The younger brother of the trio who made up the famous pop group, Bee Wees, Andy Gibb drew his own separate success story, but it all became chaotic and came to a messy end when the singer-songwriter’s struggle with drug addiction and depression led to his tragic death at the age of 30. But his legacy remains and so does his only daughter who never got to meet her father.
Almost all of Gibb’s romantic relationships grew tumultuous and eventually ended due to his drug addiction. His high-profile romance with actress and singer Marie Osmond reached a heartbreaking conclusion when she, unable to watch Gibb destroying himself, chose to end things and had to take legal action to break off the relationship completely after the “Shadow Dancing” singer kept calling her continuously, as revealed by author Bob Stanley in his book The Story of the Bee Gees: Children of the World.
His next relationship, with actress Victoria Principal, met a similar end when she asked him to choose between her and the drugs. But long before his addiction caused a strain in his famous relationships, alienated him from his family, bandmates, and harmed his voice as well, it ensured that his only daughter would only get to see her father on a small TV screen.
Andy Gibb got married at the age of 19 to girlfriend Kim Reeder
In 1976, Gibb married 18-year-old receptionist Kim Reeder, his girlfriend at the time, at the age of 19 in Sydney. But he wasn’t just in love, he was also battling the notion of being the younger sibling of famous brothers and always doubted his capabilities, thinking that his early success was nothing but courtesy of his last name.
The couple moved to West Hollywood for the sake of Gibb’s career and as recalled by Reeder in a chat with People back in 1988, her husband stopped being the man she fell in love with.
“All of a sudden Andy wanted to go to the mountains by himself. He became ensconced in the drug scene. Cocaine became his first love. He became depressed and paranoid. He wasn’t the man I married.”
After Reeder became pregnant in 1977, the two split up and she returned to Australia, where Peta took birth in early 1978. But by the end of the year, the couple had divorced. Kim and her daughter met Gibb once last time, in 1980 — not that the then-2-year-old Peta Gibb would remember — in Los Angeles, where the latter left his ex-wife with a gold bracelet inscribed, “With all my love—A.G.”
This was the last time Peta saw her father in person. As shared by Peta — who is 46, married, and has two sons — in an interview with news.com.au, she never got to know her father, who was “just a guy on the end of the telephone line.” The only thing she knew about Gibb was the fact that he was famous and had famous siblings.
“I remember mum calling me into a room once, pointing at Solid Gold on the TV and saying, ‘That’s your dad.’ I always wished we had a more of a chance to get to know each other. I wanted to be close to him, like any daughter wants with her father. But outside forces conspired against us.”
Though Peta never got to have a father-daughter relationship with Gibb (who died when she was 10), she still celebrates his legacy. While she loves singing, by profession she is a high school teacher “who coordinates programs for disengaged and low-literacy students who are struggling to stay in school.” But when her uncle’s daughter reached out to her with the offer to join The Gibb Collective and sing with her cousins to honor the legacy of her father and his brothers, she didn’t say no.
