Inside Kris Kristofferson’s turbulent romance with Janis Joplin: Musicians dated in a passionate union months before she overdosed at 27 – and she left him a gift he ‘never got over’

Songwriter Kris Kristofferson, who passed away this weekend aged 88, is honoured for decades-worth of accolades in the music world – and one of his hits had sparked a short-lived, yet passionate romance with the late singer Janis Joplin.

The duo, who first met in the spring of 1970, were said to have fallen fast for one another – and it was him who urged the blues star to record a cover of her posthumous hit, Me and Bobby McGee – which he had written.

Tragically, Janis died in the October of that year, leaving Kris unable to listen to the romantic track he encouraged her to sing without breaking down.

It was a mutual friend – folk performer Bobby Neuwirth – that initially brought them together.

Speaking to the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum in 2004, Kris said: ‘I was reading a review of a show Janis had done in Nashville… and she had sung Me and Bobby McGee. And I had no idea how she knew it.

Songwriter Kris Kristofferson, who passed away this weekend aged 88, is honoured for decades-worth of accolades in the music world – and one of his hits had sparked a short-lived, yet passionate romance with the late singer Janis Joplin. Both pictured in 1970

‘And I had met Bobby Neuwirth there. Bobby had taught that song to Janis and that’s why there were a couple lines that were different from the real one.

‘We got to staying up all night with all these different people that were in New York at the time and he was gonna introduce me to Joan Baez and Janis.

‘Anyway we went out there and I never did get anywhere but to Janis’s. Bobby introduced me and we hit it off. Spent about a month up there living in her house.’

As reported by Far Out, Kris ‘dug her, but had itchy feet’.

‘I’d get up intending to get out, and in she comes with the early morning drinks and pretty soon you’re wasted enough and you don’t care about leaving,’ he recalled. 

The outlet revealed that both also bonded over being from Texas.

However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the pair, and it’s clear there were tensions when Kris and Bobby were staying at Janis’s place in Larkspur, California.

According to Janis Joplin.net, Kris recounted: ‘She’d definitely let ya know when she was being abused, and she thought so a lot.

As reported by Far Out , Kris ‘dug her, but had itchy feet’. ‘I’d get up intending to get out, and in she comes with the early morning drinks and pretty soon you’re wasted enough and you don’t care about leaving,’ he recalled

It was only after her passing that Kris had realised she’d sung his song and put it on her upcoming record – which left him overwhelmed with emotions. Kris and Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born

The duo, who first met in the spring of 1970, were said to have fallen fast for one another – and it was him who urged the blues star to record a cover of her posthumous hit, Me and Bobby McGee – which he had written. Janis in 1968

Tragically, Janis died in the October of that year, leaving Kris unable to listen to the romantic track he encouraged her to sing without breaking down. Kris in 2017

‘She was always jangling around talking about how everybody was living off of her, but she had people she’d bring into the house and then she’d b***h because she was giving them bed and board.’

Elsewhere, in the month before her tragic death Janis reportedly ‘threatened’ Kris with drug use, stating: ‘If it doesn’t get any better… I’m gonna go back on junk.’

She was also allegedly often talking about suicide, which made Kris ‘very upset’ – but Janis simply retorted: ‘You won’t be around. None of ’em will be.’

However, it’s clear that the pair had a lot of fun together as well. 

Kris told Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum that while the couple were ‘more like brother and sister by the end’, they enjoyed a fun relationship filled with laughter. 

‘I loved Janis, loved being around her, loved teasing her,’ he recounted. ‘She was easy to tease because she would wear those god awful feathers.’

Kris told Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum that while the couple were ‘more like brother and sister by the end’, they enjoyed a fun relationship filled with laughter. Janis in a throwback shot

Reflecting on their time at Larkspur, he also revealed that Janis (pictured in 1969) was ‘driving around on this old Mercedes convertible sport car that had flowers all over it and everything’

It is understood that Janis never told Kris that she would re-record the song he wrote – which would end up being a track on her posthumous album Pearl – and go on to reach number one. Janis and Tina Turner in 1969

He recounted one instance where a peacock feather wearing Janis had tried to get him to ‘fool around’ in a first class bathroom on a plane – but he said no because everyone would notice them.

‘She really made me feel like a wussy,’ he’d joked. 

Reflecting on their time at Larkspur, he also revealed that Janis was ‘driving around on this old Mercedes convertible  sport car that had flowers all over it and everything’.

‘She was quite different from anything I had experienced before,’ he said fondly.

It is understood that Janis never told Kris that she would re-record the song he wrote – which would end up being a track on her posthumous album Pearl – and go on to reach number one.

It was only after her passing that Kris had realised she’d sung his song and put it on her upcoming record – which left him overwhelmed with emotions.

‘The last time I saw Janis was outside the old motel everybody used to stay at. And she was going off to promote the record,’ he said in 2004, in an interview with the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum.

‘And I’m not over it yet. The irony for me is that it was such a personal loss heartbreak and at the same time it was the biggest shot of fame I ever got at that time. It was never the same after that.’

‘Unfortunately, the first time I heard Janis’s recording of Bobby McGee was when I had just gone down because she had died,’ he revealed. ‘The producer asked me to come by the office the next day.

‘I didn’t even know she’d cut it. He played it for me. I had to leave the room – it was impossibly hard to hear. 

Kris (pictured in 2019) admitted he eventually forced himself to listen to the song ‘over and over again’ just so he could ‘get through it’ and not become overly emotional if he heard it in public

‘So much love and emotion going into the song – and knowing she wasn’t there to enjoy that.

