Neil Diamond’s 4 Children: All About Marjorie, Elyn, Jesse and Micah
Get to know Neil Diamond’s four kids: Marjorie, Elyn, Jesse and Micah
Neil Diamond keeps his personal life private, especially when it comes to his four children: Marjorie, Elyn, Jesse and Micah.
He shares daughters Marjorie and Elyn with his high school sweetheart and first wife, Jayne Posner, though their marriage ended in 1969. He then welcomed sons Jesse and Micah with his second wife, Marcia Murphey, whom he was married to for 25 years before their divorce in 1994.
The “Sweet Caroline” singer has shared how his career and strenuous touring schedule put a strain on his home life, including with his marriage and children.
“There were always tears. The kids cried, my wives cried, I cried,” Neil told 60 Minutes Australia in February 2020. “Somehow, they don’t remember that so much. But I walk around with a sense of guilt still because I left them more than I should have, but the work required it. It was that simple.”
To this day, Neil remains protective of his personal life. In April 1982, the singer got candid about his approach to parenting as a celebrity, telling PEOPLE, “The best thing I can do for my kids is give them a normal life, be supportive and let them find their own way.”
Julia Waters, who was one of Neil’s backup singers on his 50 Year Anniversary World Tour in 2017 and 2018, told PEOPLE, “He loves family, so our whole organization is like a big family.” This familial bond included Marjorie, Elyn, Jesse and Micah, who often cheer on their father at his shows with his third wife, Katie McNeil, whom he married in 2012.
Neil is also the proud grandfather to eight grandchildren, who range from school-age kids to young adults.
Read on to learn more about Neil Diamond’s four children: Marjorie, Elyn, Jesse and Micah.
Marjorie Diamond, 58
Neil and Posner welcomed their first child, daughter Marjorie Diamond, in 1965. Following her parents’ split, Marjorie and her younger sister Elyn lived in New York with their mother, while Neil moved to California, where he met his second wife. Marjorie and Elyn then moved to New Jersey after their mother remarried.
The Grammy-winning musician credits his eldest child for coming up with the title “Beautiful Noise,” one of his most popular songs and later the title of the jukebox musical based on his life.
During an interview with the U.K.’s TV-am in 1992, Neil recalled the evening she inspired him. “I was with my daughters in New York City staying in a hotel, and we were all drawing in one of the rooms, drawing pictures, and outside the window was a parade,” he said.
“We were looking at the parade and all the noise coming up from the parade to the hotel room,” he continued. “And Marjorie, my eldest daughter, said, ‘Daddy, what a beautiful noise!’ And I said, ‘Marjorie, tonight, we’re going to write a song called ‘Beautiful Noise.’ It just struck me as something only a child could think of, and that night I wrote ‘Beautiful Noise’ from beginning to end.”
Neil called the moment “kismet” and shared that his daughters even sang with him that night. Marjorie and Elyn’s voices are on a home demo of “Beautiful Noise,” which was featured in his 1996 anthology album In My Lifetime.
As an adult, Marjorie has lived in N.Y.C. She has at least one son named Alexander, Neil’s first grandchild, who was born in 1995. “I love being a granddad,” Neil told PEOPLE in 1996. “It’s one of those perks where you don’t have to do anything but let your chest swell.”
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