Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty: 'If I hadn't met my wife, I probably would be dead'

Bang Showbiz on Apr 18, 2026

Published in Women

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Creedence Clearwater Revival founder John Fogerty thinks he "probably would be dead" if he had not met his wife.

The 80-year-old rock star was not in a good place with his mental health when he first set eyes on Julie Lebiedzinski while on tour in 1986 because his record company blocked him from having control of the publishing rights of the songs he had penned.

Appearing on the latest episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the Fortunate Son hitmaker admitted: "If I hadn't met her, I probably would be dead. Simple as that. I didn't see any way out. I was really abusing myself, alcohol mostly. I really felt bad inside.

"When you get like that, Joe, you're not really operating on the same plane in the world that all the other people that you see. You walk into a market or something, look around and probably most of the people are normal, whatever we call that.

"But when you're really hurting inside for whatever reason, in my case, something really unjust had been done to me. But however you get there, and then you start abusing yourself with drugs, alcohol, whatever. It just becomes a habit. You become kind of a pathetic person, sad, certainly.

"So that was the deal. When Julie met me, I was that guy."

When John met his soulmate, the star thought he was in "perpetual binge mode", fueled by a state of "anger but bitterness too".

The Bad Moon Rising performer added: "Almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy where you look for something to go wrong, and then it goes wrong. And you go, 'See, I told ya.'

"It's a terrible mental place to be, and I was there."

But Julie helped John find "the joy of life" again.

The Proud Mary singer recalled: "One day, I just suddenly met Julie, not expecting to meet the love of my life, the person that I feel that I was destined to meet and the person that would, through her good graces, help me find myself, and help me enjoy and find the joy of life again.

"And it all changed."

In 1991, Julie and John got married in Bristol, Indiana, and they have four children - sons Shane and Tyler, as well as daughters Lyndsay and Kelsy.