Who Is Richard Branson's Wife? All About Joan Templeman

Richard Branson may be one of the most successful businessmen of our time, taking his Virgin empire to new heights with each new launch. But in his private life he enjoyed a steady family life with his wife Joan Templeman.

“I often make up my mind about someone within 30 seconds of meeting them, and I fell in love with Joan almost the moment I laid eyes on her. Joan was a down-to-earth Scottish lady and I quickly realized that she would not be impressed by my usual antics,” Branson wrote on the Virgin blog in 2020 to mark 44 years since they first met.

Sharing his advice on how to have a long-lasting love like he and Templeman’s, Branson said it’s something you have to work hard at.

“I think you have to work at it,” he told Page Six during an interview in 2019. “I don’t think it’s necessarily going to happen if you just sit around and wait for it to come. I think you have to be willing to subtly pursue someone if you’re really interested.”

“I was known as ‘Tagalong’ with my wife,” he added. “I would end up literally running. Finally, hopefully, it will give way.”

His pursuit paid off, and Branson and Templeman married in 1989 and had three children together: Holly, Sam and the late Clare Sarah, who died aged 4 days after being born three months premature.

Here’s everything you need to know about Richard Branson’s wife Joan Templeman.

Templeman worked near Branson’s recording studio

Richard Branson, Joan Templman and their children Holly and Sam, after their wedding on the Caribbean island of Necker.

PA Images/Getty

The entrepreneur first met Templeman near The Manor, his former recording studio at Virgin Records.

“She worked at Dodo Antiques in Notting Hill, near our Virgin office in Vernon Yard. One day I hovered precariously in front of the store, then plucked up the courage to enter. The store sold old signs and advertisements, which the store owner, Liz, pretended to be fascinated by,” he said in his blog post. . “Over the next few weeks, my visits to Joan amassed an impressive collection of old hand-painted tin signs advertising anything from Hovis bread to Woodbine cigarettes.”

Branson bought Necker Island as a grand gesture for Templeman

Richard Branson and Joan Templeman, circa 1985.

Dave Hogan/Hulton Archive/Getty

Just two years after they first met, the business tycoon made an offer for Necker Island as a tribute to Templeman.

“When I heard about the sale of a beautiful island in the British Virgin Islands, I called the people selling it to inquire. We were still in the early days of Virgin Records and I definitely didn’t have the money to buy it – but try telling that to a fool in love!” he wrote in his blog post.

A realtor offered Branson a trip to see the island, and it was “the second time I experienced love at first sight,” he said.

Although his initial offer was rejected, Branson bought the island for $180,000 and currently lives there.

Their children were married on Necker Island

Richard Branson, Sam Branson, Joan Branson and Holly Branson.

Jon Furniss/WireImage

Eleven years after Branson bought the island, he and Templeman were married on the beach there. Following in their parents’ footsteps, Holly and Sam married their spouses there.

Holly and Freddie Andrews married in a sunset ceremony in December 2011, while Sam married Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe in March 2013.

Branson stopped the flight so he could see his wife

Richard Branson and Joan Templeman.

Richard Branson’s Instagram

In a romantic gesture that rivals any romantic comedy, Branson once grounded a flight when he realized he didn’t want to leave his wife.

“[We were] in Majorca [a few years ago] and I had to go on some kind of business and I left Joan at the airport,” he told Page Six during the interview. “As the plane taxied down the runway, I suddenly thought, ‘I have to stop this plane and go back to see her,’ so I jumped up, went to the front of the plane and said, ‘I’m sorry, I have to get off the plane,'” and they stopped the plane . They let me go.”

“I think she was pleasantly shocked,” he added, recalling that his companions applauded this grand gesture. “Yeah, it was good.”

He likes to stay out of the limelight

Richard Branson.

Richard Branson’s Instagram

Branson previously said that his wife does not want to be in the public eye and avoids her as much as possible.

“Joan was a very private person from the beginning, and for more than four decades that we were together, she has remained so,” he wrote in a blog post in 2016. “She always wanted to avoid the public eye, to the point of never giving an interview, however, that changed when she gave her first interview ever for an upcoming film about my balloon adventures.”

She was nervous about Branson’s space trip

Joan Templeman.

Richard Branson’s Instagram

On July 11, 2021, Branson took off into space on the Virgin Galantic flight, a journey 17 years in the making.

In an interview with Rueters of Spacesport America before his year, Branson admitted that his wife had reservations about her husband’s visit to space.

“My wife is a person who would be terrified on a Virgin Atlantic flight. She is the last person who would want to do something like this,” he said.

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Source: HIS Education