Editing Hank Williams (section)

==Personal life==
[[File:Hank and Audrey Williams MGM publicity - Cropped.jpeg|thumb|upright|Williams and his first wife [[Audrey Williams|Audrey Sheppard]] in a publicity photo for [[MGM Records]], c. 1952]]
On December 15, 1944, Williams married [[Audrey Williams|Audrey Sheppard]].<!--She took the surname Williams after her marriage, thus, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography#People_with_the_same_surname, is referred to by name as "Audrey" to distinguish her from "Hank".--> It was her second marriage and his first.{{sfn|Koon, George William|2001|pp=22-24}} Their son, Randall Hank Williams (now known as [[Hank Williams Jr.]]), was born on May 26, 1949.{{sfn|Koon, George William|2001|p=40}} The marriage was always turbulent and rapidly disintegrated,{{sfn|Koon, George William|2001|pp=26, 36-38}} and Williams developed serious problems with alcohol, morphine, and other painkillers prescribed for him to ease the severe back pain caused by his [[spina bifida occulta]].{{sfn|Koon, George William|2001|pp=9-10}} The couple divorced on May 29, 1952.{{sfn|Williams, Roger M.|1981|p=96}}

In June 1952, Williams moved into a house on the corner of Natchez Trace and Westwood Avenue in Nashville, sharing it with singer [[Ray Price (musician)|Ray Price]].{{sfn|Escott, Colin|Merritt, George|MacEwen, William|2009|p=202}}{{sfn|Williams, Roger M.|1981|p=193}} Price left soon after due to Williams's alcoholism.{{sfn|Williams, Roger M.|1981|p=195}} Following an unsuccessful tour of California and several stints in a sanitorium, Williams moved to his mother's boardinghouse by September.{{sfn|Koon, George William|2001|pp=65-67}} A relationship with a woman named Bobbie Jett during this period resulted in a daughter, [[Jett Williams]], who was born five days after Williams died.
His mother adopted Jett, who became a ward of the state after her grandmother's death. She was adopted and raised by an unrelated couple and did not learn that she was Williams's daughter until the early 1980s.{{sfn|Williams, Hilary|Roberts, Mary Beth|p=127|2010}}

On October 18, 1952, Williams and [[Billie Jean Jones]] were married by a justice of the peace in [[Minden, Louisiana]]. The next day, two public marriage ceremonies were held at the New Orleans Civic Auditorium, where 14,000 seats were sold for each.{{sfn|Koon, George William|2001|pp=68–70}} After Williams's death, a judge ruled that the wedding was not legal because Jones' divorce had not become final until 11 days after she married Williams. His first wife and his mother were the driving forces behind having the marriage declared invalid, and they pursued the matter for years.{{sfn|Williams, Roger M.|1981|pp=233–236}}

A man named Lewis Fitzgerald (born 1943) claimed to be Williams's illegitimate son; he was the son of Marie McNeil, Williams's cousin. Fitzgerald was interviewed, and he suggested that Lillie Williams operated a brothel at her boarding house in Montgomery. A friend of the family denied his claims, but singer [[Billy Walker (musician)|Billy Walker]] claimed that Williams mentioned to him the presence of men in the house who were led upstairs.{{sfn|Ribowsky, Mark|2016|p=43}}