Meet Bob Dylan’s Six Children: Maria, Jesse, Anna, Sam, Jakob, and Desiree, One of Whom Became a Musician

The Gist

• Bob Dylan shares five children with his first wife, Sara Lownds: Maria, Jesse, Anna, Sam, and Jakob.

• He shares one child, Desiree, with his second wife, Carolyn Dennis.

• While Jesse became a successful director and Jakob pursued a music career, most of Dylan's kids stay out of the spotlight.

In addition to singing and writing Grammy-Award winning hits, Bob Dylan welcomed six children throughout the course of his lengthy career.

The "Blowin' in the Wind" singer shares five kids – Maria, Jesse, Anna, Sam, and Jakob– with his first wife, Sara Lownds. He shares one daughter, Desiree, with his second wife, Carolyn Dennis.

After marrying Sara in 1965, Dylan soon became a father after adopting her daughter, Maria, from her previous marriage. Throughout their relationship, the couple welcomed four more children before divorcing in 1977. The "Like A Rolling Stone" singer quietly married his former backup singer Carolyn Dennis in 1986, four months after the birth of their sixth child, Desiree. Dylan and Dennis kept their marriage and daughter private for the six years that they were together before ultimately splitting in 1992.  

"Bob and I made a choice to keep our marriage a private matter for a simple reason — to give our daughter a normal childhood," Carolyn said in a statement in 2001, per ABC News . "Bob has been a wonderful, active father to Desiree," she added.

Bob wrote about fatherhood in his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One , saying family was essential in his life. "Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on," he wrote. "Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me."

In 1985, Dylan was quoted in one of the notes included in the album Biograph as saying that he wrote "Forever Young" while he was "thinking about" one of his sons. Written in the style of a lullaby, the opening line of the song is: "May God bless and keep you always / May your wishes all come true." 

Despite growing up with a famous parent, his children have said that Bob was actively involved in their childhood. In 2024, Jakob told The Boston Globe that he had a pretty normal upbringing.

"I mean, I was aware that it wasn't the same as the next person," he said. "But your reality is whatever it is. I can't say it's weird, because I haven't walked in anybody else's shoes."

Here's everything you should know about Bob Dylan's six kids: Maria, Jesse, Anna, Sam, Jakob, and Desiree.

Maria Dylan Himmelman

Sara Lownds, Bob's first wife, and her then-husband, Hans Lownds, welcomed their daughter Maria on October 21, 1961. Bob adopted Maria after marrying Sara in 1965, when Maria was four years old, per People .

Maria is a writer, poet, and author of " Sundry Abductions ," her first poetry collection. Her poems have been published in Plume , the New Ohio Review , Image Journal , Grist , DIAGRAM , and more. 

In 1988, she married singer-songwriter Peter Himmelman. Himmelman told Aish.com they were introduced by a mutual friend of Bob's and his, writer Louie Kemp. The couple now share four children together. 

Maria is a private person, shying away from public interviews and only sharing glimpses of her life through her poetry. In 2014, Himmelman told Tablet Magazine : "She has absolutely no desire [whatsoever] to be in the public eye. In almost 26 years, she never said one word, to anyone, on the record."

Currently, Maria and her family split their time between Hudson Valley, New York, and Los Angeles , California. 

Jesse Byron Dylan

A year after Bob's marriage to Sara began, the couple welcomed their second-oldest, Jesse, in New York City on January 6, 1966. 

Bob took a bit of a break from his music after Jesse's birth, keeping his high-profile career and his family life separate for a while. "It was a gradual sort of realisation because he's very normal. None of that came home with him," Jesse told The Times.  But not for too long, because Jesse accompanied his father on his Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975-76. "My dad's great, he's a totally kind, wonderful man. He's been nothing but supportive to me and my brothers and sisters," Jesse added.

After studying film at New York University and graduating, Jesse became a filmmaker and director, working on commercials, music videos, and feature films. He's worked with artists like Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, and The Wallflowers, his younger brother Jakob's band. He directed various comedy movies from the early 2000s, like American Wedding (2003) and Kicking & Screaming (2005) starring Will Ferrell. He also directed the Emmy Award-winning music video for will.i.am's "Yes We Can."

In 2019, he released Soros , a documentary about businessman and philanthropist George Soros. He is also the founder and CEO of Wondros , a creative agency that aims to solve "complex communications challenges," and co-hosts its leading podcast . 

