NEED TO KNOW
Rocker Paul Stanley is celebrating two decades of bliss with wife Erin Sutton Stanley.
The KISS star, 73, marked his 20th anniversary with Erin by posting a photo to Facebook on Thursday, Nov. 27 that showed the pair dressed to the nines.
“Erin And I Just Celebrated Our 20th Wedding Anniversary. The best 24 years of my life have been with her at my side. I am truly blessed beyond all hopes or expectations,” Stanley captioned the post.
The musician’s photo appeared to be taken in a photo booth, and featured a watermark that read, “Erin & Paul 20 Years!,” suggesting the couple celebrated with a party.
Stanley and Erin, an attorney, married in 2005 after four years of dating. They are parents to son Colin, 19, and daughters Sarah, 16, and Emily, 14. Stanley is also dad to son Evan, 31, from his first marriage to Pamela Bowen.
The pair first met at a restaurant while Stanley was out to dinner with a friend, he told PEOPLE in 2021.
“At the next table were a bunch of women I knew. I was sitting at this table and in came this woman in the restaurant,” he recalled. “I just looked at her, and I was captivated, not in the way where I want to go home with her and end up with her or anything like that. It was, ‘I want to talk to this woman.’ I was compelled.”
The next day, he called her and invited to have dinner at his house. Stanley said they had a “terrific, terrific time,” and he knew then that he wanted to pursue her.
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“I wasn’t at a point where I wanted to give up any possible options, but this was something to really put time and care into,” he said. “Over time, Erin always showed me consistency and selflessness, but she didn’t give up any sense of her own worth. She never compromised who she was, but she was secure enough to reach out to me the times that I needed it, and it went on for years. At one point I just thought, ‘I can’t imagine my life without her.’”
Stanley also opened up about his “wonderful family” in a June interview on Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast, saying that it took some time for him to get to a happy place after a difficult childhood.
“I’ve got a fantastic wife who has been with me when things were rough in the beginning, and that’s really when you get to know who you’re with, is when things are rough. That’s how you find out who somebody is,” he said. “My children are just a blessing. I think just speaking for yourself, you heal by raising children because you get to do right what you think was done wrong to you.”
Stanley celebrated the couple’s 19th wedding anniversary last year by writing that “one lifetime will never be enough” with his bride.
