Rita Marley, above, claims that her late husband Bob Marley, at left, raped her.
IN AN article, published by the Daily Mirror on March 31, 2004 Rita claims that as punishment for Marley's womanising ways, she refused to have sex with him until he stopped 'playing around'. But Bob would have none of it.
"Bob wouldn't take no for an answer. He said to me, 'No, you're my wife and you're supposed to'. So he forced himself on me and I call that rape. Afterwards I felt so terrible. I screamed at him, 'I hate you, I hate you!'," the article reported Rita as saying. According to Rita, the rape happened after years of Marley's cheating with a stream of women, many of whom bore his children.
SPEAKS CANDIDLY
Up to press time, Rita was not available for an interview with The Gleaner. However she speaks candidly in the Mirror article about her love for Bob and of his degeneration into the ills that fame brought. Rita, in the article, says that despite everything, she still adores him as much as the day they first met in 1965.
"Just because he did these things and cheated on me doesn't mean he was a bad husband. He always provided for me, always gave me anything I wanted. But he was corrupted by show business, by the girls who would throw themselves at him. This is what I've come to understand."
According to the article, Rita, born Alpharita Anderson, met Robert Nesta Marley when she was 18 and he was 19, in the Trench Town ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica. Robbie (Bob) was a shy guitarist with the local rocksteady group the 'Wailing Wailers', who would pass Rita's house every day on their way to the studio.
One day, Rita and her friends stopped the group and performed an impromptu song - Bob was immediately won over. He invited them to sing backing vocals on some tracks they were recording and the pair soon became lovers.
"We were so in love. Bob was so romantic and faithful, and I thought we would always be like that. We'd be rehearsing and looking into each other's eyes and singing, and then we'd put our mouths to each others'. It was magic."
But it appears that the fairytale quickly turned to reality following their 'impulse wedding' in 1966.
