Marie Osmond Is Crossing Items Off Her Bucket List With Husband Steve Craig: ‘He’s So Great’

On a recent afternoon, Marie Osmond offered to go pick up her granddaughter from school. “Seeing her run over to me was better than playing Madison Square Garden,” Marie tells Closer. “It sounds silly, but the world often makes women feel that if it’s not about their job or their portfolio, it’s not important. To me right now, the most important thing is those kids.”

Marie, 64, has spent the past few years making up for lost time. After decades of putting her career first, she’s pursuing a bucket list of things that are closest to her heart — from spending time with family and trying new, creative pursuits to going on adventures. “After 11 years [of performing nightly] in Las Vegas, I decided I wanted to start doing some things,” she explains.

Spending time with her children and grandchildren is one of her biggest priorities. “I realized that no one is going to know me in 50 years,” she says. “But [my family] will if I spend time with them now.”

The youngest of her eight children is 21, so Marie and her husband, Steve Craig, whom she remarried in 2011 after 25 years apart, have more time for each other, too. “He’s been so great with me and my bucket list. I told him, ‘I want to go to Brazil,’ and he’s like, ‘OK!’ ” says Marie. “I’ve always loved adventure, but you can’t do something stupid when your show is depending on you. When you’re under contract, it’s your job to not break a leg or an arm.”

Earlier in her life, Marie also felt held back by the extra 50 pounds she’d put on during her divorce from Brian Blosil. “Heart issues run in my family, and the women tended to die in their 60s,” confides Marie, who went on Nutrisystem in 2007 after one of her sons expressed his fears about her health. “That was my motivation. I wanted to be here and be healthy for my children.” Nutrisystem helped Marie go from a size 14 to a 4, and she has maintained her lower weight ever since. “Mentally, I’m about 17. Physically, I feel about 25,” she says.

Healing the Child Within

Keeping that youthful, upbeat spirit has taken work, too. “I’ve not had an easy life, but who does? I think some of my weight issues went clear back to some of the abuse I endured as a child,” says Marie, who also survived a difficult bout of postpartum depression and the suicide death of her son Michael in 2010. “It seems we spend the last half of our lives fixing what the first half did to us,” she comments.

She’s continued to thrive by working on herself. “Everybody has their own journey, and they have to figure it out for themselves,” says Marie, who adds that it’s a lesson her mother, Olive, taught her. “She never tried to live through me or live my life. I’d ask her questions and she’d say, ‘I have my answers. Go get yours.’ ”

Finding those answers has been a lifelong occupation. “It’s fun to discover and work on yourself,” says Marie. “I think the best way to heal the little kid in me is to be the best version of an adult I can be.”