Country legend Loretta Lynn is in fact three years older than was reported everywhere. According to the Washington Post, her birth certificate on file at the State Office of Vital Statistics in Frankfort KY reveals that she was born on April 1932, which makes her 80 and not 77 years old as she had said.
In her 1976 autobiography ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’, Loretta Lynn said she got married at 13 and had already 4 children by the age of 18, but with this new update on her age, we can establish that she was rather 16 when she got married… Why did she do that? Don’t tell me someone can be confused about his or her own age! Lynn’s spokeswoman, Nancy Russell said that the country star had told her to answer ‘If anyone asks how old I am, tell them it’s none of their business!’
Of course, it would not matter that much if her age was not so much part of her dramatic story, lying about her age was a way to make her life even more compelling, although 16 is still such a young age to get married!
George Vecsey, the co-author of her book, said to the Hollywood reporter that he never saw her birth certificate or her marriage license:
‘It's what they told me, I couldn't say that she was the one who told me first. Between her manager (David Skepner) who has passed and her husband who has now passed, it was at least three different people telling me that.’
Still, it was illegal to marry a 13 year-old, even at the time, and this affects the story somehow…. I know people are gonna say, she is old, it’s no big deal… Yes it is no big deal but I still think there was a part of manipulation in all this.