Keith Richards Shares Wedding Photo to Celebrate 40-Year Anniversary with Patti Hansen: 'I Love You'

The connection between Keith Richards and his wife Patti Hansen is stronger than ever.

The Rolling Stones' lead guitarist and songwriter, who also celebrated his 80th birthday on Monday, took to Instagram to commemorate his 40th wedding anniversary with a photo of them cutting a celebratory cake following their nuptials.

"For Patricia, Happy 40th Anniversary! I love you. Keith🖤," Richards captioned the post, which saw him wearing a tuxedo alongside the model and actress, 67, who sported a satin, short-sleeve wedding dress against a backdrop of the ocean.

Richards and Hansen have been together since 1979. The pair initially met at Studio 54 on Hansen's 23rd birthday. Nine months later, Mick Jagger's then-girlfriend Jerry Hall invited Hansen to Keith's 36th birthday, and they began dating.

During the course of their relationship, Richards would creatively express his feelings for Hansen.

"Keith was constantly making me mixtapes, and he would do beautiful drawings on them. That was his method of communication," Hansen told Harper's Bazaar in November 2011. "I have everything in boxes. Thousands of those tapes. I've saved everything."

He also made collages with photos and notes written in his blood. "It looks disgusting when it dries, but he loves the color red," she added.

In Richards' autobiography Life, he excerpted a 1980 journal entry about meeting her. "Incredibly I've found a woman. A miracle! She is the most beautiful … specimen in the WORLD," he wrote. "But that ain't it! It certainly helps but it's her mind, her joy of life, and she thinks this battered junkie is the guy she loves."

In December 2022, the pair celebrated their 39th wedding anniversary (and Richards' 79th birthday) by recreating the kiss they shared at their nuptials in 1983, with Hansen sporting the same dress from their wedding.

Hansen reflected on how she and her husband have made their relationship last in a 2010 interview with Vogue.

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"Any marriage, Rolling Stone or not, there's definitely going to be some rocky mountains there," she said. "We have had our trials; that's for sure. But on the whole, it's great. We both have the same morals and background. We both come from working-class families. I think we are very similar in many ways."

Richards and Hansen share two children together, Theodora Richards and Alexandra Richards.

Keith also has three kids with model Anita Pallenberg: sons Marlon Leon Sundeep Richards, 54, Dandelion Angela Richards, 51, and Tara Jo Jo Gunne Richards, who died of sudden infant death syndrome two months after birth.