A Look Inside Bob Dylan's Marriages to Sara Lownds and Carolyn Dennis

Though some folks like to speculate about Bob Dylan 's past — with rumors that there are unacknowledged marriages and children that the media doesn't know about — what we do know is that the legendary singer-songwriter was previously married to Sara Lownds and then Carolyn Dennis.

Below, we take a look at what happened in Bob's marriages to both Sara and Carolyn, including what Carolyn had to say about some of the accusations that were flung Bob's way after news of their marriage broke.

Bob Dylan married his first wife, Sara Lownds, in 1965.

Bob and Sara got married in November 1965 and had four children together: Jesse (born January 1966), Anna (born July 1967), Samuel (born July 30, 1968), and Jakob (born December 1969). Bob also adopted Sara's daughter from her previous marriage.

And in case the name Jakob sounds familiar to you, that would of course be Jakob Dylan from the Wallflowers, who have sold more than 10 million albums worldwide.

Sara hailed from Delaware. She moved to New York City and married a photographer named Hans Lownds in 1959. She ended up changing her actual first name (Shirley) at Hans's request, as he'd previously been married to a woman named Shirley and apparently didn't want to be reminded of that. Sara worked as a model and later took a job as a secretary at Time Life, where she ended up being so good that she basically "ran the place," according to filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker.

Later, it would be reported that part of what Bob loved about Sara was that they could have a quiet family life together. They resided for a while with their kids in rural Woodstock, N.Y., where Bob worked on writing and painting and would walk his kids to school every day.

"Until Sara, I thought it was just a question of time until he died," Bob's personal assistant once said, per the Belfast Telegraph . "But later I had never met a more dedicated family man."

But after the family moved around a bit, eventually living in California by 1973, things began to take a turn. By the time Bob went back out on the road to tour the following year, his old vices returned. The couple separated in summer 1974.

Bob Dylan then married his second wife, Carolyn Dennis, in 1986.

Bob went on to marry backing singer Carolyn Dennis in June 1986. They'd already welcomed a daughter together named Desiree in January of that year. Their quiet four-year union wasn't even reported until after they'd already separated, when writer Howard Sounes broke the story in his 2001 biography about Bob.

Though Howard claimed in his book that Bob hadn't been around much for Desiree, Carolyn put out a statement in 2001 explaining otherwise. "Bob and I made a choice to keep our marriage a private matter for a simple reason — to give our daughter a normal childhood," she said, per ABC News .

Carolyn said in order to maintain privacy from the media, she and Bob had decided to take advantage of California law that let them seal their marriage certificate. They'd also opted not to put Bob's name on their baby's birth certificate, which was also for privacy's sake. She said they were planning to let their daughter decide whether she wanted to take her dad's last name when she got older. (Later, Desiree would take both her parents' names as Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan.)

"To portray Bob as 'hiding his daughter' is just malicious and ridiculous," Carolyn said. "That is something he would never do. Bob has been a wonderful, active father to Desiree."

In addition to performing with Bob, Carolyn has performed backing vocals for a number of acts including Stevie Wonder, the Carpenters, and Bruce Springsteen. She also appeared on Broadway in the original casts for both Big River and The Color Purple .