Tom Jones and Marjorie Wallace: The Affair That Cost Miss World Her Crown
What once looked like a simple photo of a couple on vacation hides one of the most talked-about celebrity scandals of the 1970s. Behind the smiles were singer Tom Jones and beauty queen Marjorie Wallace — whose brief romance sparked controversy around the world.
At the height of his fame in the 1960s and ’70s, Jones had a reputation as one of music’s biggest womanizers. The Welsh superstar later admitted he slept with hundreds of women during his touring years, despite being married to his childhood sweetheart for nearly six decades.
Wallace, meanwhile, had just made history in 1973 by becoming the first American to win the Miss World title at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
The two met backstage at the London Palladium later that year and quickly began a secret relationship. Their romance became public in 1974 when they were photographed kissing on a beach in Barbados — a scandal that led to Wallace losing her Miss World crown.
The situation grew even more tragic when Wallace’s fiancé, racing driver Peter Revson, died during practice for the 1974 South African Grand Prix.
Soon after the affair ended, Wallace was hospitalized after taking an overdose of sleeping pills, which she later said was not a suicide attempt but the result of exhaustion and emotional stress.
Decades later, Wallace and Jones have reportedly remained on friendly terms — closing the chapter on one of the most dramatic celebrity romances of the 1970s.
