The couple married in 1997 and shares three daughters, Raven, 23, Persia, 21, and Echo, 19
Credit: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock
NEED TO KNOW
- Gary Numan shares that he met his future wife, Gemma O’Neill, when she was a fan attending his shows in the late 1980s
- After O’Neill stopped attending shows due to her mother’s death, he took notice and got her contact information from a fan club
- “That’s how I attracted her, which I think is illegal now,” the singer said
"Cars" singer Gary Numan reveals the unexpected way he met his future wife, Gemma O'Neill.
The singer, 68, shared that before O'Neill, 58, became his wife, she was a huge fan. He revealed that she once told a career counselor that she wouldn't need a job, "I'm going to marry Gary Numan," he told The Times in an interview published on Wednesday, June 24.
While they first met at a meet-and-greet when she was 12 and he was 22, he didn't recall their first interaction. “I was completely overcome, I couldn't talk – I was crying, and I told him I really loved him," O'Neill told The Independent in 1997.
They met again around six years later when he posed for a photo with the 18-year-old in 1986.
“After that it was a bit easier. If you went to the airshows and stayed near his airplane, he'd walk past. I'd ask for an autograph, or a photo, and I was always very polite – never obsessive or weird," she said, per the outlet. Two years later, he knew her name and "just knew who to sign the autographs to, I was really happy about that.”
She continued to attend his shows in the years following their first encounters, becoming a familiar face to a friendly fan. “That's how I attracted her, which I think is illegal now,” he told The Times.
Credit: Yui Mok – PA Images/PA Images via Getty
After Numan learned that O'Neill's mother had died, he contacted the fan club she was a member of to get her phone number. "Which again may be illegal," he told The Times, adding that he gave her a call and said, " 'Hello, it's me,' and she put the phone down — she thought it was somebody playing a cruel trick."
Numan called her back, but she still wasn't convinced, so he was asked to prove his identity with a quiz about himself.
He then asked her out and invited her to join him on a drive to a radio interview in Northern England. “I took her to a Little Chef because I'm very down to earth,” he said. “I don't do all that flash, rich man, pop star stuff.”
In her 1997 interview with The Independent, O'Neill said that their date was “really cute," and although she was "really hoping he'd ring again" they didn't start seriously dating until a year later.
They eventually wed in 1997 and welcomed three daughters: Raven, 23, Persia, 21, and Echo, 19.
Credit: Mike Lawn/Shutterstock
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Numan rose to fame as a member of the '70s New Wave band Tubeway Army. In 1979, he released his smash hit debut solo single, "Cars." He's released 19 solo albums and made his debut at the Glastonbury Music Festival last year. He is working on another album, which he told The Times is about “the possible extinction of humankind or a reduction to tribalism that I believe will happen because of AI."
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