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From Ghostbusters to Lost in Translation and beyond, Bill Murray has been enormously successful and highly versatile as an actor. But despite having 6 sons across two marriages, both of the unions ended in divorce — and the 71-year-old actor has never remarried since he split from second wife Jennifer Butler back in 2008. With recent allegations of inappropriate behavior against him, many are curious about Bill’s personal life. Learn everything there is to know about Bill’s marriages to, and divorces from, Margaret Kelly and Jennifer Butler below.
Margaret Kelly
Bill married Margaret “Mickey” Kelley in Las Vegas on January 25,1981, then had a second ceremony for their families in Chicago. “I thought he was trying to drive me insane,” Mickey told Rolling Stone of the night they eloped. The couple had two sons together, Homer, 40, now a well-known Brooklyn restaurateur, and Luke, an assistant coach for University of Louisville’s men’s basketball, 37. But by 1996 the relationship had run its course, and amid rumors of an affair with costume designer Jennifer Butler, they divorced.
Still, Margaret, who reportedly met Bill on the set of his movie Stripes, saw the actor though many of his most visible successes, including Ghostbusters 1 and 2, Ed Wood, Tootsie, Scrooged, What About Bob, and Groundhog Day. Bill’s marriage to Margaret has flown under the radar, but he did give a hint of insight as to why it didn’t work out in a radio interview.
“Not to diminish a relationship with a woman … I can’t take on another relationship if I’m not taking care of the things I really need to take care of the most,” he told Howard Stern in a 2014 radio appearance. “It’s not a selfish thing … it’s sort of an obligation.”
Shortly after his divorce from Margaret, Bill married costume designer Jennifer Butler, who is known for her work on films like Groundhog Day, Firestarter, and Last of the Mohicans. The 1997 wedding was the start of something big — Bill and Jennifer would ultimately have four sons together and last over a decade before finally divorcing in 2008. Unfortunately, however, Bill and Jennifer’s entanglement wasn’t so easily untangled, and the parents of Caleb, 27, Jackson, 25, Cooper, 24, and Lincoln, 20, publicly butted heads.
By the time it was all said and done, Jennifer accused Bill of domestic violence, sex, marijuana, and alcohol addictions, and infidelity. She filed for divorce from him and obtained a finalized judgment in June of 2008. Sadly, Jennifer died on January 19, 2021 and a cause of death was never released. “Those that knew her will remember an extraordinarily kind and generous person, a woman of principle, an absolute spitfire and a fiercely loyal mother,” her obituary read.