Personal Life
Parfitt had a relationship with his childhood sweetheart Patty after meeting her in 1968. After the pair split up, Parfitt married Marietta Boeker, and they had a son, Richard (born 1974), and a daughter, Heidi Marie Elizabeth Parfitt, who drowned in the family pool at the age of 2. Parfitt and Marietta divorced, and he married Patty – they had a son, Harry (born 1989). They also divorced, before Parfitt reunited with Patty in 2000. The couple lived in a £1 million mansion in Teddington, but after paying out more than £3 million in divorce settlements, Parfitt vowed in 2005 that he would never marry again. However, in August 2006, after meeting 46 year old fitness instructor Lyndsay Whitburn, they married in a £40 ceremony in Gibraltar. On 26 May 2008, Lyndsay gave birth to twins - a boy named Tommy Oswald Parfitt, and a girl named Lily Rose Parfitt.
Parfitt had a quadruple heart bypass in 1997. In December 2005 he underwent tests for suspected throat cancer, but just before Christmas that year, the tests found the growths to be benign.
Parfitt was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours 2010 along with his bandmate Francis Rossi.
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Famous quotes containing the words personal life, personal and/or life:
“The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people. To “see the light” too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.”
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