'I've had it with this institution of marriage. I don't think I'm ever going to marry again'
Article in the Star January 14th, 1986 by Chris Bell

ROCK 'n' roll star Jerry Lee Lewis and his young wife have split and she's stripped their Memphis home of everything except his piano, the singer claims. After just 20 months the Killer and his sixth wife, Kerrie, came to blows in a fight over another woman. Lewis says she took everything from their home including his gold records, family heirlooms and furniture.

"The only thing left is his piano," says Lewis' attorney, James Sanderson. "Jerry said, 'I've just had it with this institution of marriage. I don't think I'm ever going to marry again.' "Jerry told me, 'Jim, that woman lied to me, and lied and lied when she didn't have to. On top of that, she stole from me. You know, all she had to do was ask me for something or tell me what she needed and I would have given it to her.' "He left five grand there, two grand a piece to two sisters for Christmas presents. Jerry says she took that. She also took a telephone shaped like a piano."

Two months ago, Kerrie kept a vigil outside her 50-year-old husband's hospital room as he underwent ulcer surgery that removed a third of his stomach. But a bitter fight shortly before Jerry left home for a four day tour, sealed the marriage's fate and prompted Lewis to file for divorce. "I didn't want it" says Kerrie who has just turned 23. "I didn't ask for it, but I'm not going to fight it. I thought it was a happy marriage, but I was wrong." Kerrie says she signed a prenuptial agreement "2 minutes" before their wedding in April '84, denies that she took Christmas present money intended for Jerry's two sisters. In fact, she says she does not want any of the rock star's money. "I'm not asking for alimony," she says. "There's nothing I'm asking for. When I married him I had a job, money in the bank, I had a nice car. Now I'm in debt, I don't have a car, I don't even have a bank account. But that's all right, I'll get over it." Kerrie estimates they have bills of about $35,000.

The trouble began in the early morning hours of December 18, when Kerrie says she received a phone call that Lewis was with another woman at Hernanado's Hideaway, a honky-tonk where he first met Kerrie. She drove there and saw a woman kiss her husband. When he got home at 6am she confronted him. What followed was an 11-hour fight. "He denied it, slapped me and broke a mirror on me. The glass cut me. I bled. It hurt. But I didn't go to the doctor. I sure wasn't going to let him whip me. "He's a very gentle man when he wants to be. He just got caught and tried to talk his way out of it. "He came at me like a tiger. We fought with our fists and he tried to whip my behind. It was either get beaten, or kick him every chance I got."

Kerrie hints her husband may have relapsed back into drugs. Four months ago she says she took pills he had and hid out at her parents - to keep him away from them. "He was real wild that night," she recalls. "Jerry had been real clean for three months. But in August he was given quite a bit of drugs. "For a week and a half I put up with this. "I just left him and came home and took the drugs with me and just destroyed them."

Lewis's lawyer says Jerry told him "I just got tired of the girl cussin' me.She gave me some damndest cussin' you ever using words that would make a sailor blush." Kerrie says she was even more outraged at the turn of events as the Sunday before Jerry had gone to church, declared his love for her in front of the congregation and said he was going to change his ways.

Lewis married his first wife Dorothy in '50. They divorced in '51. He married Jane Mitchum in '53 - they divorced in '58. Then he married 13-year Myra Gail Brown causing a scandal that hurt his career. That marriage lasted until '71, when they divorced and he married Jaren Pate. On June 8 '82 after each had filed for divorce, Jaren was found drowned in a swimming pool. A year later he married Shawn Michelle Stephens. Less than 3 months later she died of drug overdose at his Mississippi home.

Kerrie says that despite the divorce which she doubts will be contested her husband still has his good points. "Jerry has always been good to me, he is a good man, he'll give you the shirt off his back. But he lied to me once and he'll lie to me again."

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