On this day: Jack and Meg White get married, confuse everyone

On this day in 1996, Jack and Meg White get married, setting off a chain of events that will keep everyone confused for years to come.

When budding musician Jack Gillis was in his final year of high school, he happened to run into Meg White, with the pair becoming instant friends. Over the next couple of years, the pair would find themselves sharing a number of interests, and eventually began to date.

This courtship would last a couple of years until, on September 12th, 1996, the pair married in a ceremony in Detroit, which saw Jack Gillis take Meg White’s last name in a reversal of tradition.

The following year, the pair began performing together as The White Stripes. However, to keep people from invading their private lives, they referred to each other as brother and sister, and chose only to be interviewed as a couple.

For the next few years, the duo managed to keep up this cover story, until a journalist managed to uncover the pair’s marriage license in 2001 – one year after they had eventually divorced. Despite the truth being revealed, Jack White continued to refer to Meg as his sister in further interviews.

“When you see a band that is two pieces, husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, you think, ‘Oh, I see…’,” he explained to Rolling Stone in 2005. “When they’re brother and sister, you go, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ You care more about the music, not the relationship—whether they’re trying to save their relationship by being in a band.”

Check out The White Stripes’ ‘We’re Going To Be Friends’:

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