Juanita Dorricott is the wife of Bob Seger, the Detroit-born heartland rock musician who has sold more than 75 million records worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. They married on July 10, 1993, and have two children: Christopher Cole Seger, born in November 1992, and Samantha Char Seger, born in 1995. She is 61 years old, born in Kent, Ohio, and goes by Nita among Seger and their close friends. She has no public social media presence and has never given a press interview.
She has been married to one of rock’s most recognizable figures for over 30 years and has never spoken publicly about any of it.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Born | 1964, Kent, Ohio |
| Known as | Nita Seger |
| Married | July 10, 1993 |
| Spouse | Bob Seger |
| Children | Christopher Cole Seger (b. 1992), Samantha Char Seger (b. 1995) |
| Residence | Orchard Lake Village / West Bloomfield, Michigan |
Table of Contents
Early Life and Background
Juanita grew up the youngest of five siblings and moved with her family to Troy, Michigan, around age ten. She has lived in Michigan ever since.
Bob Seger’s Third Wife: Meeting and Marriage
The two met around 1990 through a mutual acquaintance in Royal Oak, Michigan, and dated for roughly three years before marrying on July 10, 1993, at The Village Club in Bloomfield Hills. The ceremony was private, attended by family and close friends only. At the time of the wedding, Seger was 48 and Juanita was 29.
Most coverage identifies Juanita as Bob Seger’s fourth wife. She is his third. The confusion stems from Jan Dinsdale, Seger’s long-term partner from 1972 to 1983, who is routinely listed as a former spouse. Dinsdale and Seger were never married.
Seger’s marriage history:
- Renee Andrietti: married 1968, divorced 1969
- Jan Dinsdale: partner 1972 to 1983, not married
- Annette Sinclair: married 1987, divorced 1988
- Juanita Dorricott: married July 10, 1993, ongoing
The Decade He Put Music Down
In 1996, at the height of his career, Bob Seger stopped touring and recording. The reason, confirmed by CBS News in a 2014 interview: Seger had decided to stay home and raise his young children alongside Juanita.
He stayed off the road for ten years.
Away from music, Seger raced sailboats. In both 2001 and 2002, he won the Bayview Port Huron to Mackinac Boat Race, skipering his 52-foot Santa Cruz sailboat Lightning across 290 miles of Lake Huron with a ten-man crew. He took his watch shifts like any other sailor on board.
“We had a great crew, that’s what did it,” he said after the first win.
He returned to music in 2006 with Face the Promise, his first studio album in eleven years. Nine years later, at the 2015 Billboard Touring Conference in New York, he told the Detroit News that his favourite thing about performing had become looking out from the stage and seeing his wife and kids in the audience.
The Song He Wrote for Juanita and Kept Secret for Three Years
In October 2014, Seger released Ride Out, which entered the Billboard 200 at number three, the highest chart position of his career. One track, “You Take Me In,” was written for Juanita. He spent three years working on it without telling her.
She found out in the car.
Seger described the moment to the Detroit News:
“She’s driving, and when it came on, she said ‘What’s this?’ I said, ‘This is for you.’ Halfway through, she goes for the glovebox and the tissues.”
He told CBS News: “I kept it a secret for three years.”
No interview or profile of their marriage has come closer to the relationship than those two lines.
December 2016: What the Kennedy Center Visit Was Really About
On December 4, 2016, Juanita attended the 39th Annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., alongside Seger and their two children, Cole and Samantha. AP and Getty Images photographed the family arriving together on the red carpet.
Most coverage of this event frames it as Seger receiving a Kennedy Center Honor. He did not receive one that night. The 2016 honorees were the Eagles, Al Pacino, Mavis Staples, Martha Argerich, and James Taylor.
Seger attended as a performer, invited to pay tribute to the Eagles and specifically to Glenn Frey, his friend of 49 years, who had died in January 2016. On the red carpet, Seger said:
“Glenn and I met when I was 20 and he was 17. So I knew him 49 years.”
He performed “Heartache Tonight,” a song he co-wrote with Frey, and joined Vince Gill, Kings of Leon, and others on “Life in the Fast Lane.” Juanita, Cole, and Samantha were in the audience as he took the stage for a friend he had known since they were both young men in Detroit.
Cole and Samantha Seger
Juanita and Seger have two children.
Christopher Cole Seger, born in November 1992, is a filmmaker and screenwriter with a listing on IMDb. He studied English Literature at Oakland Community College and Oakland University, then trained in filmmaking at the Motion Picture Institute of Michigan. His thesis film Carrying the Weight won Best Short Film Screenplay. He works with Ten6ths Productions and NRM Streamcast, with credits including The 404 Diner, Get It to the Geeks, and Threshold.
Samantha Char Seger, born in 1995, maintains a private life with no documented public career and no known social media presence.
Life in Michigan Today
Seger and Juanita are based between Orchard Lake Village and West Bloomfield, two communities west of Detroit.
Seger turned 80 on May 6, 2025. His farewell Silver Bullet Band tour ended on November 1, 2019, in Philadelphia, after being suspended in October 2017 for urgent spinal surgery. He has performed live once since then: a surprise tribute at Patty Loveless’s Country Music Hall of Fame induction in Nashville on October 22, 2023, his first stage appearance in nearly four years.
She gave no public statement on any of it.
Bob Seger left the stage in his prime to raise a family, wrote Juanita a tribute song and kept it from her for three years, and brought his children to Washington the night he performed for a friend he had known since they were both young men in Detroit. Those are the three moments the public record holds. She has been in Michigan since childhood, has not spoken to the press in over 30 years of marriage to one of rock’s biggest names, and nothing suggests she plans to.
