48-Year-Old Rhode Island Man Claims to Be Bob Dylan’s Illegitimate Son

Imagine spending most of your life not knowing who your biological parents were — and then, when you finally track down your mother, hearing her tell you she’s “pretty sure” Bob Dylan is your father.

That’s the story currently being told by William DeVogue, a 48-year-old Rhode Island man who says Dylan struck up a short-lived relationship with his mother in Greenwich Village during the early ’60s, leaving a bun in the oven and a complicated legacy behind.

DeVogue claims he asked Dylan to take a paternity test, but he refused, so now DeVogue has no choice but to take his story public. As he says he put it to Dylan’s manager: “Since I didn’t have the money to legally seek a paternity test … I would have to bring it out creatively.”

Dylan hasn’t had any comment thus far, which DeVogue takes as a sign. “To this day I have received no calls from any lawyer or anything telling me to watch my step,” he says. “Why? It’s because he knows something and his counsel knows something and that if this ends up in court everything will come out.”

To his credit, DeVogue insists he isn’t trying to get financial support out of Dylan — although he is working on a book and short film that will tell his story. More than anything, he says, “I respect Bob and want no money from him, just the truth. And I will get it!”