Bryan Adams

Bryan Adams has never married. He was in a relationship with Danish model Cecilie Thomsen during the 1990s.

He has two daughters with Alicia Grimaldi, his former personal assistant and the co-founder of the Bryan Adams Foundation. Their daughters are Mirabella Bunny Adams, born in 2011, and Lula Rosylea Adams, born in 2013.

Adams taught himself to play guitar and began pursuing music as a teenager. He became the lead vocalist of the Canadian glam-rock band Sweeney Todd and worked in a recording studio, toured, and recorded for the group’s album If Wishes Were Horses in 1977.

In 1978, Adams met Canadian musician, songwriter, and producer Jim Vallance. Vallance helped him develop the powerful vocal style that became central to his music, and the two formed a songwriting partnership that continued for decades. Adams signed with A&M Records at 18 and released his self-titled debut album in 1980.

His first two albums, Bryan Adams and You Want It, You Got It, received a lukewarm response. His breakthrough came with Cuts Like a Knife in 1983, whose singles “Straight from the Heart,” “Cuts Like a Knife,” and “This Time” reached the upper part of the charts. He also opened for Journey during the American leg of the band’s 1983 tour.

Adams became an international star with Reckless in 1984. The album included “Summer of ’69,” “Heaven,” and “Run to You,” and is regarded as one of the defining albums of his 1980s career.

His 1991 album Waking Up the Neighbours featured “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” written for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The song earned Adams a Grammy Award and nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. It spent 16 consecutive weeks at number one in the United Kingdom.

Adams also recorded “All for Love” with Rod Stewart and Sting for The Three Musketeers, “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” for Don Juan DeMarco, and “I Finally Found Someone” with Barbra Streisand for The Mirror Has Two Faces. Adams and Vallance wrote the score for Pretty Woman: The Musical, which premiered in Chicago in 2018 and later moved to Broadway and London’s West End.

Adams developed a second career as a photographer, working on fashion and advertising campaigns and contributing to publications including British Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, British GQ, Esquire, and Interview. He also photographed album covers for Amy Winehouse, Status Quo, and Annie Lennox.

His photographic books include Wounded, published with journalist Caroline Froggatt in 2013, and Untitled, a collection of abstract images published in 2016. His exhibition Remember These Soldiers and the Consequences of War presented photographs of British servicemen wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2015, he received an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in London.

Adams has supported animal rights, education, and disaster-relief efforts through concerts and charity work. He founded the Bryan Adams Foundation, and his contributions to music and philanthropy have been recognized with the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia.