The White Stripes—what’s the deal with those two crazy kids? Brother and sister? Boyfriend and girlfriend?
Neither: Jack White and Meg White were married from September 12, 1996, to March 24, 2000. (Jack took Meg’s last name—he was originally Gillis.) The band started while they were still married; their divorce came the same year they released their second album, De Stijl. There’s all sorts of jokes we could make here, but they all inevitably spiral into smarmy insinuations about Jack White sleeping with his sister, so let’s be content with the facts: they are ex-husband and wife.
(Excerpted from the 2006 book Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed, published by Three Rivers Press, written by Gavin Edwards.)