Introduction:
After more than half a century of silence, Temple “Mickey” Medley—better known to many as Mickey Jenkins, the first and only wife of Conway Twitty—has finally broken her quiet. At 82, the woman who once stood beside one of country music’s greatest legends has revealed the deeply emotional truth behind their divorce, their enduring connection, and why she never remarried.
While Conway’s star soared—from rock ’n’ roll heart-throb to country icon—Mickey remained in the wings, largely unknown to the public and seldom mentioned by those around him. But now, in a softly recorded interview released by family friends, her voice carries both the gentleness of memory and the weight of years.
“I never stopped loving him,” she confesses quietly. “But sometimes love just isn’t enough to survive the world that comes with it.”
They married when they were very young—long before “Hello Darlin’”, “It’s Only Make Believe”, or the bright stage lights of Nashville ever defined him. Together they raised four children, built a home from scratch, and endured the lean years when finances were tight and dreams still seemed distant. But as Conway’s career climbed through the 1960s and ’70s, the gap between home and the road widened.
“I used to wait up for him,” she recalls. “Some nights he came home so exhausted he couldn’t speak. Other nights he didn’t come home at all.”
By the late 1970s, the strain became too great. Conway’s fame had transformed him into a figure of myth, while Mickey—devoted mother, loyal partner—found herself fading into the background of his legend. Their divorce, finalized quietly and without fanfare, left her heartbroken yet resolved.
“People always ask why I never remarried,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Because once you’ve loved someone that deeply, you don’t start over. You just keep loving them differently.”
There is no bitterness in her words—only reflection. She speaks with grace about the man the world adored and the husband only she truly knew: gentle, conflicted, driven by music, and haunted by solitude.
“When he sang ‘I’d Love to Lay You Down,’ I knew part of him still longed for home,” she confides. “But the stage became his home. And I had to let him go.”
Now, after all these years, Mickey’s voice completes the missing half of Conway Twitty’s story—the love that shaped him, the heartbreak that enriched his songs, and the quiet devotion that never truly ended.
“He was my first everything,” she says in closing. “And in some ways, he still is.”
For the millions who grew up on his music, her words add a final verse to the song—not about fame or failure, but about a kind of love that outlasts both.