The band told fans some white lies over the years
The White Stripes told some rather unusual white lies about how the band knew each other.
The American rock band was formed in Michigan in 1997 and made up of Jack White and Meg White.
They had a somewhat unusual aura about them back in their heyday in the early 2000s, made all the more mysterious with their strict matching aesthetic of red and white.
Everyone believed the Detroit duo were cut from the same cloth, and so it all made sense when the band ‘confirmed’ they were actually siblings.
There were some suspicions, however, that the Whites not only had a romance but had tied the knot – and divorced already before shooting to stardom.
The pair lied for years that they were related (Dimitri Hakke/Redferns)
Frontman and guitarist, Jack, slammed the ‘rumor’ in an interview with NME, saying: “We’re brother and sister. Someone started a rumor about how we used to be married and we played along with it.
“That was a bad idea, we get asked this all the time now.”
Jack would even introduce Meg, who famously played drums for the band, as his ‘big sister’, though some fans and reporters noted they exchanged some ‘intense’ and ‘smouldering’ glances at one another while on stage, which isn’t really what you want to see from two people who say they are blood related.
They were eventually rumbled in 2001 after Detroit Free Press uncovered the pair had actually filed for divorce in 2000, having unearthed Oakland County Circuit Court records… Phew.
It also transpired that the frontman, born Jack Gillis, had taken a stand against typical tradition by taking on Meg’s last name, White, when they married in 1996.
The White Stripes took to the iconic Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury in 2005 (Jim Dyson/Getty Images)
Still, even after being found out, Jack waved away the debacle, telling the outlet at the time: “Frankly, we’re kind of tired with all the attention on the brother-sister thing. The White Stripes are about the music, and we don’t want that to be lost.”
A year later, reporters apparently didn’t drop the gag as Jack again was forced to set the record straight about the sibling lie to Spin Magazine.
When asked if they regretted saying some of the things they’d told the press, Jack said: “In the end, 20 years from now, the only thing that matters about any band is if the music was good.”
When pressed further about why they still spread the siblings rumor, he replied: “We’ve given up. People can say whatever they want at this point. It never mattered to us. We were never trying to create this.
“We were never trying to be icons or hoping to get attention.”
He went on to hint the discovered marriage certificate wasn’t authentic and that the rumor spiralled simply because ‘America loves gossip’.
Jack White still hasn’t given up the gag (Jo Hale/Getty Images)
“I didn’t see any signature on that certificate. It certainly didn’t look real to me,” he joked. “If people don’t want to believe that Meg is my sister, that’s fine.”
He added: “If we had wanted to fool people, we would have come up with a story a lot crazier than this.”
Jack, now 49, first met his ‘shy’ ex-wife when she worked at the Memphis Smoke restaurant where he performed poetry on open mic nights, reports Metro.
Throughout their career, the ‘Seven Nation Army’ hitmakers released six studio albums and bagged several awards, including six Grammys, one of which went to the 2003 record for Best Rock Song.
The band would then go on to headline the UK’s biggest and most iconic festival, Glastonbury, in 2005 and before a brief hiatus between 2007 to 2011 with sporadic shows turned into going their separate ways.