Jesse lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife, actress Susan Taylor, and their children, Pablo Dylan and Feury Mae Beatrice Dylan. 

Anna Dylan

A year after Jesse was born, Sara and Bob welcomed their daughter Anna Dylan on July 11, 1967. In sharp contrast to her brother's public career and similar to her sister's privacy, Anna has chosen to remain far away from the public eye. With no social media accounts or media interviews, we have little to no information on Anna. 

Sam Dylan

On July 30, 1968, Sara and Bob welcomed their second-oldest son, Sam Dylan. 

Sam is married to Stacy Dylan, and they share two children, Jonah and Lowell. The couple first met while they were students at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, around 1988, according to Stacy's Instagram post . "I mean he's not a social media person, […] we've been together forever, [...] and still here we are," the caption reads. 

Stacy is active on social media and shares information and resources on Crohn's disease, after Lowell, their younger son, was diagnosed with it as a young child. This inspired her to create her nonprofit, Connecting to Cure Crohn's and Colitis .

Sam, Sarah, and their two kids live in Los Angeles, California. 

Jakob Luke Dylan

Bob's youngest son, Jakob Luke Dylan, was born in New York City on December 9, 1969. He had a relatively normal childhood, as he told the Los Angeles Times : "I know people have this image of how rough it is growing up in a famous family. But it really didn't seem that big a deal at the time. I had friends. I had a home. I had a family." 

Jakob has previously spoken about how active Bob was in his childhood. "When I was a kid, he was a god to me for all the right reasons," he told The New York Times in 2005. "He never missed a single Little League game I had. He's collected every home run ball I ever hit. And he's still affectionate to me."

The only one of Bob's children to follow the musical path , Jakob is the lead singer and songwriter for the Grammy-award-winning band The Wallflowers. "In the back of my mind, I always knew I was going to end up gravitating to songwriting," he told The Washington Post . 

The group released its debut album in 1992, but it hit cult status with its 1996 album, Bringing Down the Horse . In 1998, The Wallflowers won two Grammy awards for best rock performance and best rock song during the same ceremony where Bob gave his classic performance for "Love Sick." 

"I'm proud of his accomplishments. He's still young, and he's come a long way in a short time," Bob told USA Today in 1997, per People . "He's still young, and he's come a long way in a short time."

Along with being a proud parent, Dylan also expressed his concerns about Jakob following in his footsteps. "I worried about him when he started out," Bob continued. "I just didn't want to see him get roughed up. This business can throw you into deep water."

In 2021, The Wallflowers made their comeback after a hiatus of nearly a decade. "[The Wallflowers are] always going to be my thing and I'll always be the center of it," he told USA Today .  "Each time I go back, some people will make sense for it and some won't. It's a continuing evolution."

In 1992, Jakob married his wife, screenwriter Paige Dylan. The couple shares four children. "I'm a father, so it's in all my songs," he told The Washington Post in 2021. "My songs encompass whoever I am. I've been a father for a long time, so that's in my mind."

Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan

Sixteen years after Jakob's birth, Bob's youngest child, Desiree Gabrielle "Desi" Dennis-Dylan, was born on January 31, 1986. This is Bob's only child with his second wife, singer and Bob's former backup vocalist, Carolyn Dennis. 

The couple kept their relationship and daughter private until 2001, when Howard Sounes' biography of Bob, Down the Highway, was released. According to ABC News , after the book's publication, Carolyn made a statement to correct various points made by the author, specifically about Desi, their family, and Bob's treatment of her. 

"To portray Bob as 'hiding his daughter' is just malicious and ridiculous," the statement read. "That is something he would never do. Bob has been a wonderful, active father to Desiree."

Desi is a performer and actor. According to the Groundlings Theatre , she has shared the stage with the likes of Chaka Khan, Michael Crawford, Rosalind Cash, and Dick Van Dyke. She also has her share of TV roles, such as on Modern Family , Good Girls , NCIS , and more.

Desi has made public tributes to Bob on her Instagram for Father's Day and his birthday. "He's my favorite writer, one of my favorite storytellers (he and my mom are tied for first place), my favorite person to make laugh, one of the most brilliant yet most humble men I've ever known and this world is quite lucky to have him," she wrote on Bob's 80th birthday in 2021.

Read the original article on InStyle