Along with being one of the well-known singers in the industry, Jones was also known as a huge womanizer despite the fact that he was married.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on March 5, 2021. It has since been updated.
Sir Tom Jones won many hearts with his voice during the 1960s. With chart-topping singles like Sex Bomb and It's Not Unusual, the crooner has a special place in the hearts of his female fans. And with his massive success, he was also known as a womanizer even when he was married.
His wife, Melinda Trenchard (Linda), was married to the singer until her death in 2016. The two were childhood sweethearts who had decided to spend the rest of their lives together at the age of 16. Jones once confessed that Trenchard “beat him black and blue” after coming across a news article coverage of his affairs.
Talking to The Daily Mail, the singer said, "She beat me up physically one night. I said, 'Look, I'm sorry,' and she'd got the newspaper there. She said, 'You…' I said, 'There it is [pointing at chin],' and she went 'Bang!' And then started kicking me. However, he did not give details about which it was affair that had made her snap. Later in 2015, Jones revealed that Trenchard got mad over a report of his affair with a Miss World, Majorie Wallace, on a beach in Barbados in 1976.
There was another affair that made Trenchard mad, it was his affair with The Supremes singer Mary Wilson in 1968 while he was touring the United States. As per Express UK, in the book Tom Jones: The Life, author Sean Smith wrote that his wife had had enough of the rumors going around about his infidelity and went on a search for proof to his apartment.
After Jones returned to the UK to perform at Bournemouth’s Winter Gardens, Wilson is said to have flown over to meet him. Since Trenchard had her doubts, she became suspicious and went over to “sort him out”. But Jones' team was quick and worked together to save the singer from his wife.
The Delilah singer's publicist at the time, Chris Hutchins, disclosed, "They got Mary out and then went around and removed every trace of her.“ But whatever you do, you cannot stop a brokenhearted from showering her wrath. "Where is that woman?" Trenchard asked as soon as she entered to which Jones replied, "I don’t know what you’re talking about’". Her wife knew that wasn't the case though because she said, "Mary Wilson, she’s been here."
Explaining, Hutchins added, “And he said, ‘No, she hasn’t’. But Linda carried on checking the wardrobes, everything. Finally, she opened the oven, the one place the boys had forgotten. Now, Mary Wilson was a great cook and had prepared a meal the previous evening, which they hadn’t yet eaten. Linda says, ‘Oh yeah! And who cooked this?"
Even though the singer tried to pin it on his assistant, Trenchard was far from believing anything coming out of his mouth, and finally, he had to come clean. The truth came with a price, an ultimatum for Jones, “You’d better straighten it out, because you won’t be able to do anything without your balls,” she told him. “He told me the next day that they were lying there and they had just made love and Linda started crying. And she said, ‘When I think that b***h has been lying on these sheets,'” added Hutchins.
According to The Daily Mail, Wilson was aware of Jones' women but still adored him. “He had other girls," she said, "I was just one of them — but I loved him. He broke my heart, we had to quit. He was married and it couldn't go on." In her autobiography, Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme, Wilson revealed that initially, she wasn't aware of Jones' marriage. “Tom made a great friend as well as a fine lover. Only later did I discover that he was married!" she penned.
Jones and Trenchard had tied the knot in 1957 and stayed together for 6 decades, till her death in 2016. Their relationship was a rollercoaster because of the singer's many affairs but still, he says that she's the love of his life. During an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine in 2015, he said, “She's the most important thing in my life, an unbelievable woman. Linda is the love of my life and she still is, even though she doesn't look like she did."
When the Help Yourself crooner was asked if he regretted having all those affairs years back, he said, “I never hurt anybody, it never backfired on me, and my marriage is solid."
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