‘I left his office and walked around the block. I don’t know where I walked to.’

Kris admitted he eventually forced himself to listen to the song ‘over and over again’ just so he could ‘get through it’ and not become overly emotional if he heard it in public. 

Kris – an accomplished singer and songwriter who starred in A Star Is Born, this weekend died at the age of 88.

The multitalented entertainer, who was a country singer-songwriter and actor, passed away on Saturday at his Maui, Hawaii home, his rep told People.

The Why Me artist ‘peacefully’ passed away surrounded by relatives, his rep told the outlet.

‘It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 28 at home,’ his family said in a statement, the outlet reported. ‘We’re all so blessed for our time with him.

‘Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.’

Kris is survived by his spouse Lisa (both pictured in 2013), eight children and seven grandchildren

Among his numerous acting achievements, Kris played the role of troubled rocker John Norman Howard in the 1976 A Star Is Born remake opposite Barbra Streisand. He won the Golden Globe in 1977 for his work in the film.

His other major acting endeavors include a turn as the character Whistler in the Wesley Snipes action films Blade (1998), Blade II (2002) and Blade: Trilogy (2004). 

He also starred opposite Ellen Burstyn in director Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

Hollywood may have saved his music career. He still got exposure through his film and television appearances even when he couldn’t afford to tour with a full band.

Kris’s first role was in Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie, in 1971. 

He was the young title outlaw in director Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, a truck driver for the same director in 1978’s Convoy, and a corrupt sheriff in director John Sayles’ 1996, Lone Star. He also starred in one of Hollywood biggest financial flops, Heaven’s Gate, a 1980 Western that ran tens of millions of dollars over budget. 

He described in a 2006 Associated Press interview how he got his first acting gigs when he performed in Los Angeles.

‘It just happened that my first professional gig was at the Troubadour in L.A. opening for Linda Rondstadt,’ Kris said.

‘Robert Hilburn (Los Angeles Times music critic) wrote a fantastic review and the concert was held over for a week.

‘There were a bunch of movie people coming in there, and I started getting film offers with no experience. Of course, I had no experience performing either.’

Kris was a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and later a Hollywood actor. 

Among his numerous acting achievements, Kris played the role of troubled rocker John Norman Howard in the 1976 A Star Is Born remake opposite Barbra Streisand. He won the Golden Globe in 1977 for his work in the film 

Producer Jon Peters, Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson pictured in NYC December 22, 1976 

His musical career began in the late 1960s, as the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such classics standards as Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down, Help Me Make it Through the Night, For the Good Times and Me and Bobby McGee.

Kris was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning For the Good Times or Janis Joplin belting out Me and Bobby McGee.

Kris, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. 

With his long hair and bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.

‘There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,’ Nelson said during a November 2009 award ceremony for Kris held by BMI. ‘Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with that.’

He was a Golden Gloves boxer and football player in college, received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England and turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. 

As the son of an Air Force General, he enlisted in the Army in the 1960s because it was expected of him.

‘I was in ROTC in college, and it was just taken for granted in my family that I’d do my service,’ he said in a 2006 AP interview. ‘From my background and the generation I came up in, honor and serving your country were just taken for granted. So, later, when you come to question some of the things being done in your name, it was particularly painful.’

The Brownsville, Texas native – who wrote such classics standards as Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down, Help Me Make it Through the Night, For the Good Times and Me and Bobby McGee – was pictured performing in 1973 

Renowned songwriter Kris pictured with Taylor Swift in May of 2012 in Las Vegas at the MGM Arena 

Kris and Taylor both pictured together in Nashville, Tennessee in November of 2009 – at the CMA Awards

Kris is survived by his spouse Lisa (pictured with him in 2014), eight children and seven grandchildren

Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal Blonde on Blonde double album.

At times, the legend of Kris was larger than real life. Johnny Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kris, a former U.S. Army pilot, landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down’ with a beer in one hand. 

Over the years in interviews, Kris said with all respect to Johnny, while he did land a helicopter at his house, the Man in Black wasn’t even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.

In a 2006 interview with The Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Johnny.

‘Shaking his hand when I was still in the Army backstage at the Grand Ole Opry was the moment I’d decided I’d come back,’ Kris said. ‘It was electric. He kind of took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs. He cut my first record that was record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.’

One of his most recorded songs, Me and Bobby McGee, was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. 

Fred had a song title in his head called Me and Bobby McKee, named after a female secretary in his building. Kris said in an interview in the magazine, Performing Songwriter, that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, La Strada.

Janis, who had a close relationship with Kris, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose. The recording became a posthumous No. 1 hit for Joplin.

Rita Coolidge and Kris pictured in a special titled Mac Davis: I Believe In Music in November of 1973 

Kris retired from performing and recording in 2021, making only occasional guest appearances on stage. Pictured in 2017 in Nashville 

Hits that Kris recorded include Why Me, Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do), Watch Closely Now, Desperados Waiting for a Train, A Song I’d Like to Sing and Jesus Was a Capricorn.

In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge and together they had a successful duet career that earned them two Grammy awards. They divorced in 1980.

Kris retired from performing and recording in 2021, making only occasional guest appearances on stage. 

As news spread of his passing, a number of people and institutions paid memorial to Kris online – with everyone from Dolly Parton to Travis Tritt offering their condolences.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young said in a statement, ‘Kris Kristofferson believed creativity is God-given, and those who ignore such a gift are doomed to unhappiness. He preached that a life of the mind gives voice to the soul, and his work gave voice not only to his soul but to ours. He leaves a resounding legacy.’

Kris is survived by his spouse Lisa, eight children and seven grandchildren.