Eight years ago, Peter Maffay brought a woman on stage during a concert – the two became a couple. Love began with a hurdle. Now the singer has confirmed his fifth wedding.
Musician Peter Maffay has confirmed that he has married his partner Hendrikje Balsmeyer. “Yes, it’s true. Hendrikje and I are married and have been a happy couple for a long time,” said Maffay (“I never wanted to be an adult”, “Across seven bridges”) to the “Bild” newspaper.
Accordingly, the couple secretly married a year and a half ago, in April 2022. This is the fifth marriage for the 74-year-old Maffay; the singer has a small daughter with the teacher, who is almost 40 years his junior.
“A kind of magical agreement”
The couple met at a concert in October 2015. Maffay discovered Balsmeyer in the audience and brought her on stage. “From the stage, I look fifty meters into the eyes of my listeners and can see whether I am reaching them with my songs,” Maffay told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin” in March 2016.
He sees fear, happiness, hope. “In Hendrikje’s eyes I saw reflected exactly the feeling that I sang about in this song: endless longing.” In such rare moments, “a kind of magical agreement” takes place.
Their daughter Anouk was born in November 2018. Last year, the parents also published a children’s book together, which they dedicated to their daughter.
In the summer of 2021, Maffay and Balsmeyer still spoke hesitantly about getting married. “You don’t have to get married to be happy. Especially since a wedding is no guarantee of love and happiness,” Balsmeyer told the magazine “Bunte” in an interview at the time. “I can confirm that,” Maffay added. “I have already been married four times. However, this fact would not be an obstacle for me to marry Hendrikje.”
Love began with a hurdle
The fact that the two became a couple came with a few hurdles. When they met, Maffay was newly married to his fourth wife, Tanja. “That’s a fact – a beautiful one on the one hand, and admittedly a sad one on the other, because there’s always someone who suffers,” explained the singer in an interview with Radio 7 in Ulm in December 2015.
“I know that what we are going through together right now is complicated, but it is fine in itself – more than that – and that is why I stand 100 percent behind what I do and can walk tall and everyone who does “As far as I’m concerned, I’m definitely not going to give in.”
He also dealt openly with the situation in other interviews. “We have decided to stay together. Even if we know that there are some broken pieces left and right,” Maffay told “Bild”. “When something like that happens, you can’t go through life with a lie. That would be unfair to everyone else.”
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
