But what has Barry’s life been like behind the curtain? The world-famous performer married TV executive Garry Kief<\/strong> in 2014 after a decades-long romance during which they waited for same-sex marriage to become legal in California. Prior to that, he had a short-lived marriage in the 1960s.<\/p>\n Here’s everything to know about Barry Manilow’s husband and his past marriage to Susan Deixler<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Barry met Garry Kief, the man who would become both his spouse and his manager, in 1978. According to a 2017 interview with People<\/em><\/a>, Barry knew at the outset that the relationship would be serious. “I knew that this was it,” he said at the time. “I was one of the lucky ones. I was pretty lonely before that. \u2026 Garry didn’t know what I did, even though I had all these records out. He was a guy, and I was a guy, so we could just deal with each other like two normal people, not like a superstar and a person.”<\/p>\n They married in April of 2014, in an intimate ceremony at their 53-acre Palm Springs estate, making what he said was already a serious commitment legal. \u201cWe\u2019ve been married all these years,” he told People <\/em>as the relationship became public. “It\u2019s just that it became legal.\u201d\u00a0 And he admitted the experience was “emotional.” “I didn’t think it was going to be that emotional,” he told People<\/em>. “It was deeper than we thought it was going to be, looking at each other, saying, ‘I love you’ in front of people.”<\/p>\n Garry has one daughter, Kirsten,<\/strong> who was just a year old when the couple first met. In a 2017 interview with Michael Cavacini<\/strong>,\u00a0<\/a>Barry opened up about raising a daughter.\u00a0“Garry and I have been together going on 40 years, and we raised a daughter,” he shared. “She turned out to be a great, beautiful girl … Our relationship and my being gay \u2014 I’ve always been a proud gay man. I’ve always been very proud of Garry and I.”<\/p>\n Garry, whom Barry says is “the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life \u2014 and a great guy, too,” is the CEO of Stiletto Entertainment. He’s also worked with Lorna Luft<\/strong> and musician Matt Dusk<\/strong>, among others.<\/p>\n Barry’s first marriage was to his high school sweetheart and Brooklyn native Susan Deixler in 1964. They married by a justice of the peace, followed by a solemnization by a rabbi. At the time, she was 19, and he was 20. According to his 2017 interview with People<\/a><\/em>, Barry admitted that he was in love with her, despite the marriage only lasting one year before it was annulled<\/a> in 1966. \u201cI was in love with Susan,\u201d he told the outlet. \u201cI just was not ready for marriage.\u201d He also said he hadn’t yet begun to struggle with his sexuality when he married her.<\/p>\n \u201cI was out making music every night, sowing my wild oats \u2014 I was too young,” he explained of the brief union, during which they resided in an apartment in Greenwich Village. “I wasn\u2019t ready to settle down.\u201d In his 1987 autobiography Sweet Life,<\/em> Barry called Susan the “perfect wife” and admitted that “Even my friends thought I was rushing into it.”<\/p>\n According to Heavy<\/a>, Susan never remarried after her marriage to Barry ended. She now works to provide in-home care services<\/a> for senior citizens and has two adult children.<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Barry](\"https:\/\/hollywoodlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/GettyImages-2224855789_1a98d7-e1766438940301.jpeg?quality=100&w=1024&resize=1024%2C899\")
Garry Kief<\/h2>\n
Barry’s First Marriage to Susan Deixler<\/h2>\n