Donny Osmond Shares the Secret to 44 Years With Debbie: ‘The First Thing I Think About is Her’
Donny shares how he and Debbie built their 44-year marriage on love, trust and family values
In the realm of celebrity couples, very few are as long-lasting and pure as Donny and Debbie Osmond. Married for 44 years and counting, the pair currently have five children and 12 grandchildren. But how exactly did the two get to where they are today? And how has Donny’s decades-spanning fame affected their relationship? We dive deep into all of that and more below.
The beginning of Donny and Debbie Osmond
Donny and Debbie met while the two of them were in high school. At the time, she was dating another member of the Osmond family.
“I first met Debbie when she was 15 years old. She was the hot babe cheerleader in town and she dated my brother Jay before she dated me,” Donny shared on Facebook in 2020. “It took me three whole years to win her heart and convince her to marry me.”
It remains unclear how long exactly Jay and Debbie dated—and how either party feels about her marrying Donny—but what is clear is how excited Donny was to take Debbie out and finally get that magical first kiss.
“Debbie was playing hard to get, and I wanted to plan something really, really special for our first kiss,” Donny said before sharing that he had planned a scavenger hunt for Debbie’s 17th birthday in 1976.
The hunt ended at Utah Lake, which was when Debbie “came back to the limo and read that she could get her final clue from Donny if she gave him a kiss. And it was fireworks, let me tell you!”
They went on to date for two years before eventually tying the knot in 1978.
Debbie officially becomes an Osmond
On May 8, 1978, Donny and Debbie got married at the Salt Lake City Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was reportedly a very traditional LDS (Latter Day Saints) ceremony.
However, the day wasn’t joyous for everyone, with Donny revealing that his dad told him getting married would ruin his career. And it turns out his dad might have been right because, at the time of their marriage, Donny had left the Osmond Brothers and was performing fully solo. He was slowly becoming a very popular teen idol—a title he hated after meeting Debbie.
“There was a period in the early ’80s, shortly after Donny got married, where he didn’t want anything to do with Tiger Beat,” Ann Moses, former Tiger Beat editor, told Woman’s World in 2024. “He had the feeling that Tiger Beat had just put him in a box as a teen idol, and he couldn’t break out of it. So he was very angry about being a teenybopper star and wanted to move on and progress.”
In the end, though, true love—and talent—prevailed, because even with his marriage, Donny still appeared on shows like Donny & Marie (1998 to 2000), Pyramid (2002 to 2004), Friends (2004) and Dancing With the Stars (2009).
“Debbie is an amazing person to be with,” Donny said. “If I hadn’t married her, I’d have been a mess. Now I had someone who understood me and with whom I could build a future together.”
In the years to come, Donny went on to struggle with his image as an adult in the entertainment industry and soon entered into a very dark and depressing place—which he claims Debbie pulled him out of.
“Whenever I make a decision in my life, the first thing I think about is her. How does it affect her? And the second thing I think about is how does it affect my children? The third, now, is how does it affect my grandchildren. And then I’m fourth. If all four of those are a green light, then I’ll do it.”
Even with that dark period in his life, though, Osmond said that he “love[s] what I do,” although at the end of the day, “she [Debbie] comes first.”
Building a life together
Between 1979 and 1998, Donny and Debbie welcomed five sons together named Donald, Jeremy, Brandon, Christopher and Joshua. And despite his many TV appearances and sold-out shows, Donny’s son Brandon said that he hardly ever saw Donny The Father mix with Donny The Celebrity.
“There was one moment in my life where Donny Osmond and my dad crossed paths in my house. And it was really hard for me because I had separated the two,” Brandon said in 2022.
According to him, the two were sitting on the couch together in 2007, right after Donny’s dad passed away, when all of a sudden, the phone began to ring.
“So he [Donny] picks up the phone. And I hear this sweet, high-pitched voice. ‘Hey, Donny, I just wanted to call and just tell you I’m sorry about your dad.’ And they have this conversation for maybe two or three minutes.” Brandon continued. “He finishes it with, ‘Thanks, Michael. That means a lot to me.’
“And I realized that the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, just called my dad; my dad didn’t call him. Michael Jackson called my dad in my house right in front of me, and I heard his voice on the phone. And it was really weird for me because they clashed. Donny Osmond and my dad were now the same person, and it really wrecked me. It really was a hard thing for me to see.”
Brandon ended that statement by saying that he had “set up barriers in that my home was home, and my dad’s job was his job. And when I separated those two, I could go to his work and realize, ‘Okay, this is a different person.’ Or I could see him on TV; that was a different person. But when he was at home, he was wearing Grinch pajamas and a floppy shirt. And that was my dad. And I loved that man. And I loved Donny Osmond. But they were two separate people.”
Despite all of that, Donny and Debbie’s other son, Chris, said in 2022 that he and his family were “very fortunate to have that name. And to have an influence in this world for good.”
What Donny and Debbie Osmond are doing now
Donny and Debbie are currently 67 and 65 years old, respectively, and live together in Ogden, Utah. They have 14 grandchildren, which Donny says he’s “extremely blessed to have.”
“Debbie and I find so much joy in our relationships with each of them,” he continued. “Grandkids really do make life grand!”
Donny is also still performing in Las Vegas, Nevada, and will remain there until June 2025.
“I’m just having the time of my life on stage,” Donny said. “I’ve always said if I can’t give a hundred percent on stage like I do every night in Las Vegas or what I’m doing out here, if I can’t come up to that bar that I’ve set for myself, that’s the time to stop.”
The pair are set to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary this May and currently have no other grandchildren on the way.
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