Stephen Hawking's Ex-Wife Married This Musician After They Divorced

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At the tender age of 21, Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with ALS. Also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease, the incurable, crippling condition manifests in the progressive loss of muscle control and motor skills and is ultimately fatal. Receiving the devastating diagnosis in 1963, the budding physicist and Oxford student was given just two years to live. Yet, instead of seeing his life come to a swift end, he embarked on married life with his college sweetheart, Jane Wilde, who remained his devoted wife and caregiver for 30 years.

During his extraordinarily long life – which came to an end 55 years after his diagnosis at the age of 76 – Stephen Hawking had two marriages. After separating from Jane Hawking in 1990 and divorcing her in 1995, he married his nurse, Elaine Mason. Following decades of caring for her disabled spouse, Jane Hawking also remarried, tying the knot with musician Jonathan Hellyer Jones in 1997. 

The truth about Stephen Hawking's ex-wife is that she was a devoted spouse and mother to their three children, caring for her family was a 24/7 job. After detailing her struggles in her memoir "Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen" — which was later adapted to a major motion picture, "The Theory of Everything" — she told The Guardian, "I had two tiny babies, I was running the home and looking after Stephen full time: dressing, bathing, and he refused to have any help with that other than from me."

According to The Guardian, in 1977, Jane Hawking was encouraged by a friend to join a church choir as an outlet to relieve some of the stress of being a constant caregiver. It was then that she met choirmaster and organist Jonathan Hellyer Jones, who was recently widowed. Though the pair wouldn't marry for another 20 years, they shared a platonic relationship during Jane's marriage to Stephen. 

After they wed, Jane reflected that being the wife of a musician was significantly different than being the wife of a physicist, because music connected them rather than divided them. After graduating from St. John's College in 1973, Hellyer Jones taught instrument and music theory classes at notable institutions in Cambridge such as the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before becoming the Head of Music at Magdalene College. While thriving as a music professional, Jonathan became an enduring presence in Jane's life as she continued to care for Stephen. 

As depicted in both Jane's memoir and the film it inspired, even before they married, Jonathan helped Jane take care of Stephen and the children. "What brought us together was loneliness," Jane told The Guardian in 2015, "We were both very lonely people, and then we found one another ... I've been able to lean on Jonathan — we can lean on one another." She also reflected, "I don't think of my life as having two marriages, I think of it as a continuum ... We all lived in such harmony, and for so long."

Despite the dissolution of her marriage to Stephen, the pair remained friends and co-parents in the years that followed. Moving into a Cambridge home with Jonathan just down the road from Stephen, Jane would regularly pay him visits. In 2014, the former couple shared a touching reunion at the London premiere of "The Theory of Everything," the Academy Award-winning biopic portraying the story of their 30-year union and the years that followed. In 2015, Jonathan posed alongside Jane and Stephen on the red carpet at the EE British Academy Film Awards, showing his continued support for their relationship.

After Stephen Hawking's death in 2018, Jane released a statement with her children, saying, "He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years." Standing steadfastly by her side, Jones accompanied Jane to the memorial service at Westminster Abbey as she said a tearful goodbye to her first husband.