Joan Templeman is the wife of Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate famous for founding The Virgin Group.
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Joan is Branson’s second wife and they got married in 1989, 10 years after his divorce from his first wife Kristen Tomassi. They got married on Necker Island.
Joan was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1948. Her father worked as a ship carpenter to support her and her six siblings.
Joan was independent at an early age and worked in several jobs including running an antique store.
Branson is her second husband. She was married to her childhood sweetheart Ronnie Leahy in 1966. However, the pair got divorced in 1978.
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Joan and Branson met in 1976 at his Virgin Records studio.
In 2016, when they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary, Branson wrote a love letter to her;
“I experienced love at first sight upon meeting a blonde-haired, down to earth, Scottish beauty named Joan, who just happened to be making a cup of tea.
“I generally make up my mind about someone within 30 seconds of meeting them, and Joan won my heart instantly. She was unlike any other women I had ever met.
“She was beautiful. She was bright. She was witty. She was down to earth. She was fun. And she had eyes made of magic.”
They have a daughter Holly (b. 1981) and a son Sam (b. 1985).
In an interview with Piers Morgan, Branson revealed that he and Joan also had a daughter named Clare Sarah, who died when she was four days old in 1979.
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