Ever since Matchbox Twenty’s lead singer Rob Thomas and his wife of almost 25 years, Marisol Maldonado, first laid eyes on each other, they knew they would be together.
And not even travelling the world as a rock star or her long battle with a number of incurable conditions that affect her brain could drive a wedge between the pair, who later this year will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.
So who is Marisol Maldonado, and how did she become one half of one of the most enduring marriages in rock ‘n’ roll?
Watch the video above.
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In a 2000 interview with People, the couple revealed they were introduced in 1998 by a mutual friend after a Matchbox Twenty performance in Montreal.
“Rob and I met for literally 10 minutes,” Maldonado said at the time. “When I left, I looked at my girlfriend and said, ‘That’s the man I’m going to marry’.”
Thomas, who at the time had no plans to be anything other than a “single rock guy,” changed his tune in that instant.
For the first few months, they embarked on a relationship conducted entirely over the phone while Thomas toured and Maldonado attended college, before finally going on their first date a few months later at a music festival.
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After that date, Thomas said he told everyone “I was going to marry her.”
“I knew the second I kissed her that I would never, ever kiss another person,” he told People.Peplople.
In a 2023 interview with Yahoo, Thomas said they continued to speak on the phone every night for hours, which helped them get to know each other.
According to a 2021 Instagram post, the pair got engaged the same year they met.
“23 years ago today, in 1998, in a rented SUV in the rain, I asked her to marry me,” Thomas wrote alongside a series of throwback pics of the pair.
“I’d carried the ring around with me for a week or so waiting for the right time. Everyone thought we were nuts and rightfully so, considering we had only been dating two months. She said ‘yes’ and we started the year and a half of wedding plans. But I would have married her in that car that night.
“A lot of years have passed now. Good times and heartache. But she is my partner in crime. Thanks, Mari, for saying yes.”
In October 1999, the two married in a small ceremony in California.
Thomas took to Instagram in 2020 to wish his wife a happy anniversary.
“21 years ago. Me and my best friend said forever. There’s been so many curves thrown at us and a lot of ups and downs, but we are still besties and still get each other like no one else. If you get the chance to marry your best friend I recommend it,” he wrote alongside a photo of his wife in her wedding dress.
Thomas told Yahoo in 2016, that while they “pat ourselves on the back every anniversary… at the same time, when we got married, the idea was that we were going to be married as long as we’re alive, so we don’t want to make too big a deal out of it. We were always headed this way, so it’s just about continuing that promise.”
But it had not been all smooth sailing for the couple, with Maldonado suffering a number of serious health conditions, including the tick-borne Lyme disease.
Maldonado, who was once a model who worked in New York City, suffered health problems for a decade but could not find a cause until 2015, when she underwent surgery to remove a lesion from the bone near the base of her brain.
At the time, Thomas told People, “We don’t know what’s gonna happen. We’re just glad the surgery went well.”
He postponed his tour to stay by her side during her recovery.
She was subsequently diagnosed with late-stage neurological Lyme disease, caused by tick-borne Borrelia burgdorferi infection. She was also found to have babesiosis, a parasite infection, and bartonella, a bacterial infection. Together, they are thought to have triggered Hashimoto’s disease, Lupus-like symptoms and atypical trigeminal neuralgia.
In a 2017 interview with Entertainment Tonight, she said the lateness of her Lyme disease diagnosis meant it had been difficult to treat, and the results were devastating.
“It’s like you’re standing still unable to participate as everything keeps going on without you, then you wake up the next day and the same thing happens. I don’t consider what I’m doing living. I’m existing… and fighting to hopefully one day live again,” she said.
Thomas told ET that same year: “This sickness has been like this weird alien that’s moved into our life and inhabited my wife. Sometimes she’s just not herself. Watching the person you’re closest to become someone other than herself is so [hard].”
In a 2019 interview with ABC, Maldonado said Thomas supported her every step of the way, even giving her injections and helping with her therapies.
She said people had “no idea that he was doing all of this six days a week … and he did it and never complained. He’s everything for me.”
Having not had children together, (Thomas has a son, Maison, 25, from a previous relationship), the couple is devoted to their dogs.
In 2003, the pair, both animal lovers, even started a charity together, Sidewalk Angels, which funds animal rescue shelters.
Thomas says his wife has inspired many of Matchbox Twenty’s biggest songs.
In a 2019 interview with Forbes, he said, “Some of the best songs I think I’ve ever written all came out of our relationship,” adding If You’re Gone was written early in their relationship when he was on the road a lot and she was in college, and didn’t know if she wanted to make a commitment to a rock star.
He said it was “kind of a song to get her back.”
Meanwhile, Your Diamonds and Pieces were about her health battles.
She also impacted his career in other ways.
In the Forbes interview, Thomas said, “She runs my career with me and my manager. She’s the first person to hear everything I write. She’s always picked the singles.”
She agreed, saying they created his career together. “Everything that people see, even when he’s on that stage – every haircut, every move, every song – it’s something we created together for the last 20 years. We were on a trajectory and headed somewhere.”
Thomas said in a 2019 interview with ET that he and his wife still enjoy each other’s company.
“The other night, my wife and I were out and we realised that after three or four hours the two of us could just sit alone and bullsh– like you do with any of your friends. We had the same kind of fun on our own that we do if we’re around a whole bunch of our friends.”
In a 2021 interview with Us Weekly, he said there was no big secret to a long-lasting marriage.
“We’re friends. Above everything else, she’s my best friend,” he said. “She’s the one that I like to spend the most time with. If something’s happening and she doesn’t know about it, it doesn’t feel like it’s happening.”
He also said they were “very codependent” – but not in a bad way. “We just rely on each other a lot,” he explained.
Of her health problems, he said, “It’s a lifelong thing that she’s kind of [dealing with]. We’re in the mode of trying to control things more than try and cure them,” adding her condition had taught them to cherish the good times.
“We’ve learned a lot of perspective on those things. When you don’t have as many good days, when you have them, you really appreciate them, and you really know what to do with them. And maybe what would have been a bad day doesn’t seem so bad sometimes. We kind of realised that there’s certain things that we have, and that we’re really lucky.”
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In 2022, Thomas shared an image of his wife to Instagram, noting she hadn’t let him take many photos of her lately because “she hasn’t been feeling great.”
“But I just got this new phone/camera and we have a little window of time in our bedroom that is like the ‘magic hour’ so I was able to talk her into letting me take and post one. She feels not so great but this is #nofilter and just great light,” he captioned the post along with the hashtags #My beauty and #love.
Thomas took to Instagram in October 2023 to wish his wife a happy 24th wedding anniversary, calling her his “ride or die” and adding that he “couldn’t remember a time” when she wasn’t in his life.