Robin Gibb’s private life read like one of his songs — beautiful, fractured and full of longing. For years he stood in stadium light as one of the Bee Gees; at home he lived with contradictions that tested the limits of marriage, forgiveness and family.
To fans he was a voice of an era. To his wife, Dwina Gibb, he was a complex partner who inspired love as well as sharp pain. He had once framed the life they chose with a line that echoes now:
“It’s what you dream about. I don’t know anything else, and I don’t think I would do anything differently.”
Robin Gibb, singer and songwriter, said this as a confession and a defense of a life built around music and fame.
They married in the mid-1980s and built a life that mixed art, spirituality and a bohemian household where music, poetry and visitors were constant. Dwina, a poet and artist with a deep interest in Druidic practice, became more than a spouse; she was a creative partner and a steady presence in his later struggles.
But the marriage was not a simple portrait. The couple navigated an arrangement they described as permissive. That freedom, Dwina says, held limits she did not expect to be crossed. The revelation that Robin fathered a child with their live-in housekeeper upended everything and left wounds that would not fully heal.
“It hurt. It was the betrayal.”
Dwina Gibb, wife of Robin Gibb, said this recalling the shock of learning about the affair and the child born into the household.
The housekeeper, Clare Yang, had worked in their home for years. Her relationship with Robin began quietly and eventually produced a daughter, Snow. The news landed on the family like a blow. Dwina describes the announcement as being “like a dagger.” Instead of turning the story into a public scandal, she handled much of what followed in private. She chose to remain, to care for Robin, and to manage the emotional fallout with an eye toward family stability.
Robin responded to the situation by making financial provisions for Clare and their daughter and ensuring the child would be included in his will. He maintained ties to his own sons and daughter, and he stayed close to Dwina until his final days. Yet the secret rearranged relationships inside a house that had once felt like a creative sanctuary.
The family home, known to friends as Prebendal House, became a place where creativity and blurred boundaries coexisted. Robin fathered four children across different relationships. He and Dwina raised their son R.J. amid that layered history. R.J. later worked with his father on musical projects and built his own path in music, carrying both the gift and the burden of a famous name.
Illness would bring the couple even closer. Colon and liver cancer took Robin quickly. Dwina became his constant carer. In quiet rooms, with books and records around them, they faced the end together. Dwina recalls a peaceful courage in him.
“He made mistakes, but he was my heart.”
Dwina Gibb, wife and longtime companion, said this as she described why she chose to stay despite betrayals and heartbreak.
Friends and family remember a man who could behave with careless appetite, then turn wholly tender when he held a child or sat down to sing. The affair and its aftermath left scars that shaped how those close to him spoke about him. Yet many insist his failings must be held beside the music and the care he showed at the end.
For older fans who watched the Bee Gees rise, the story complicates a simple idolization. It asks a hard question: can love survive public success, private failings, and the ripple effects of choices made over decades?
The answer, for Dwina and the people in that home, was not neat. She stayed. She forgave enough to keep a household. She mourned him when his voice went quiet and carried forward the music and the memory he left behind, even as new lives — and new loyalties — continued to unfold abruptly