One Love Leaves Out About His True Story

The true story of Bob Marley’s life is depicted in Bob Marley: One Love, but the movie also leaves out several important details and events. The 2024 movie stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as Jamaica’s iconic reggae musician and primarily focuses on showing his life from 1976 to 1978. The movie uses Bob Marley’s Smile Jamaica and One Love Peace Concert as the beginning and ending, as the rest of the movie follows the singer’s life in the years between. There are also various flashbacks to Bob’s past, ranging from meeting Rita to getting his first record deal or learning about Rastafari.

It is through this lens that Bob Marley: One Love‘s true story adaptation only covers a fraction of his life. The film elected to take a concentrated look at a smaller period of time instead of attempting to encapsulate his entire 36-year story in a roughly two-hour-long movie. That means that there are a lot of missing details about Bob Marley’s life that either preceded the main narrative or followed Bob Marley: One Love‘s ending. There are also details relevant to his life from 1976 to 1978 that are left out, meaning the movie glosses over some rather important information.

9 Bob Marley’s Affairs While Married To Rita (Including With Cindy Breakspeare)

One part of Bob Marley’s story largely missing from Bob Marley: One Love is the affairs he had with other women while married to Rita. The film briefly alludes to the fact that he is not remaining faithful to his wife, but the full extent of his affairs is not explored. The closest the movie comes is some brief appearances by Cindy Breakspeare, one of the women that Bob had a relationship with during his marriage. It is unknown how many women Bob Marley had been with during his marriage, especially during the two years he spent in London.

8 Bob Marley Had More Children With Other Women

Bob Marley’s affairs brought him many other children than the ones he had with Rita too. This is something that Bob Marley: One Love also only touches on with a quick piece of dialogue, failing to fully explore his infidelity. According to Bob Marley’s website, he has six children he fathered with women other than Rita. He had five sons and one daughter through his relationships with Pat Williams, Janet Hunt, Janet Bowen, Lucy Pounder, Anita Belnavis, and Cindy Breakspeare. All but the child with Cindy were conceived before Bob left Jamaica in 1976.

7 Bob Marley’s Father Died When He Was 10 Years Old

Bob Marley: One Love does not spend much time exploring Bob’s childhood, but his father is entirely absent from the film. This is because his biological father, Norval Marley, passed away when he was only 10 years old. Norval died when he was 70 years old in 1955 following a heart attack. Bob did not have much of a relationship with his dad before his passing as Norval was away from the family often for work to provide financial support for Bob’s mother, Cedella Malcolm.

6 Bob Marley Had A Step-Father, Two Half-Brothers, & Two Half-Sisters

After Bob Marley’s biological father passed away, his mother remarried. Cedella married Edward Booker and had two children with him in the years that followed. The fact that Bob had a step-father and two half-brothers, Richard and Anthony, is not included in Bob Marley: One Love. This could be because Edward Booker died in 1976 and the family lived in Delaware instead of in Jamaica. Cedella also gave birth to two daughters over the years. Claudette Pearl is Bob’s half-sister after his mom’s relationship with Taddeus Livingston, while Constance Marley is his other half-sister from an unknown father.

5 The Smile Jamaica Concert Was Much Longer In Real-Life

The Smile Jamaica concert is included as a way to get some more songs in Bob Marley: One Love, but the film makes it seem as though it was a very short set list. Bob Marley & The Wailers are only shown and heard playing two songs, “War” and “So Jah S’eh.” Both of these songs were on the official Smile Jamaica set list, but there were 12 songs played in reality. “War” was used to open up the concert, and “So Jah S’eh” was the closing number. Bob Marley: One Love retains this order but leaves out the 10 songs that the band played in between them.

4 Bob Marley Wrote The Kaya Album While In London

Bob Marley: One Love leaves out another piece of Bob’s musical journey by how it focuses on his pursuits in London. The movie primarily shows him and the band working on the Exodus album, with the movie directly showing Bob creating songs like “Exodus,” “Jamming,” and “Turn Your Lights Down Low.” This all did happen, but the musician also created the Kaya album during a similar point in time. It was recorded in early 1977 and released in 1978, meaning it happens over the exact time period that Bob Marley: One Love takes place, making the omission quite noticeable.

3 How Bob Marley Dealt With His Toe Injury

Bob Marley’s toe injury led to the discovery that he had cancer, and the movie briefly touches on how he doesn’t want to follow the doctor’s orders to amputate his toe. What Bob Marley: One Love leaves out from the true story is how he actually chose to deal with the injury. Instead of ignoring it completely or cutting off the toe, Bob elected to have the nail and nail bed completely removed. A skin graph taken from his thigh was then used to cover up where the nail used to be (via Jamaica Gleaner).

2 Bob Marley’s Final Years Before His Death

Bob Marley: One Love ends at the One Love Peace Concert in 1978, but Bob Marley still had a few more years to live after this event. He spent time continuing to tour and create new music, including albums like Survival and Uprising. As shown in Bob Marley: One Love‘s credits, he went to Africa in 1980 to celebrate Zimbabwe gaining its independence and performed there. His Uprising Tour continued throughout 1980, leading up to his final concert performance coming in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 23, 1980.

1 How Bob Marley Died

The very end of Bob Marley: One Love uses a title card to confirm that Bob Marley died on May 11, 1981, but the movie does not directly show or explain how he died. His diagnosis with cancer got worse over the years, resulting in Bob finding out the cancer had spread throughout his body, infecting his brain, lungs, and other vital organs. After attempting experimental treatment in Germany for eight months, he flew back to Jamaica, where his condition worsened. The plane had an emergency landing in Florida to get Bob medical attention, but he died shortly thereafter.

Sources: Jamaica Gleaner

Bob Marley: One Love

Release Date

February 14, 2024

Director

Reinaldo Marcus Green

Cast

Kingsley Ben-Adir

Writers

Zach Baylin , Frank E. Flowers , Terence Winter