Tears for Fears star Roland Orzabal has revealed he fell in love with another woman while his wife was dying. In his memoir, Welcome to Your Life: Love, Death and Tears for Fears, the 64-year-old singer recounts his first marriage to Caroline Johnston, who died in 2017 at age 54 from an alcohol-related illness.
Orzabal describes meeting photographer and writer Emily Rath while performing in Colorado in October 2016 and thinking: "That's my wife." In the book, he admits: "The truth is, I was falling in love with Emily before Caroline had died. I was at a crossroads, a tipping point that would redefine my life. With all the things that were going on with Caroline, with all the visits to psychiatrists, to neurologists, to hepatologists, I was falling in love with a young, healthy woman who I believed loved me too and was the opposite of what I'd left at home."
Early life and marriage
Orzabal met Caroline in Bath, South West England, as a teenager. They married in 1982 when he was 21 and she was 20, later having two sons. As synth-pop band Tears for Fears, he and Curt Smith released their debut album The Hurting in 1983, featuring hits "Mad World" and "Change." Their next album, Songs from the Big Chair (1985), including "Shout" and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," made them global stars.
Offstage, the marriage faced difficulties. After the band's third album, The Seeds of Love (1989), the relationship deteriorated, and in the mid-1990s they had marriage counselling. By the late 2000s, heavy nightly drinking became routine. Speaking on The Reset podcast in 2022, Orzabal said: "My wife and I were always into wine, that was the first thing we would spend money on. I guess what happened to me is addiction... and I was in huge denial." He added: "It killed Caroline, she died from cirrhosis of the liver, and it was not a nice period watching that happen. It wasn't until the autopsy that I realised the truth. Terrible."
Meeting Emily and aftermath
On meeting Emily, Orzabal writes: "I've been around the world many times and had met many attractive women, but I'd never heard those words ["That's my wife"] before. They didn't make sense, I was already married, and this woman looked nothing like Caroline." He adds: "Caroline had spent three months in a psych ward. I'd been there virtually every day. And then, Emily, in 2016 all of a sudden, in 2020 that night I saw an alternative life for myself, which is hard to do - hard to take. But I did."
Promoting the book, he said: "Why was it important to be so candid? Well, because it's the truth. I didn't want to write something false. Also, I always felt somewhere out there is someone who's going through what you went through." On the struggles of his first marriage, he told Fox News: "I'd spent years and years with Caroline in this state. It wasn't just a year or six months. And yes, I had enough. I was shown a clear way forward."
Life after Caroline
Of their 25-year age gap - Emily was 30 and Orzabal 55 at the time - he says: "Ouch. If only I was half my age and she was older." He also says his alcohol intake increased after Caroline's death: "My life spiralled out of control. And then in 2018 I ended up in hospital four times. I had anxiety off the scale, suicidal ideation."
He sought help in rehab, and in 2020 he married Emily. Their daughter, Eula, was born last year. He adds: "I think if you believe in the soul, then [Caroline] would completely understand. When I think about the person she was... she would understand." Welcome to Your Life: Love, Death and Tears for Fears is published by Constable and is out now.
