Kari Karte has been married to Sammy Hagar since 1995, and in that time has spoken about it, on the record, exactly once. That appearance came in a 2005 episode of the VH1 reality series I Married…
Everything else the public has learned about the marriage, including her husband’s more recent and repeated comments about still wanting her after three decades, has come from him.
Fast facts:
- Full name: Kari Karte Hagar
- Born: January 7, 1967 (age 59)
- Occupation: Television and film producer
- Spouse: Sammy Hagar, married November 29, 1995
- Children: Kama Hagar and Samantha Hagar
Table of Contents
How Kari Karte and Sammy Hagar met
Hagar and Karte met in the early 1990s at a birthday party for one of his tour managers, Scotty Ross, during a Van Halen stop in Virginia Beach. She described the meeting in that same appearance.
“I just ended up sitting down next to him. We instantly just clicked, and we were just buddies.”
They kept crossing paths on tour over the next few years and eventually got together. Hagar proposed on a plane.
“He said, ‘So do you want to get married?’ And I went, ‘What? Of course!’ I cried and I was like, ‘OK, sure!'”
Their wedding and family
They married on November 29, 1995, in a private ceremony on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, above Hagar’s home in Mill Valley. It was Hagar’s second marriage. His first, to Betsy Berardi, ended in divorce in 1994 after 26 years. They had two sons, Aaron and Andrew.
Karte and Hagar had their first daughter, Kama, in April 1996, and a second, Samantha, in 2001. Kama now works as a wellness coach and runs her own skincare line. Little is publicly known about what Samantha does for work.
What Kari Karte does for work
Karte’s producer credits include Rock & Roll Road Trip with Sammy Hagar, which ran on AXS TV from 2016 to 2020. She also produced the concert film Sammy Hagar & the Circle Live: At Your Service. Her most notable credit is the 2017 short documentary Ram Dass, Going Home, which was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.
She has appeared on screen herself a few times, including that I Married… episode, an appearance on Oprah: Where Are They Now? in 2016, and a 2012 episode of History’s American Restoration.
The Hagar Family Foundation
In 2008, Karte and Hagar started the Hagar Family Foundation, a nonprofit that funds hunger relief and support for families with critically ill children. Nonprofit filings show it has given more than four million dollars to food banks, hospitals and community organizations across Northern California since it began.
Hagar described the approach to Marin Magazine in 2019: “We look for things that are grassroots, so we know that when we give a dollar to somebody, it goes right into their pocket.” The foundation gives to food banks in every city his tours pass through and has helped fund children’s hospital research closer to home.
Where things stand now
Karte and Hagar are currently touring the US, UK and Las Vegas together on his Best of All Worlds run, and were photographed backstage in London in August. Hagar turns 79 in October.
Since 2024, the two have also been photographed together at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, several Grammy week events, and MusiCares galas.
Hagar has talked about her often in that time. At his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2024, he told the crowd she had been with him for 32 years. He said he did not want to enjoy any of his success without her. Months later, asked what it feels like to get older, he said he still chases her around the bedroom. In June 2026, discussing what keeps his marriage going, he told People, “We don’t sleep in separate bedrooms, man.”
In that same 2005 appearance, Karte described her own role in the marriage this way:
“I try to be the grounding source. I try to be the therapist and the organizer and the mom to my kids, and sometimes I guess him, too.”
She has not said much publicly since.
