....HIS DIFFICULT CHILDHOOD
Raised in Gainesville, Florida, Petty opened up about suffering abuse at the hands of his father in Petty: The Biography, written by his friend and fellow rocker Warren Zanes.
“When my father got home…he came in, took a belt and beat the living s— out of me. He beat me so bad that I was covered in raised welts, from my head to my toes. I mean, you can’t imagine someone hitting a child like that. My mother and grandmother laid me in my bed, stripped me and they took cotton and alcohol, cleaning these big welts all over my body.”
....Before he found fame, Petty married his longtime friend Jane Benyo in 1974. The duo’s 22-year marriage was filled with drama that stemmed from mental illness, drug use and the singer’s booming career.

Five years before they divorced, Petty told Rolling Stone he was still “very much in love” with Benyo. “There were times when we definitely were not getting along, when we fought like f—ing Apaches, you know. I’m lucky they still let me live in this neighborhood,” he told the outlet.
However, the couple could not work through their issues and split for good in 1996. “I was used to living in hell. My parents’ marriage was hell. I lived through being terribly abused as a kid, and then I found myself in an abusive marriage,” he recalled to Zanes.

HIS DESCENT INTO HEROIN ADDICTION

After Petty and Benyo divorced, the star reconnected with his future wife Dana York, whom he had met years earlier at a concert.