It’s a love that was born in the USA.
Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen and his wife of nearly three decades, Patti Scialfa, grew up in New Jersey, percolating in similar social circles until finally hitting the road together in the early ‘80s for a tour that would live on today as the E Street Band’s best live shows ever. It’s something they could never have predicted—although someone actually did. It’s said that when Springsteen was a busker in Asbury Park, he visited a boardwalk fortune teller named Madame Marie who told him his future was golden. He even wrote a song for her. Because she was right.
Today, Springsteen’s career is still going strong. In June 2021, Springsteen returned to Broadway for his show Springsteen on Broadway, which was the first show to open since New York's theater district shut down in March 2020. Springsteen also has exciting personal news: His daughter, Jessica, was named to the U.S. Olympic equestrian jumping team. She started riding at the age of four on her family's farm in New Jersey, and now is ranked number 3 in the U.S, per NBC.
And according to Springsteen, his wife is an essential part of the life he lives today. "Patti's been at the center of my life for the entire second half of my life and an enormous amount of guidance and inspiration and, you know, I can't overstate it," Springsteen told Gayle King on CBS This Morning.
How did they meet? What is their actual love story? Below, we’re diving into how the “Born to Run” singer learned to stay put with his Patti.
They ran in the same social circles when they were youngsters.
Rolling Stone reported that the two actually grew up only 10 miles away from each other. She was raised on the Jersey Shore and drove a Firebird. He grew up in Long Branch and found fame on the Asbury Park boardwalk. According to Country Living, Scialfa knew Springsteen’s bandmates before she actually met The Boss himself.
![Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - "The Rising" Tour at the Los Angeles Forum, 2002](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/band-1571937556.jpg?crop=1.00xw:0.847xh;0,0.0536xh&resize=980:* "Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - "The Rising" Tour at the Los Angeles Forum, 2002")
They actually met at a bar.
The New York Times pinpoints the pair’s meet-cute at a bar called The Stone Pony. Now known as “that place The Boss made famous in the ‘80s,” it’s located in Asbury Park in Monmouth County, New Jersey. About the first time he remembers seeing Scialfa, Springsteen said, “She came out and played onstage with, it might have been Bobby Bandiera or, I forget which local band was playing. But she came out and played the Exciters’ hit ‘Tell Him,’ and she was very striking right from the beginning.”
Patti was a backup singer in the E Street Band.
With a resume touting Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Springsteen and his E Street Band invited Scialfa on the road as part of their Born in the USA tour. On opening night in 1984, The Boss had some advice for her. “I was wearing some kind of pastel kind of ribbony top,” she said to Rolling Stone, “and Bruce goes, ‘Maybe you should wear something not as pretty.’” And so the flirtation began. Though Springsteen was married to actress Julianne Phillips at the time, nothing could keep these two lovebirds apart. The rest—as they say—is history.
The couple have melted hearts with their passionate duets.
Before they married, the two often performed onstage together during the Born in the USA and Tunnel of Love Express tours. Years later, they’re still setting off sparks on the big stage. See exhibit A below.
They’ve been married for nearly 30 years.
The couple married in 1991. “Patti’s been in love with Bruce for as long as I can remember,” Curtis K. Smith, her Asbury Park High art teacher told People magazine in 1988. “We’d always heard this and that about Patti and Bruce from [her brother] Michael. It wasn’t a big surprise around here when it finally came into the open.”
The pair have three children together.
A year before they married, Scialfa gave birth to Evan James, now 29. In 1991, they had Jessica Rae, 29, and then came Sam Ryan, 27. According to Scialfia, no matter how old her children get, they hate witnessing mom and dad indulge in PDA. “They say, ‘Please don’t do that in front of us,’” she told Rolling Stone. “I said, ‘Hey, you’re going to be happy one day when you look back and know your parents really loved each other.’"
Patti’s helped Bruce through depression.
Last year, Springsteen went public revealing his enduring battle with his own mental health. According to Esquire, depression took a strong hold of him in his 60s. He described it as “an attack of what was called an ‘agitated depression.’ During this period, I was so profoundly uncomfortable in my own skin that I just wanted OUT. It feels dangerous and brings plenty of unwanted thoughts. … Demise and foreboding were all that awaited.”
Springsteen credits Scialfa with helping him to better himself. “By her intelligence and love she showed me that our family was a sign of strength, that we were formidable and could take on and enjoy much of the world,” he wrote in his 2016 memoir, Born to Run.
Western Stars is his love letter to Patti.
Western Stars is The Boss’s 19th studio album and the name of his concert film. Springsteen says the music and message within are his love letter to his wife, who sings onstage in the film with him. “We’re always trying to find somebody whose broken pieces fit with our broken pieces, and something whole emerges,” he says in the film.
Looks like repairs are being made. “I think you can’t have deep experience without error, mistakes, pain. That’s all just a part of human existence. So what does art do and music? Music is—it’s a repair shop. So I’m basically a repairman. And I’m trying to repair myself. If I do that well enough, I will help repair you while I’m doing it,” Springsteen said on CBS.
DeAnna Janes is a freelance writer and editor for a number of sites, including Harper’s BAZAAR, Tasting Table, Fast Company and Brit + Co, and is a passionate supporter of animal causes, copy savant, movie dork and reckless connoisseur of all holidays. A native Texan living in NYC since 2005, Janes has a degree in journalism from Texas A&M and got her start in media at US Weekly before moving on to O Magazine, and eventually becoming the entertainment editor of the once-loved, now-shuttered DailyCandy. She’s based on the Upper West Side.
