21, 1961, but Bob Dylan adopted Maria when he married Sara in 1965. Dylan’s eldest son is a writer and poet whose work has been published in Plume, the New Ohio Review, Image Journal, Grist, and DIAGRAM, among others.
In August 1988, Maria married musician Peter Himmelman, and the couple share four children. Maria is very private and has always stayed away from the spotlight. Sources and interviews that exist claim that Maria moved their family to New York from Santa Monica, California, in the summer of 2019. She is currently 68 years old.
2. Jesse Byron Dylan
Bob and his first wife, Sara, welcomed their son, Jesse Byron Dylan, in New York City on Jan. 6, 1966. After Jesse’s birth, Dylan took a break from music. Following in his father’s footsteps, Jesse Dylan joined his dad on the road for his Rolling Thunder Revue tour. “He seemed kinda fun,” Jesse recalled of his dad during this time.
Jesse has also worked on commercials for brands like Nike, Motorola, Snickers, and Nintendo; he has also directed feature films, such as American Wedding (2003) and Kicking and Screaming (2005) with Will Ferrell. Moreover, he is also an entrepreneur, as he
is also the founder and CEO of Wondros, a creative agency that aims to solve “complex communications challenges,” and works with Netflix and Vogue, among others. Jessie and his wife, actress Susan Traylor, have two children: son Pablo Dylan, who was born around 1996, and daughter Feury Mae Beatrice Dylan, born in 2000. He is currently 58 years old.
3. Anna Dylan
Bob and Sara’s daughter, Anna Dylan, was born on July 11, 1967. Like her sister Maria, she too is not keen on the spotlight there is barely anything about her online, and sources claim that she likes to lead a very private and peaceful life. She is currently 56 years old.
4. Sam Dylan
Born on July 30, 1968, Sam Dylan is Bob and Sara’s fourth child. Interestingly, while Sam is not very social, his wife, Stacy Dylan, revealed in a 2022 Instagram post that she met her husband while attending Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, around 1988.
The couple has two children, Jonah and Lowell. Their younger son was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in childhood, inspiring Stacy to create her nonprofit, Connecting to Cure Crohn’s and Colitis. Sam is currently 55 years old.
5. Jakob Luke Dylan
Bob and Sara’s son, Jakob Luke Dylan, was born in New York City on Dec. 9, 1969. When he was 3, he moved to Los Angeles with his family.
“I know people have this image of how rough it is growing up in a famous family,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. “But it really didn’t seem that big a deal at the time. I had friends. I had a home. I had a family.”
After returning to New York City, Jakob Dylan dropped out of design school and decided to pursue his only love, which was music, just like his father. In the back of my mind, I always knew I was going to end up gravitating to songwriting,” he told The Washington Post in 1997.
He went on to perform at several bands and was once named PEOPLE’s Sexiest Rock Star. Like his dad, Luke also has has a large family — he shares four sons with Paige Dylan, whom he married in 1992. He is currently 53.
6. Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan
The youngest of the Dylan clan, Desiree Gabrielle Desi Dennis-Dylan, was born on Jan. 31, 1986—16 years after Jakob. Her mother is Bob’s former backup singer, Carolyn. Though her parents got divorced, she was kept private until she was a teenager. Desi’s identity was revealed in 2001 when biographer Howard Sounes released Down the Highway, which mentioned Bob’s youngest child and his second marriage.
Desiree has a love for performing, just like her dad and brother, and she began performing with the Young Americans, a nonprofit touring performing arts club, in 2004. She often posts her father on her Instagram and holds a deep profound love for him.
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